Worst Insult Ever Edition (May 8)

Worst:
Pathetic Meow Sack? Not a very compelling insult.

Runners-up: Baldo, Blondie, Curtis, Family Circus, Hagar the Horrible, Non Sequiter, Pooch Cafe, Speed Bump

Best:
Lots of good stuff in this one. Uncool Canadians, Marco Polo, coolishness. Darby Conley just blows away the competition on his good days. Kudos for the threepeat too.

Runners-up: Agnes, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Lio, Pearls Before Swine, Rhymes with Orange, Watch Your Head

Disturbed Edition (May 7)

Worst:
A kind of disturbing drawing backing a rather weird joke. I don't wicking clothing works quite like that anyway.

Runners-up: Blondie, Brevity, Family Circus, Frank and Ernest, Mutts, Pearls Before Swine, Speed Bump

Best:
Is Bucky a psychopath?

Runners-up: Agnes, Dilbert, Frazz, Lio

Tweedle Dumbfounding Edition (May 6)

Worst:
Even Billy seems bored by this lame joke.

Runners-up: Argyle Sweater, Candorville, For Better or For Worse, Frank and Ernest, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Rhymes with Orange, Sally Forth, Speed Bump

Best:
Get Fuzzy is great on so many levels. Great dialog, great art, great characters.

Runners-up: Agnes, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Lio, Pearls Before Swine

Craftsmanship Edition (May 3)

Worst:
An absolutely atrocious pun, that is made to work with bizarre art. I'm not sure which offends my comedic taste more.

Runners-up: Close to Home, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, On the Fastrack, Rhymes with Orange

Best:
Not as great as many Get Fuzzy strips, but still the best for the day. Darby Conley is not content to come up with a joke and dedicate a whole strip to it. There is a punchline at the end, but the set-up is more entertaining than most strip's punch lines.

Runners-up: Agnes, Baby Blues, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Candorville, Frazz, Sally Forth, Single and Looking

Horrible Poetry Edition (May 1)

Worst:

Runners-up: Argyle Sweater, Baldo, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Close to Home, Curtis, Family Circus, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Mother Goose and Grimm, Non Sequiter, Rhymes with Orange

Best:
That's how you tell a joke.

Runners-up: Agnes, Baby Blues, Pearls Before Swine, Pickles, Single and Looking, Speed Bump

Historical Innacuracy Edition (Apr. 9)

Worst:
What really bothered me about this joke is that Native Americans were usually either hunter/gatherers or farmers, so they didn't have a pay day. Even if they did, it's a really bad pun.

Runners-up: Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Close to Home, Daddy's Home, Family Circus, For Better or For Worse, Frank and Ernest, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Red and Rover, Rhymes with Orange, Zits

Best:
I have thoroughly enjoyed the Darby Conley's rendering of old comic scripts. Conley uses language as well as any artist in the paper.

Runners-up: Agnes, Dennis the Menace, Pearls Before Swine, Piranha Club, Pooch Cafe

Torturous Edition (Apr. 6)

Worst:
I think this might be the worst strip so far this year. All it is is horrible puns of celebrity names combined with bad art.

Runners-up: Blondie, Daddy's Home, Garfield, Zits

Best:
When the characters are good, the jokes flow naturally. Love the visual of Bucky with the ice cream carton.

Runners-up: Agnes, Beetle Bailey, Candorville, Cul de Sac, Foxtrot, Frazz, Hagar the Horrible, Lio, Mutts, Pearls Before Swine, Single and Looking, Speed Bump

Make it Stop Edition (Apr. 18)

Worst:
We had a lot of bad puns today but this one might have been the worst. Frank and Ernest gave it a good run though, and the spousal abuse in Hagar the Horrible made this quite a good day for worst strip candidates.

Runners-up: Baby Blues (complaining about a lifestyle choice is unfair), Baldo (reader submitted comics=mailing it in), Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Daddy's Home, Dennis the Menace, Frank and Ernest, Hagar the Horrible, Mother Goose and Grimm, Red and Rover, Rhymes with Orange

Best:
The incongruity of the old comic lines is rather enjoyable.

Runners-up: Agnes, Big Nate, Candorville (Darrin Bell demonstrates the proper way to do a technology joke), Dilbert, Mutts, Piranha Club, Pooch Cafe, Watch Your Head

Immature Edition (Apr. 14)

Worst:
This is simply immature and not funny.

Runners-up: Blondie, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Family Circus, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Speed Bump

Best:

Runners-up: Agnes, Dilbert, Frazz, Mother Goose and Grimm, Pearls Before Swine, Single and Looking, Watch Your Head

Out of Place Edition (Apr. 8)

Worst:
I felt the phrasing on this one was really awkward. I'm not enjoying this whole Hello Kitty storyline. Mother Goose and Grimm doesn't do any better when it's not being topical though.

Runners-up: Blondie, Close to Home, Hagar the Horrible, Speed Bump

Best:
Get Fuzzy wins on a slow day.

Runners-up: Agnes, Beetle Bailey, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Daddy's Home, Family Circus, For Better or For Worse, Frazz, Lio, Piranha Club, Rhymes with Orange, Sally Forth, Single and Looking, Watch Your Head, Zits

Black & White Edition (Mar. 23)

Worst:
This was an easy choice for two reasons. First, Dolly's pun is as bad as a pun can be. Second, I can not envision any scenario that would cause someone to be upset because the moon change phases. Unless Grandma is some sort of reverse werewolf, which could be a great spin-off strip.

Runners-up: Daddy's Home, Dennis the Menace, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Mutts, Rhymes with Orange, Tank McNamara

Best:
This was a more difficult choice; I almost went with Agnes. What sold me on this at the end was Rob. Without him, it's just a bizarre interaction between Satchel and Bucky.

Runners-up: Agnes, Baby Blues (I'm not sure that love comes before lust, love the music in the lust panel though), Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Cul de Sac, Pearls Before Swine

Comics Note: Garry Trudeau is going on vacation, so Doonesbury will disappear from my lists for a while. While Doonesbury will be missed, it's always nice to get a chance to try out some new strips. Last time, we got Agnes and Watch Your Head out of the deal. Daddy's Home is off to a slow start, leading off its run with a typical poor joke. The Matt Groening homage offers some promise though.

Ripping Off a Bad Comic Strip Edition (Mar. 22)

Worst:
This is basically a Marmaduke strip. If you are going to rip off an idea from a strip, why the heck would you choose Marmaduke?

Runners-up: Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, Family Circus, For Better or For Worse, Frank and Ernest, Garfield, Mother Goose and Grimm, Piranha Club, Red and Rover

Best:
So true.

Runners-up: Doonesbury, Lio, Non Sequiter, Pearls Before Swine, Pooch Cafe, Sally Forth

Not Cute Edition (Mar. 21)

Worst:
Red and Rover is built on the premise that dogs are cute. They aren't, and therefore the strip doesn't work. I do not understand how this strip appeals to anyone. It's like Family Circus, it's meant to be cute but it's not.

Runners-up: Blondie, Curtis, Family Circus, For Better or For Worse, Frank and Ernest, Garfield, On the Fastrack

Best:
If I have kids, I think I'll teach them to curse like this.

Runners-up: Doonesbury, Frazz, Lio, Non Sequiter, Pearls Before Swine, Single and Looking, Speed Bump

Potty Mouth Edition (Mar. 18)

Worst:

I hate Rhymes with Orange. The art is terrible and it's not redeemed by the jokes.

Runners-up: Curtis, Dilbert, Family Circus, Frank and Ernest, Garfield, Mother Goose and Grimm

Best:
I enjoyed this send up of a comic strip convention.

Runners-up: Agnes, Big Nate, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Doonesbury, Mutts, Zits

Child Abuse is not Funny Edition (Mar. 16)

Worst:
Another example of poor family dynamics. I, for one, do not find spousal or child abuse funny. The throw away panels did not run in the Post, so I chose this on the basis of the child abuse.

Runners-up: Blondie, Family Circus, Garfield (very easily could have been Worst. Jon is on hold the entire strip. It's just incredibly lazy and boring.), Hagar the Horrible, Red and Rover

Best:
I want some sentient sunglasses.

Runners-up: Agnes, Baby Blues, Baldo, Candorville, Cul de Sac, Doonesbury, Frazz, Pearls Before Swine, Single and Looking

Devil in the Details Edition (Mar. 13)

Worst:
This one is just weird and no makes no particular sense.

Runners-up: Beetle Bailey, Big Nate, For Better or For Worse, Mother Goose and Grimm, Red and Rover, Rhymes with Orange

Best:
Much of the greatness of Get Fuzzy is in the details. I love that Rob has a consistent wardrobe. In many strips, the characters wear the same outfit every day. Rob has a series of outfits that he wears on a rotating basis, just like a real person. It's a small thing, but it's a nice touch.

Runners-up: Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Frazz, Pooch Cafe, Sherman's Lagoon,

Over My Head Edition (Mar. 8)

Worst:
Bad puns are typical for Frank and Ernest, usually there's a strip that even worse, so the strip avoids a lot of worst titles. Some days there aren't any worse strips, and Frank and Ernest end up on the bottom of the pack. The worst part about this is that Bob Thaves has passed, and yet we still get bad puns instead of a fresh strip that would be entertaining. Replacing F & E with Heart of the City, Cul de Sac, My Cage or another strip that is interesting would instantly improve the comics page a lot.

Runners-up: Close to Home, Curtis, Pooch Cafe, Rhymes with Orange, Zits

Best:
I love the line about remembering amnesia. I don't get the line about French citizenship, but Darby Conley has earned the benefit of the doubt.

Runners-up: Agnes, Beetle Bailey, Lio, Mother Goose and Grimm, Pearls Before Swine, Prickly City, Red and Rover, Watch Your Head

Repeat (Feb. 27)

Worst: I don't get it. Is that supposed to be Larry King? I don't know if he is a relevant enough figure to be recognizable in snowman form. Aren't these supposed to be suggested by kids? Do they even know who Larry King is?

Runners-up: Curtis (we get it already, Gunk can't take off his coat), Frank and Ernest, Garfield (terrible pacing), Speed Bump

Best: Lots of good questions here. Just another clever strip.

Runners-up: Candorville, Lio, Pooch Cafe, Single and Looking, Watch Your Head

Three for the Price of One (Feb. 25)

Worst: In addition to the same complaints as yesterday, this strip adds a level of family values crap. I hate the whole family values thing because of the hypocrisy of it. All these people pretend to be so righteous and that they have all the answers. Instead of focusing on strengthening families, they waste their energy on a few relatively trivial issues. I am all for values, but I prefer to focus on living up to them, instead of telling other people how they are not.

Runners-up: Frank and Ernest, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible (What the heck is a viking doing in a desert? What would there be in a desert to pillage? Why would they travel so far from home?), Mother Goose and Grimm, Red and Rover

Best:

Love Satchel's misplaced empathy.

Runners-up: Big Nate, Doonesbury, Single and Looking, Watch Your Head

Credit where credit is (or isn't) due (Feb. 24)

Worst: Of course today, Cory Thomas abandons his characters and writes a typical joke strip. Not surprisingly, it falls flat. When you create great characters and then don't use them, it's easy to throw out a bad strip. Watch Your Head is the first strip to win Best and Worst back to back.

Runners-up: Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, Family Circus, Frazz, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Prickly City

Best:

Darby Conley is another master of the character driven strip. Of course he is also adept at writing joke based strips, because he has a great ear for dialogue. He also might be the best artist in the business today. I love how Bucky seems proud of his fighting prowess in the last panel and how concerned Satchel is about his teddy bear.

Runners-up: Agnes, Cul de Sac, Dilbert, For Better or For Worse (character driven in a bad way, it's easy to dislike many of the characters; today's strip made me smile though), Non Sequiter, Opus, Rhymes with Orange