Comics of the Day

Worst: This is an absolutely horrible pun. First, schouter isn't really a word, or if it is, it's not one I have ever heard used. Second, shouter and chowder don't even sound that alike. Even if you were four, you would have to be an incredible idiot to make this mistake.

Runners-up: Beetle Bailey, Brevity, Curtis, Hagar the Horrible, Rhymes with Orange, Single and Looking, Speed Bump

Best:

This was just sweet, and it had a solid joke at the end. Poncho's excitement was very enjoyable.

Runners-up: Agnes, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Garfield, Get Fuzzy, Lio, Pearls Before Swine, Piranha Club, Zits

Bonus Visual Runners-up:
I had a very hard time choosing between these two strips and Family Circus for worst. Speed Bump falls into the trap of thinking random equals funny. Rhymes with Orange uses a horrible pun that makes no sense. I made the mistake of clicking on the Rhymes with Orange strip when I was saving the image, and I got sent to a description of the strip. It starts "Rhymes with Orange is a smart person's strip...it's about the little details we all live with." I am a smart person, and I hate this strip. This is also not a little detail that I, or anyone I know, live with. I have never been pulled over for having too many cattle in a cattle drive. It's like the people who promote this strip want to convince us it's actually worth reading or something.

Comics of the Day

Worst: Celebrity jokes are rarely funny. At least this time it's a celebrity who's been relevant in the last thirty years.

Runners-up: Beetle Bailey (shouldn't a cartoonist be able to draw better caricatures?), Clost to Home, Dennis the Menace, Family Circus, Frank and Ernest, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Rhymes with Orange, Single and Looking

Best:

It's a dumb joke, but I could not help but enjoy the expression on the wacko's face.

Runners-up: Frazz, Get Fuzzy, Lio, Pearls Before Swine, Pooch Cafe, Prickly City, Watch Your Head

Bonus Comics Note:Thirty years ago this would have been a very relevant joke. In the 50's and 60's, housewives were simultaneously put on a pedestal and demeaned. Being a housewife was not considered a real job that added value to the household. At the same time, housewifery was idealized in a way that discouraged women from having any other ambitions. This joke seems oddly out of place today.

Comics of the Day

Worst: I was pissed off at Mother Goose and Grimm today. Both Hagar the Horrible and Frank and Ernest were really bad, but I had to pick this because it's based on a thirty year old pop culture reference. I had only a vague idea who Ed Asner was until I looked him up on Wikipedia. So a huge section of the population is left out of this joke. Mike Peters isn't even that old, yet he's still stuck in the past.

Runners-up: Blondie, Brevity, Frank and Ernest, Hagar the Horrible, Non Sequiter

Best:

Piranha Club is part the wide belt of mediocrity that most strips exist in. The strip has two strengths though. One is the use of sound effects, which are generally entertaining in this strip. The other is the character of the cartoonist, who I find to be very interesting. The rest of the characters are not very interesting.

Runners-up: Baby Blues, Curtis, Get Fuzzy, Lio, Pearls Before Swine, Pooch Cafe, Tank McNamara, Watch Your Head

Comics of the Day

Worst: I don't get why this is supposed to be funny. I wasted about ten minutes of my day on this strip.

Runners-up: Blondie, Close to Home, Family Circus, Hagar the Horrible, Mother Goose and Grimm

Best:

I wonder how much time Darby Conley spends on Bucky's misspellings. I always find Bucky's spelling entertaining.

Runners-up: Piranha Club, Zits

Comics of the Day

Worst: Another celebrity joke. Why do we have to put up with this?

Runners-up: Blondie, Brevity, Family Circus, Frank and Ernest, Hagar the Horrible, Non Sequiter, Rhymes with Orange, Speed Bump

Best:

A lot of people seem to like Mutts, but I'm kind of indifferent to it. It's cute sometimes, but often is just sappy. Today was one of the cute days. I think I like Mooch better when he does not talk with his normal ridiculous lisp.

Runners-up: Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, Piranha Club, Pooch Cafe, Watch Your Head

Comics of the Day

Worst: The biggest problem with this strip is that comics are rarely funny. Most get mileage from being cute. Some mine the truths of life to elicit smiles. Most are not funny, and I laugh at a comic once every couple of weeks. The set-up is awkward too, especially the fourth panel.

Runners-up: Blondie, Candorville, Dilbert, Family Circus, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible

Best:
If I ever find an eyeball in my smoothie, I am definitely making a wish.

Runners-up: Agnes, Cul de Sac, Doonesbury, For Better or For Worse, Lio, Pearls Before Swine, Prickly City, Sherman's Lagoon

Comics of the Day

Worst: I chose this as the worst strip for Saturday because it relies on negative stereotypes, which is problematic on two levels. First, stereotypes are rarely good comedic fodder in a comic strip because they show up often. Once you've read several hundred strips about women nagging or men being bad cooks or doctors constantly playing golf, they start to lose all of their humor. Second, stereotypes are often very harmful. Not all women are nags, and to propagate this myth in a strip does a disservice to women.

Runners-up: Close to Home, Family Circus, Garfield, Pickles, Rhymes with Orange

Best: I am a sucker for clever word play. The slope between clever and the Family Circus is a slippery one though.

Runners-up: Baldo, Blondie (loses points for the pop culture reference, but I like punch lines that leave you hanging. Just what was Dagwood's tragically underinspired plan?), Curtis (bonus points for good parenting, which is rare in the comics), Dilbert (the Elbonians are among the few characters with any interesting features left in this strip), For Better or For Worse (anything that makes fun of the baby boomers is okay by me), Frazz, Lio (almost unseated PBS today, my stuffed animals would get jealous of each other if I paid too much attention to a particular one, so I can kind of empathize), Pooch Cafe (we've all known, and probably been part of, groups whose collective intelligence goes down when they get together), Speed Bump (I'm kind of a prude, so holding hands with a girl is still a pretty big deal to me), Zits (I think the Jeremy romance story is kind of sweet (I don't know how I feel about agreeing with Connie though). I think Viral has added a lot to the strip. It's easy for an artist to add a new character in an attempt to bring some life to a struggling strip, but Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman have done a good job creating a new, interesting character without overwhelming the other characters or seeming desperate to change something for change's sake)

Comics of the Day

Worst: Mutts lives and dies on its cuteness, which leaves it constantly walking a fine line. Some days it's cute, and it is a good strip. Some days it veers into overly cute, and it's a bad strip. Some days it's not cute at all, and it's just a waste of space. Friday was one of those days.

Runners-up: Brevity, Hagar the Horrible, Mother Goose and Grimm, Red and Rover, Rhymes with Orange

Best:

Men think about sex a lot, and this one of the standard tropes of comedy. What I liked about this strip is the subtlety of that reference.

Runners-up: Agnes, Sherman's Lagoon, Zits