Basically it was a gag a day comic that had the gimmick of having the characters age as the strip went on. Then the writer did a serious storyline where one of the main characters had his wife die of cancer.
This caused Tom Batiuk, the writer, to believe that the strip will only keep being good and true to life if he throws as much depressing shit at the characters of his two comic strips, Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean, as possible.
i wonder why he thought 'true to life' was desirable in the first place... i have no problem with serious content in a comic, but it seems kind of out of place in a 3-panel newspaper strip anyway... especially one with a name like 'Funky Winkerbean'.
The older Funky strips (we're talking 1970s and 1980s) are laugh-out-loud funny, or at least they were when I read them in high school (and got yelled at for reading them instead of practicing). Their current "Mary Worth meets Eeyore" state isn't good for anyone.
I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
I used to like Crankshaft because the title character resembled my real-life school bus driver at the time
I am conflicted on dinosaur comic strips though
Batiuk's strips are bogged down with grimderp, there's shit like Marmaduke that I don't know how it's still around, but part of me thinks "can't we let the old folks have something"
I do wonder if we'll ever have our own dinosaur comic strips
In 50 years will xkcd still be going and be mocked for being unfunny
I think if xkcd ever stops Randall has a viable backup career as an engineer.
imo though xkcd is one of the few comics that's gotten funnier over time--there's way less heavy handed moralizing and whiteknighting than there was a few years ago--rather than the inverse.
I think if xkcd ever stops Randall has a viable backup career as an engineer.
imo though xkcd is one of the few comics that's gotten funnier over time--there's way less heavy handed moralizing and whiteknighting than there was a few years ago--rather than the inverse.
recently I've started to get bored of xkcd for whatever reason, but the "what if?" column is great
I think if xkcd ever stops Randall has a viable backup career as an engineer.
imo though xkcd is one of the few comics that's gotten funnier over time--there's way less heavy handed moralizing and whiteknighting than there was a few years ago--rather than the inverse.
recently I've started to get bored of xkcd for whatever reason, but the "what if?" column is great
I haven't read the strip much recently, although I agree about said column.
I laughted at number two ,for the sheer over-the-topness of it, it's amusing in a "I'm a terrible person for laughing at this" kind of way.
Some of htem are rather touching, and some are just ouch, my feels; and some are just gratuitous sadness.
Some of them have the morbid "oh, ouch" feeling of the Far side, or the misery of peanuts, but some are just gratuitous. All in all, I prefer not-gutpunch comics.
Yeah, in my newspapers, we get Funky Winkerbeam and Crankshaft.
And, man, did Winkerbeam ever pull a Cerebrus (between those two, I'm not sure if Cerebrus the Aardvark pulled a Winkerbeam or if Winkerbeam pulled a Cerebrus.)
Cerebus. Originally a misspelling of Cerberus, who incidentally also lends his name to a story-cycle by animator/writer Mamoru Oshii which includes the film Jin-Roh, which I saw a few days ago.
Speaking of Cerebus, what is Cerebus and is it good or bad
a longform narrative comic about an anthropomorphic aardvark of the same name.
The name of the trope comes from the fact that it got incredibly self-serious over time and developed into thinly veiled attacks on feminism, among other things.
It's a very high-minded comic, and quite divisive.
Speaking of Cerebus, what is Cerebus and is it good or bad
From what I've heard, it's Dave Sim's very, very long comic book series of exactly 300 issues. It started out light-hearted, if violent, and very episodic (you could read the issues in any order). And it gradually became more dramatic and having longer stories and arcs that lead into one another in a looooooooong story, and then, from what I heard, it went completely insane and started having walls of text about gender politics, copyright, religion, and basically so experimental that Dave Sim could do whatever he wanted; could have whatever content he wanted, and yeah, he got into drugs and stuff.
So, there were three stages: Episodic Comedy, Long-story drama, and wall of text insanity about whatever with drugs and weird art.
This is all my impression from what I've heard, so it could be completely unlike that.
^^ Eh, from what I've read about it, it's a little too off-the-wall weird to be repulsive (with the exception of the volume Reads which is just irritating), and if anything, the message is more like "everyone sucks, but especially the protagonist... but that doesn't make them irredeemably awful."
I used to like Crankshaft because the title character resembled my real-life school bus driver at the time
I am conflicted on dinosaur comic strips though
Batiuk's strips are bogged down with grimderp, there's shit like Marmaduke that I don't know how it's still around, but part of me thinks "can't we let the old folks have something"
I do wonder if we'll ever have our own dinosaur comic strips
In 50 years will xkcd still be going and be mocked for being unfunny
Dinosaur Comics went into syndication a few months ago, actually.
Obviously, only the more family-friendly comics are going in. The Cloacademy's probably not going to show up next to Garfield.
Comments
but i feel kind of depressed reading it
I remember reading Crankshaft. It appears to be as unfunny as ever
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
This caused Tom Batiuk, the writer, to believe that the strip will only keep being good and true to life if he throws as much depressing shit at the characters of his two comic strips, Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean, as possible.
i wonder why he thought 'true to life' was desirable in the first place... i have no problem with serious content in a comic, but it seems kind of out of place in a 3-panel newspaper strip anyway... especially one with a name like 'Funky Winkerbean'.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
imo though xkcd is one of the few comics that's gotten funnier over time--there's way less heavy handed moralizing and whiteknighting than there was a few years ago--rather than the inverse.
Yeah, i've found one or two of these morbidly humorous.
Some of htem are rather touching, and some are just ouch, my feels; and some are just gratuitous sadness.
Some of them have the morbid "oh, ouch" feeling of the Far side, or the misery of peanuts, but some are just gratuitous. All in all, I prefer not-gutpunch comics.
Yeah, in my newspapers, we get Funky Winkerbeam and Crankshaft.
And, man, did Winkerbeam ever pull a Cerebrus (between those two, I'm not sure if Cerebrus the Aardvark pulled a Winkerbeam or if Winkerbeam pulled a Cerebrus.)
The name of the trope comes from the fact that it got incredibly self-serious over time and developed into thinly veiled attacks on feminism, among other things.
It's a very high-minded comic, and quite divisive.
So, there were three stages: Episodic Comedy, Long-story drama, and wall of text insanity about whatever with drugs and weird art.
This is all my impression from what I've heard, so it could be completely unlike that.
i bumped this thread just to say this
can someone tell me why this thread is called "Train long-suffering"?
大學的年同性戀毛皮
aaaaa
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead