After the retirement of Watterson and Gary Larson and the death of Schulz, Doonesbury is just about the only great strip left. But occasionally you'll find one day of a strip which is really funny.
Also, while humor is thin on the ground, some of them are wonderfully drawn, like Get Fuzzy, 9 Chickweed Lane, and Liberty Meadows.
I've realized that for some reason great writers are much more scarce than great visual artists. It's a weird thing. I notice it both in comics and in films.
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If you would think about it for another 5 minutes, you might discover, right inside your own awesome brain, that it's really not that wierd.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." -Don Marquis
People are by nature lazy and off-hand would rather look at pretty pictures than earn an idea. Marketing preys on human nature and nurtures our weaknesses. Voila.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/Alex/pAlexTemplate.jhtml?pTitle=Alex.Telegraph
Think of an upmarket Dilbert, the final panel is always a twist on what has preceded it.
Syndicated comics have been in a creative nosedive for years... Why, I remember when Garfield was funny...
Mostly this is because of excessive conservatism among editors who refuse to publish anything the least bit controversial in "the funnies".
There are one or two that can still get away with poking peoples perceptions in print, but they are increasingly rare...
This is not to say that the talent is dying, far from it; they are simply moving on to pastures new.
If you want real writing and drawing talent, look to the more successful web-comics, the ones that financially support their authors, like Penny Arcade, Megatokyo and PvP. Of course these are not the only ones, but they are among the best. I would also recommend Demonology 101 and El Goonish Shive as heralds of great things
Thank you very much.
Yes, though it's slow going, it does look like Scott McCloud was right when he wrote Reinventing Comics.
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