Maybe because a lot of the newer comics suck and aren't funny.
You think that would have something to do with it ?
I mean do kids nowadays even READ unless it has something to do with video games, Pokemon, or has Britney Spears in it?
Old standbys(such as The Peanuts) will always be relevant due to the underlying good writing that permeates it.

There are a few new ones that I like, such as "Get Fuzzy" and "The Boondocks," but other than that, a lot of the newer comics all look alike. I swear that sometimes it's the same artist doing the same 2 or 3 strips, except under different names....

Now that I think about that, maybe it has something to do with the editor's bad taste in selection more than with there being no good comics to pick from.

I, for one, would like to see Peanuts RIP. It was never funny, nor ever will be.

There are plenty of great comics out there, but often the best ones push the limits of "good taste" and therefore won't get picked up by syndicated newspapers.

Meanwhile Charlie Brown kicks another football and I'm overcome by narcolepsy.

The irony is that the same lame comics carried today were, at their inception, considered edgy. I for one would like to see Johnny "Jeebus H. Christ on a Crutch" Hart out, and Frank Cho back in syndication. DO YOU HEAR ME, WASHINGTON POST?

Many new strips are offensive to someone. Mainstream media still worries about doonsbury pissing someone off.

Let me be the first to say: "The Boondocks" and "Mutts" both STINK.


As for new comics, I'll take "Frazz" by Jef Mallet.

There are way too many old lame comics. For instance, my paper runs (among others) Family Circus,The Lockhorns,Marmaduke,Gasoline Alley,Annie,Peanuts,Hagar,BC, Herman and Beetle Baily. Who the hell reads those lame ass comics anymore? All those comics tread the same old ground over and over and over again.

Actually, Peanuts was a pretty kick ass strip in its day (by which I mean up till the mid sixties, maybe); very cutting edge and biting. Only after Schulz got old did the strip take a turn for the 'family circus'-style worse.

Also very, very good was the old Walt Kelly strip Pogo.

There hasn't been a new comic strip woth reading since bloom county or calin & hobbes. They all suck these days.

uh, calin = calvin.

ViciousD, Charlie Brown never got to kick the football. That's why it was so funny. For 30 years. Get it??

"Mutts" is a fantastic strip, especially if you are a pet owner or animal lover.

"Fox Trot" is amusing, mostly for Jason Fox's geekiness.

"B.C." is interesting to see what weird Christian fundamentalist message Johnny Hart will come up with this week...

"Doonesbury" is still amusing, but you have to read it practically every day to keep up.

"For Better and For Worse" is an excellent strip, in a girly soap-opera way. I mean, when Elizabeth caught her boyfriend shacking up with his other girlfriend, that was some damn good storytelling for a 4 panel, 8" by 2" cartoon.

"Arlo and Janis" is also very amusing.

"Sally Forth" burns my eyes and I wish everyone involved with that strip, including the characters, would die horrible slow deaths. Unless it is a satire on modern yuppies, in which case it is absolutely brilliant.

"Rose is Rose" is fantastically drawn!

"The Boondocks" is pretty cool, but you know, I'm a white guy.

...and it just wouldn't be a comics page without "Peanuts". Charles Schultz will live forever.

I sure miss "Bloom County", "Calvin and Hobbes", and "The Far Side"...sigh. Whatever happened to Bill Watterson?

Comic Strips that need to be removed:
- Agnus
- Annie
- Beetle Baily
- Gasoline Alley
- Hagar the Horrible
- Heathcliff
- Lola
- Soup to Nutz
- The Family Circus

I'm sure there are others.

Yeah..Boondocks keeps getting screwed by the newspapers. For committing the deadly sin of presenting a point of view that differs from mainstream white America. Some things exist whether you believe in them or not, eh?

Don't forget Garfield. Nothing funny about that. I wish someone would run over farking Garfield already.

. "Some people buy papers for the comics. Whenever you change them, it's an enormous controversy. People are very attached to their comics."

Screw the news.... I want my Dondi!!!!

They choose to do reruns... but its never the good ones. Always Peanuts, never Calvin and Hobbes or the Far Side.

The salt in the wounds is the d*mn eyesore Snoopy statues up all over town (St. Paul).

Who reads Mary Worth, Apartment G-3 and the sort of graphic drawn comics? I'm sure they were great when they could take up more space than what they're given today. They are currently taking up space in my newspaper IMHO. I usually read Foxtrot, Zits (cause it reminds me of my little brothers a lot), For Better or for Worse, and Dilbert. BTW, did anyone see there is a contest to help name a new tech-geek character for Beetle Bailey?

Peanuts needs to go. It's, umm, nice that they keep printing it, but I've read them already, so I'll skip them thanks. I mean, damn, I'm only 18 so I haven't been reading comics that long, you'd think they could reach back and go a bit vintage on us, but no, they have to reprint ones I can still remember. Fark that. Anyway, yeah, I do like Peanuts, and most of the vintage toons. I miss The Far Side, Marmaduke, and Beetle Bailey, haven't seen them in a while where I live. Garfield's becoming a bit weak. Bloom County rocked. I'd kill for some Calvin and Hobbes. I think I might have to read some Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat.

</blabbering>

Shouldn't Cathy be like in her 50's by now?

Too bad "Calvin and Hobbes" isn't being rerun. A whole generation of kids will know only know Calvin as the kid who pees on Ford and Chevy logos...

I am happy that I'm in Denver in regards to comics. We have two papers (although they are one company) with six pages of comics daily, and 10-12 pages on Sunday. Sometimes the comics are the only reason I open my papers.

I've seen some cities' papers with one page of comics and I keep jonesing for more. You need 6 pages of comics a day...before you read your internet comics!

There's like a whole page of Apartment G3 stuff in my sunday comics. Those get skipped with nary a glance.

Vi Da,
You don't like The Peanuts ?
Good Grief !

OMG, that's a classic.

Boondocks is racist crap.

Confabulat, I will help you kill Sally Forth. Everyone in that strip has that smirk on their face and I'd love to smack it off.

You know what new comic really frustrates me?

"Get Fuzzy"

It has some of the best art out there (for the comics page), but the characters, jokes, plots, and just about everything else suck sweaty balls. The artist can't make a good joke for his goddamn life; instead he just relies on the same hackeyed "cat and dog" interactions. It's worse than Garfield.

arlo and janis is one of my favorites too. reading what gene goes through makes me remember my own awkward high school years. for better or for worse is the best strip we have in our paper; I've been a big fan for years. I think I've passed a couple of emails back and forth with lynn johnston, but I don't remember. I definitely have with the guy who does a&j, but his name escapes me. the following strips must be destroyed-family circus, cathy, sally forth, and though it pains me to say it, snuffy smith. snuffy was the shiat back in the day, but fred lasswell died a year or two ago, and it just hasn't been readable since then.

I too live in Denver and have gotten spoiled with the amount of comics we get. I read almost evry comic every day, plus some more on the net. We do get some good new ones but I am constantly amazed at the hackneyed writing and worn out gags in a lot of the older comics. How many times can we see Sarge beat up Beetle Bailey, or Ziggy go to Mom's diner, or Cathy say "Bleeeaaaarg!", or Dagwood be late for his carpool, or Andy Capp threaten his wife, or the Lockhorns biatch at each other. What possible relevance could Gasoline Alley or Lil' Abner have to anyone outside of Arkansas? And don't even get me started on that most remarkably consistently unfunny strip... Fred Basset.

I like some of the old ones, and you really have to respect Peanuts, but I would just as soon see it go away to make room for new stuff, even if the new stuff fails. Otherwise, its just going to be the same old crap over and over again because when the papers do surveys of what comics people want to see, those old crummy strips are going to be all they are familiar with.

I only have a few things to say:

Sluggy Freelance

User Friendly

Keenspot Comics -- including GPF, Schlock Mercenary, Avalon, and College Roomies from Hell,a mong others

Megatokyo

It's ironic that this little article came out two days after Web Comics Awareness Day. :)

Get rid of Prince Valiant.

Doonsberry is just too damn preachy and "I'm right, and you're wrong, and hippies don't really smell bad" kind of cartoon.

Boondocks takes every chance it can to make pot shots at "white folk" just because they're white. That sure sounds racist to me. Think of it if the tables were turned, there would be riots in the streets if it was white kids complaining about blacks.

Cathy could die and they would just keep showing repeat strips and no one would notice.

I sure hope the NotMe monster kills Billy and his whole family circus

Bring back Calvin and Hobbes! Get the author out of retirement!

Bring back Bloom County! Get the author out of retirement!

Bring back the Farside! Get the author out of retirement!

Dilbert is getting stale. See Cathy.

Ziggy needs to get edgy and start complaining about the prostitute that rolled him for all his cash and pawned off his grandmother's engagement ring.

Zits, Foxtrot, Better or worse, Rose is Rose and the Farside are the only worth while comics in my local paper. It's depressing.

They need to blast family circus off the face of the planet. And make sure they leave no trace whatsoever.

Sally Forth and Curtis need to go away too. And Blondie.

reminds me of the conversation from the movie Go where the asshole Katie Holmes falls for talks about his masochistic need to read Family Circus every morning. you know it's gonna make you cringe, you're just not sure how badly.

imagine if prime-time tv consisted mostly of reruns of i love lucy and all in the family. sure, they're classics and still worth watching, but you can only watch them so many times, and a lot of the humor is lost on newer generations.

one strip worth mentioning is Non Sequitir. a daily dose of single-panel satirical social commentary without the annoying psuedo-intellectualism and excessive political soap-boxing of doonesberry. that and Zits are about the only reasons i even bother with the comics section anymore. oh, and Fusco Brothers is farking retarded. that guy should be shot, too.

oh and Non Sequitir is another worth reading. Forgot that when I made my list. And Safe Havens

Dilbert is still okay. But it's only in my local sunday paper so it doesn't really count.

they really need some fresh stuff. There are a ton of awesome comics out there that are so very much better then most of the crap in sindication out there

Ones I read constantly:

"For Better Or For Worse" -- one of the few cartoons that has grown with the characters. How many comic strips these days will allow the kids within them to get older and have more adult problems?

"Zits" -- Maybe because the character in the cartoon reminds me of my brother when he was a teen

"Fox Trot" -- Probably because the strip is so geeky-cool and consistently funny

family circus is psychotic

I can't believe I didn't mention this, but can anyone one out there comprehend "Ballard Street?" Is it just a joke I don't get?

The caption will read something like "Bill's gardening again." Then there will be a picture of some old guy riding his dog through the yard, or he's up on the house about to jump off wearing a wing suit. It's like paper runs the wrong caption, only... it's every single day.

"9 Chickweed Lane" is good cause occasionally the broads are drawn sensuously and give the many readers of family papers hot rocks.

And I like Marmaduke because "Phil" the father is secretly a Neo-Nazi.

FoxTrot has proven that you CAN in fact re-tread the same ground over and over and over again but still remain funny. Amend succeeds where everyone else has failed.

For Better or Worse rocks because they age along with you. I missed it for a year and found out Mike got married. That's cool.

Get Fuzzy. Best. New. Strip. Ever.

Mutts - surreal but never fails to bring a schmile

Zits is okay, but that kid needs a smack.

Apartment 3-G rocks because that Lu-Ann is a hottie.

Those that must go: Family Circus, Peanuts (let him rest, people), Family Circus, Beetle Bailey, Family Circus, Marmaduke, Family Circus, Dennis the Menace, Family Circus...and the Family Circus, too...

My cracker ass is a Boondocks fan, because Huey reminds me of myself when I was junior conspiracy theorist.

Dunno how bad it is in the rest of the country. In Phoenix it really sucks. Seems like lameness is mandatory for strips these days. Somebody ***** Johnny Hart, OK? Better yet, break his hands. Put the bastard out of our misery. If I read one more cutesy or religious strip I'm gonna puke. Fark the Fambly Circus. What ever happened to Pogo and Lil Abner? At least Dick Tracy bit the dust. I wonder what kind of moron could be attached to today's fare?

Dan Killeen complains that newspapers are only interested in comic strips "that sell".

Well, duh.

good lord... Nancy. The least funny comic strip EVER. Has anyone ever read Nancy? It's so god-awful lame, I pull a Go (read it for the masochistic pleasure) almost every time. Zits, Fox Trot, and Get Fuzzy are pretty much the only reason I read the paper.

Here's a good high quality comic that should be sydicated:

http://www.sinfest.net/

Here's a good high quality comic that should be syndicated:

http://www.sinfest.net/

There are a lot of strips that need to go the way of the dodo: Garfield, Family Circus, Prince Valiant (I mean...what the fark is up with this strip?), but the problem is they're being replaced with shiat. Cartoonists say that syndications want to play it safe? Really? No kidding? It's because the last thing I want to wake up to is a comic strip calling me a "cracker"! So sue me, The Boondocks sucks ass! Then you get the cartoonists who "think" they can draw. Ever see that strip Rhymes with Orange? How about Mutts? Oh, yeah....reeeeeeal great artwork. So I'll stick with Foxtrot and Zits and all the other Calvin and Hobbes knockoffs because, you know what? They're funny sometimes! I don't want variety or diversity in my farking comic strips! End of rant!

Boondocks is in no way a racist comic. It's more of poking fun at race relations.. It doesn't take itself seriously even for a moment. But I guess you'll only see what you want to see.

Forgive me if race relations is the last thing that I want to read about at 6 AM.

Mutts tries too hard to be Krazy Kat. I think the only "new" strip I read regularly Zits. Then again who needs any of the new stuff when there are a dozen or so Calvin and Hobbes collections out there?