When I was a teenager and we first moved back to Ireland from the Philippines, my dad was still in the Far East. It was a tough time, and he used to write me letters now and again. All the letters had Garfield strips in them. I never really liked these types of comic strips when I was young, but it’s a cool memory.

I also read a lot of The Beano when I was a kid. Bash Street Kids and Dennis the Menace (the dark haired one with the dog called Gnasher) were my favourites.

Also, in regard to the trademarked sounds, where is the lightsaber effect? And the TIE Fighter?

i read the last “for better or for worse” strip when i was home over labor day, and it was so sad! mainly because i hadn’t heard it was ending…

i read all of the comics that weren’t, like, prince valiant or the other soap opera-y strips. i didn’t get doonsbury, and i remember when i got sucked into funky winkerbean. loved peanuts and luann. mutts is pretty fantastic, but that didn’t come out until fairly recently.

this entry, combined with your link to trademarked sounds, reminded me of something i heard awhile ago about soon-to-be extinct sounds being catalogued because they were so obsolete, like the sound of a phone ringing.

(ps: also, rose is rose.)

(pps: wasn’t it sad when the houston post went out of print, and we lost some comic strips?)

I am not afraid to admit that I love the funnies and read them second after the business section. “Prince Valiant” has always been one of my favorites (but it is only on Sundays). Others are “Get Fuzzy”, “Zits”, “Luann” (Luann’s dorky brother Brad is a Fireman now and has a hot girl friend who is also a Fireperson), “Baby Blues” (anyone who has been a parent can relate), “Better or Worse” (I won’t be interested in the repeats), “Curtis” (which is only in the Houston Chronicle), “Sally Forth” (A couple with one daughter just like Sarah, Sue and I), “Baldo” and “Pickles” (because I am the age of the grandfather and I can relate to the humor). Actually I like all most all the funnies. When I was a young kid I loved “Terry and the Prates” and “Steve Canyon” (airplanes where my thing). I don’t read “Cathy” anymore since she got married. I like living in the Austin area but the Austin paper is really lacking in the comics as well as other areas. Guess I could go on line to read the Houston Comics.

Oh my gosh Sarah’s Dad! I feel the same way about the Statesman funny section–way lacking. In fact, at the end of college, my husband subscribed to the Chronicle for the main reason being they had more funnies than Waco, Dallas or Austin. Sadly, the Chronicle changed their look and editors too drastically for us and then we moved to Austin and only read the funnies whenever we buy the paper from the stands.

My fav comics: Zits, Get Fuzzy, the one with the silly pig and evil rat, Opus, and I can’t really remember the rest.

But when I was younger, I would always read the Sunday comics at my grandparent’s house. Every Sunday evening would be spent at their house, lounging around and waiting for my grandmother’s good Southern’ cookin’ and while we were lounging around, I would read the funny pages. I remember the blues and greens of the ink, especially whenever I had silly putty and pressed it onto the paper in hopes to capture the image. For some reason, that memory sticks with me in a very strong and very comforting way.

I never spent too much time on the funnies–my dad was always the editor or publisher of any local paper I got as a kid, and Sundays would bring his new editorial and also his column, which I’d eagerly turn to wondering if I got a mention. But I always enjoyed Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side, definitely.

I was a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan. Huge. My whole family is, actually, and as a result our dog is named Hobbes (cause he is technically my brother’s dog, and my brother’s nickname was obviously Calvin growing up. Now it’s the slightly meaner Horseradish – cause a little bit of Daniel goes a long way.). We had all the Calvin and Hobbes books which are to this day the only comic books I’ve read successfully. (I don’t understand! All these frames! and tiny print! Can’t they just use words??)

Jessica, I remember when the Post went out of business and we lost half the good comics, too. I miss the Post, actually. One would think I’d have gotten over it in the past 15 years, but anytime I pick up the Chronicle, I think, “gosh, I miss the Post.”

The only comic I really abhor is Family Circle. I really, really hate Family Circle. (Also on a related note, I hate that Maxine character which I guess is a regular comic as well, with the chain smoking old lady who “tells it like it is.” Quit telling it like it is, Maxine, your email forwards are junking up my work inbox!)

p.s. sarah, i made cupcakes. I took a picture for you!

was that mandy commenting or meredith?!!

dad, i am so glad you commented cos I HAD NO IDEA CATHY GOT MARRIED?!! WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?!!

erin, where is the picture?!! oh and that’s like my favorite scene from “go,” when timothy olyphant talks about how “family circle” ruins his day every time.

Ugh, the Family Circle. My mom got my brother and I a video of theirs when we were little- it was about the kids trying to make a giant valentine (out of wood, paper, etc.) for their mom, but Barfy (BTW, that is a TERRIBLE name for a pet.) runs through it at the end and ruins it. I’ve tried to block it from my memory (uber-sweet cartoon siblings who say things like ‘valentimes’), but it seems to have re-surfaced. Back to therapy- Thanks, Poshdeluxe!

Much like you Sarah, I was a Comics Kid who has grown up to become a newspaper free adult. But I can still reminisce like a Gen X’er for the kitschy trinkets of my lost childhood.

First, I have to go all contrarian and admit that I liked the Family Circus, in a limited capacity – the ones with the little map of the kid running all over the place like it was a treasure map. Those were fun to follow around. The rest of the cartoon? Saccharine.

My love for Garfield was really similar. I had every book. I mean, my God, there are only two jokes in the entire 30 year history of the cartoon. Garfield eats a lot. Jon is a loser. I sent you the link once for the brilliant “Garfield minus Garfield,” right?
http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

Calvin and Hobbes – I would really be concerned about anyone who never enjoyed C&H.

Finally, my favorite cartoon ever is Bloom County. I read it as a kid and enjoyed it on that level; I read it as an adult and enjoy the subtle commentary on our society and politics that I didn’t even know I wasn’t getting. Later, the author started the wacky-for-the-sake-of-wacky Outland, which never really captured the same clever mirth.

Yeah, I owned every Garfield book when I was in second grade, too. They were all the same jokes, but that one poster of him with books tied to him was single-handedly responsible for teaching me the definition of osmosis, and also confused the heck out of me every time I went to the library and forgot what it was.

Also, I remember a time when I got fed up with the fact that I could never tell what was happening in the Spiderman comic strip, even though I loved the book. I spent a summer cutting out every strip, collecting it into a book, and then tried to read it at the end. It still made no sense.

I wonder if Prince Valiant would read well if it was one big thing? What does that guy do, other than inspire He-Man hair?

In my blog, Sarah. I put up two just for you! Plus the recipe.

I’m glad I’m not the only one confused as to whether that comment is from Mandy or Meredith. I read it, thinking, “Mr Jeronimus is a dentist.”

I love the comics, and whoever reads them first in our house gets to leave notes to the other person, usually to the effect of how lame this comic is, how much we hate this one strip, and so on. Occasionally, we will attempt to alter the meaning of a strip by adding seemingly prurient quotation marks, and very rarely, I will attempt to alter the actual drawings subtlely. It’s apparently what I do instead of writing on my own blog.

And yeah, we get the paper … sort of. We used to get it regularly, then quit it, then the paper got so desperate, they gave us three months for free to get us hooked again. We’ll see about that. The comics are the main thing going for them — the only thing you can’t do online is leave notes to your wife about how inappropriate Family Circus seemed today, no, really. (I actually tried to build a Web site whereby one could do something like this, but the Houston Chronicle’s tech nerds blocked my access to their images — they’re mighty protective of their stuff, or rather, I imagine the syndicates force them to be.)

Anyhow, you’ll be sad to know, Sarah, that Aaron has been out of Luann’s life for years. He moved to Hawaii, I believe. Heck, Gunther hasn’t even been in the strip much, lately. It’s all, as your dad pointed out, about Brad. Booring.

I’m kind of upset with FBoFW. Lynn Johnston seemingly promised it’d be coming to an end, then decided she’d rather not quit (perhaps because, I read, her husband left her or something). Still, there are so many legacy/zombie strips out there today!

I may have mentioned it before, but Julia and I love The Comics Curmudgeon, a blog that’s famous enough that its author semi-routinely gets mentioned in normal comic strips (the writer of Sally Forth, who’s rather a more warped person than you might imagine, occasionally comments on the blog).

hah, I just read back to this, Sarah. That was me commenting; I guess Mandy had used my computer last. I’m pretty sure Mandy’s dad’s a dentist.

Like Mr. Katz I always enjoyed the Family Circle’s with the map looking lines. As for what I liked to read was Dennis the Menace, The Lockhorns, Garfield (Why do people hate Garfield so much?), Peanuts, and the Far Side. I like reading the Boondocks as well. Those were the ones I would read first. I will admit to never getting into Calvin and Hobbes.