Gilchrist draws Kermit and characters for elementary students

[Drtooth]

Fozzie's the man! It truely IS hard to come up with stuff like that every single day of your life.

I remember reading a Robotman and Monty strip when Monty decides to take over the Far side after Gary Larson quit. The first cartoon he drew was a bunch of canibles cooking Chefs in a pot. The caption read, "No! Too many Chefs spoil the broth." He had to do another one, and it was the SAME comic only the caption read, "No! Too many Lawyers spoil the broth!"

Besides, some comics that didn't make it were great, like U.S. Acres which Jim Davis cancelled, but was wildly successful as a back up feature on the Garfield Show!

Like wise, some comics that last long are HORRIBLE!!!! Look at Sylvia, for example...
images.ucomics.com/comics/tmsyl/2002/tmsyl021023.gif

Whoever drew that needs to go back to school! And the worst thing is that this is one of her better strips. It doesn't have poorly drawn cats carrying signs.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Originally posted by Drtooth
Fozzie's the man!

Bear. It's a bear. With a magenta nose and a twin who is a frog.

There's more to the art of comic stripping than most people know about for them to appreciate it The process is one thing, but what is the worst is that the reproduction of comic strips on cheap newsprint does NOTHING for the art. It's a throw-away art in the eyes of many people.

I've seen some original comic strips on Bristol board, and it's SO WONDERFUL!

Then, when you see it in print, reduced to it's smallest size, it loses something.

Like, I dunno...value?

I dislike newspaper editors because of it.

FOZ

 

[murgatoad]

I'm not saying doing a comic strip isn't hard. It is **** hard. It's a lonely existence where you're chained to the **** drawing board. You don't get the instant feedback - good or bad - of a live audience. You see your work shrunk down to practically postage-stamp size. And there's no tenure.

All that, however, doesn't excuse bad work. Sure, there are some strips out there - like "Nancy" - that don't really deserve to exist. But sometimes if a thing is around long enough, it gains a certain regard from an audience (or readership). This editor friend of mine detests "Gasoline Alley". He has been trying on and off to dump it. He told me that the hillbilly characters with the kitten make him want to hurl. But every time he tries to dump the strip he gets a flurry of mail from old-timers screaming for his blood. Now, since "Gasoline Alley" does lousy in readers' polls, he would be perfectly justified in dumping it anyway. But he feels compassion for people who want to keep reading a strip they grew up with. Which is why "Nancy" also still exists, I suppose.

But you can bet **** few people screamed when the Muppets strip got dumped. Enough said.

BTW, I think the "Rugrats" strip is actually okay. It's well-drawn (at least the characters look the way they should), and its writing is on a par with the cartoon. If you like the cartoon, you'll like the strip. I read it to my niece when she visits, and it's nice to have a comic strip just for kids IMO.

ANYWAY - the reason I mentioned my dislike of the Muppets strip is because it was the first crack in my high regard for Jim Henson and co. It was the first step towards alienating many Muppet fans. And it's a shame so much potential was wasted IMO.

BTW, in case anyone is wondering, my favorite comic strip is "Foxtrot". Brilliantly written with well-designed characters. My second-favorite strip is "Zippy the Pinhead". You can guess how the author of that strips feels when he sees his heavily-detailed, cross-hatched pen work reduced to the size of ant droppings!

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Hiya,

Yup! FOXTROT is a good one.

My all-time love will be Peanuts. I also have enjoyed BC, Wizard of Id, and I like Over the Hedges.

I enjoy The Buckets as well, but I may be biased since I know the dudes who work on it.

Some of the comic strips in the paper are just standards, that if you don't see them you realize they're gone (Hagar, Donald Duck, Garfield, and a few others like Ziggy), but they aren't big laughs to me.

Hagar the Horrible had a comic strip.
Hagar: Helga, where's my beer mug?
Helga: Your what? (She looks at his mug with flowers in it on a table).

Did anybody laugh?
Me neither.

Chris Browne took over and forgot what his father was doing. Sound familiar?? !! Chris should STUDY what his father did and stick to what works...like other famous sons...

How's that for a transition back to Muppet Convo?
FOZ

 

[Drtooth]

In case you want to know, some of my all time favorite comic strips are:

Garfield

Peanuts

Far Side

Calvin an' Hobbes

Mother Goose and Grimm

B.C.

Wizard of ID

Early 1970's Doonesburry (before the writer became a Yuppie and a psuedo born again hippy)

Mr. Potatohead (I love this guy in any darn form!)

Popeye (classic strips)

Robotman

Fox Trot

Zitz

Off The Mark

Heathcliff

and so on.

My least favorite strips are

Sylvia

Hellen Sweetheart of the internet (both look like they were done in five seconds)

Family Circus (once it started to get all religious)

Get Fuzzy...I just can't get into it

Any serious strip that isn't Spiderman or any Super hero like that

various other one shot deals.

Zippy I do like, but sometimes it's just toooo weird, even for me! Fabulous art though! If this guy were to sell his original strips, he'd make a fortune!