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Funnies' fans serious about comics

'Prickly City,' 'Cleats' get trashed in poll; help pick replacements. Seria

By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer

Published on Sunday, Mar 16, 2008

There is no point to Prickly City. Mary Worth is worthless. Cleats should be spiked.

But Zits should never clear up.

That, at least, is how things looked after more than 1,800 Beacon Journal readers weighed in on the current lineup of comic strips, indicating whether they loved or hated a strip, or thought it was simply OK.

Now, before you get too excited, Mary Worth is not going away, since the survey was meant to cull the herd of funny strips while sparing the dramatic serials.

Worth, Judge Parker and Rex Morgan, M.D., are all — as Ryan Seacrest might say — safe.

But not especially loved, since more than 40 percent of readers in the survey hated Parker and Morgan, and almost 58 percent spewed bile on poor Mary. ''They are annoying,'' one reader said of the serials. ''Please get rid of them.''

Safe, too, are poll-toppers Zits, Crankshaft, For Better or For Worse and Baby Blues. They all generated positive ratings of 74.6 percent or better — 87.5 percent for Zits — while their hated numbers were all under 5 percent.

Zits ''is the best comic strip you have,'' said one reader.

''The new Calvin & Hobbes,'' said another.

''My favorite of all,'' said a third.

As those comments indicate, people got passionate about strips, both favorably and not.

Family Circus was near the middle of the pack overall — 14th in positive reaction out of 33 comics. And it still bothered individual readers. One said it ''hasn't had anything new to say in decades,'' while another reader deemed it ''annoying and out of touch with reality.''

Some readers, meanwhile, used the survey as an opportunity to lobby for strips that have vanished from the pages, including Calvin and Hobbes and The Boondocks.

''Please BRING BACK The Boondocks!!!'' one reader declared. Five times.

Sorry, that's not our call. Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder has taken a hiatus from the strip with no return scheduled. Bill Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes in — feel the shock — 1995. It's not even available for newspapers now.

And where some readers might be happy with, say, Peanuts reruns, they are still repeats. And some strips, like Prince Valiant or Wizard of Id, are no longer coming from their creators.

So instead of looking back, the comics pages aim to look ahead. And when the Beacon Journal adds two strips to the comics page, they will come from a list of relative newcomers like Argyle Sweater, Cul-de-Sac (which has been endorsed by Watterson) and Day By Day. More about that later.

Getting back to the current strips, Prickly City was by far the least liked item in the survey. Loving it: 8.6 percent. Hating it: 64.9 percent.

''THE ABSOLUTE WORST COMIC STRIP YOU HAVE EVER HAD IN THE PAPER,'' said one comment. More in that vein:

''The drawing is poor.''

''A non-entertaining sop to conservative politics.''

''A mean spirited unfunny comic.''

''Print another comic twice. Better yet, save the ink and leave a blank spot.''

Just above the cesspool swirling around Prickly City was Tank McNamara (14.4 percent loved). But it runs in the sports pages, and is their problem. Then Mary Worth.

Then Cleats. Positive rating 16.1 percent. Negative rating above 40.

Goner, at least from the daily pages. It might survive Sundays only.

But in the daily pages, it will leave a space to fill. And that's where your help is needed again.

At Ohio.com, we have posted samples of 17 comics: Agnes, Arctic Circle, Argyle Sweater, Arlo & Janis, Between Friends, Bliss, Candorville, Cul-de-Sac, Daddy's Home, Day By Day, Dog Eat Doug, Knight Life, Lio, F-Minus, Pickles, Pooch Cafe and Zack Hill.

Look them over and tell us what you think. Is Watterson right about Cul-de-Sac? Does Day by Day's conservative view make you laugh when Prickly City didn't? Do you see a Far Side edge in F-Minus?

Let us know by March 24. We listened about the current comics. Now help us choose ones for the future.

The survey includes a place for comments. Find it on the Ohio.com home page, or go directly tohttp://ab8.thebeaconjournal.com/comicssurvey.

 

 

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in a blog at http://www.ohio.com.
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There is no point to Prickly City. Mary Worth is worthless. Cleats should be spiked.

Get the full article here.


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