Unfunny cartoons

[furtech]

Ducks...dogs...horses...penguins.


How many daily strips would still be read if they didn't have a "crutch" animal? These are those strips that-- for no justified reason-- stick in a talking animal to get people to read 'em.

"Prickly City" is the top Weiner in this category: a "political" strip that panders to the political wind-- not funny, not cutting or insightful and poorly drawn. Coyote (more of a cuddly doggy).
http://www.akela.com/TEMP/prickcity.gif

"Mallard Fillmore": Slightly better than "Prickly City" in that it is unabashedly right-wing. Not funny, panders to ditto-heads, not particularly well drawn. Duck.
http://www.akela.com/TEMP/MallFill.gif

"Non Sequitor": Often funny without the talking horse, I think this was a sign of desperation or falling readership when he added the horse. Pitiful.
http://www.akela.com/TEMP/nonseq.gif

I'm guessing "Peanuts" started this trend (inadvertantly). Snoopy was hugely popular...but the strip would have been funny, clever and *read* without him.

There are plenty of other stips with animals-- Marmaduke and Heathcliff/Garfield, but they're gag driven and/or actually about the animal being that animal.

What strips can you think of? That-- without the animal character they would be completely ignored? Or, better yet-- strips that use animals as characters that you would never give a second glance to if they were human? ( I can think of plenty of "slice of life" strips that would die lonely deaths if they were drawn as people).

Comments

[brokkentwolf.livejournal.com]

I don't think "Calvin and Hobbes" would quite work as well without the tiger or without Calvin imagining himself a fierce Tyranosaurus Rexx.

[shadowfox24.livejournal.com]

So when while you post a negative entry on Pat Oliphant uses a duck to spread his hate? Let's not forget Outland, seriously unfunny with a penguin lead. I don't know if you could call what Ted Rall draws "people" since I've seen more recognizable humans drawn in a 4th grade art class.

[farallon.livejournal.com]

Ugh,

Opus was somewhat acceptable in Bloom County. But when Breathed dropped that strip and started the terrible Outland strip, then brought Opus and Bill the cat in for it, he became a comic strip crutch like no other.

Then, when that failed. He tried to maintain his career by creating a dialy strip called "Opus".

Opus is the biggest animal crutch in the daily strip universe that has ever existed. I remember forming a particularly bad hate for Berkley and for Opous when he did that in the 90s. :)

On the flip side, my two favorite current animal strips that work as animal strips are Pooch Cafe and Get Fuzzy.

[shadowolf.livejournal.com]

There's always Tom Tomorrow, too, though even being the lead, Tom isn't the primary character.

I'm not familiar enough with Prickly City and Mallard Fillmore to make an assessment, but I do think that Lucy serves a pretty good purpose in counterpoint to Danae in Non Sequitor. Danae's Dad seems unable or unwilling to reign in his more politically motivated offspring, but Lucy has no problems being Hobbes to Danae's Calvin. Danae and Calvin are the same on a lot of levels- Misunderstood youth who is ignored/disrespected by their peers (though Calvin is more of a gamer-geek than a politico.) The biggest difference is that Lucy is tangible to Danae's associates, versus the is-he-or-isn't-he-real Hobbes.

Previous to Lucy's appearance in mid '04, Danae could not be used as effectively since her father would only give sublime comebacks, which generally went over Danae's head. Lucy is much more direct. That being said, Watterson did a much better job than Wiley is now, but I'll still read Non-Sequitor, it's among the best comic strips out there for me.

I haven't been keeping up with Get Fuzzy in the last 2 months or so, but Bucky and Satchel would also not be as effective as humans. It almost all goes back to the old WB cartoons, where you'd never be able to get away the stuff they did with non-alegorical characters.

[shadowolf.livejournal.com]

re: Non-Sequitor.

Now there's Petey. Let's hope Petey's got a bit more purpose in life, or I'm going to have to 100% agree with your assessment on shark-jumping.

[sk-1.livejournal.com]

I'd say "Dilbert" is another example. I don't think the strip would be as readable if Dogbert, Catbert, and Ratbert were human beings.

And as a follow-up to your comment about "Non Sequitor", I remember a few years back when one of the more popular strips, "For Better or Worse", gave the family a sheepdog. I think comic strips are like sitcoms in that respect - when they bring in a pet or a new baby, the writers are starting to run out of ideas.

not always

[kvogel.livejournal.com]

"For Better or Worse" is semi-autobiographical and the cartoon family's beasts reflected Johnson's own pet population.

[tcreynolds]

Wah, I like non-sequiter! ;_;

Mallard Fillmore, ewww, good example there.
Die, Prickly city. Die a horrible louse-ridden death, I say.

on stuff

[kvogel.livejournal.com]

I like non-sequiter too, more for the art, but the writing does have a continuity that I can live with.
Mallard Fillmore is too much like Rush Limbaugh, a venomious mouthpeice claiming to be just a joke.
Prickly City is just a shameless and crudely done immitation of what has gone before.
Using funny animals as a dodge for addressing "real" issues is a bit like "The Daily Show" using comedy to tell hard truths. I don't have a problem with such things done well, but don't like badly done or ill-concealed efforts.
On the other hand, ALBEDO was started as a straight SF story, using funny animals simply as a hook. But as things developed, the "animalness" became an integral part of the story.

[frith]

Where are the old farts with the well of ancient cartoon lore? Hmph, Pogo (in syndication since 1949) http://www.pogopossum.com/ is older than Peanuts (1950)... Google says: Herriman's Krazy Kat http://www.krazy.com/ (1911 or 1913), Opper's Maud the Mule http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/03/77/76/image_176773.jpg (1904), Swinnerton's Little Bears http://www.comic-art.com/bios-1/swinrtn1.htm (1892 or 1893 or 1894). Could be others, not counting Disney.

This site has a small visual sample of old comic art. http://www.aktv.lt/~skrusna/istorija/istorija.htm

[grrrowly.livejournal.com]

Mutts (though it really isn't that funny), Get Fuzzy.

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

I don't read those comics even though they have a talking animal in them. :D I don't get a newspaper- I haven't for years, so I tend not to see any comics that aren't also on the web.

I think the only comics I read nowadays are Get Fuzzy, For Better or For Worse, and 9 Chickweed Lane. Those are the ones also in newspapers; I also read some webcomics like Sinfest, PvP, Penny Arcade, You Damn Kid, and some others.

good point, sir!

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

I'm glad *somebody* has stated this point finally!
It's clear from the thread that people have slightly varying opinions about what constitutes a crutched character comic strip or not, but it's all in the ballpark.
And as much as I think avians are usually fun designs, I really get tired of seeing those same three Fillmore poses all the time. ;P

The sunday comics in general are vastly unfulfilling, and I wrote 'em off some years ago.
I am also drawn to enjoyable visuals (thus lured by those crutch characters now and then), but after a many many attempts to glean something of value from even a tempting strip, I just lose interest and move along, too.

Besides, there's so much good online comic stuff, I hardly have time to drop a $1 on a newspaper fulla wasted space.
Unless I need the coupons. :>