For the Official RACS Gocomics.com Page: D, Part 1
Joseph Nebus
the first half of them today:
_Daddy's Home_, Tony Rubino, Gary Markstein.
Premise: Sarcastic family and their neighbors.
Pros: Sympathetic to all characters. Added a talking pelican
last year because hey, why not?
Cons: Indistinct characters. Average sarcasm.
My Verdict: Read if the pelican's on-screen. I'm an easy touch
that way.
Your Verdict: ?
_Dark Side Of The Horse_, Samson.
Premise: Spot gags starring the black horse Horace.
Pros: Strong visual style. Plays with its own format. Smartly
silly attitude.
Cons: Often uses standard settings (nagging wife, lust for
coffee, avoiding housework).
My Verdict: Read; must-read if it's one that breaks out of
three-panel daily format.
Your Verdict: ?
_Deep Cover_, Tim Eagan.
Premise: Editorial cartoon snuck onto the comics page.
Pros: Well-drawn. Arguments don't drive me crazy at least.
Cons: I'm not even going to look at its comments threads.
My Verdict: Read, unless the arguments do drive you crazy.
Your Verdict: ?
_Diamond Lil_, Brett Koth.
Premise: Cranky old woman disapproves of stuff.
Pros: Passes the Bechdel test. Generally dignified treatment of
elder characters.
Cons: Not silly enough for the meanness presented. Not much
reason for readers to like Lil.
My Verdict: Skip.
Your Verdict: ?
_Dick Tracy_, Joe Staton, Mike Curtis.
Premise: Super-kibbutzer turned super-cop Dick Tracy
exists, somewhere, impassively, while villains kill themselves.
Pros: Exciting artwork. Good pacing. Playing with the 75-plus
years of Tracy continuity for fresh stories.
Cons: Tracy still isn't *doing* anything. Evil schemes organize
and collapse with him barely showing up on screen.
My Verdict: Read; if Tracy starts doing detective work must-read.
Your Verdict: ?
_The Dinette Set_, Julie Larson.
Premise: Panel art of would-be Pluggers Joy and Burt
being casually horrible while marginalia jokes baffle the casual
reader.
Pros: Continuity of characters rare for panel strips. Jokes
crammed in marginalia sometimes add to humor or comment on it.
Cons: Shaky art. If the main punch line isn't obvious the
marginalia won't clarify it and will just confuse readers more.
My Verdict: Skip, unless you like the find-it puzzles.
Your Verdict: ?
_Dog Eat Doug_, Brian Anderson.
Premise: Nerd puppy and cute baby.
Pros: Adorable puppy. Great supporting cast of animals. Baby
that's plausibly kid-like without being obnoxious.
Cons: If you can't stand babies nearly half the strip is a loss.
Squirrels aren't seen nearly enough.
My Verdict: Must-read.
Your Verdict: ?
_Dogs Of C-Kennel_, Mick and Mason Mastroianni.
Premise: Bundle of mismatched roommates. They're dogs.
Pros: Healthy-sized cast. Enthusiastically doggy dogs. Has a
lighthearted ``we're performing in this strip'' attitude toward
the fourth wall.
Cons: Floating heads, featureless backgrounds, often. Character
designs are loose-to-sketchy.
My Verdict: Read; has potential to grow into must-read.
Your Verdict: ?
Mark Jackson
> _Deep Cover_, Tim Eagan.
> My Verdict: Read, unless the arguments do drive you crazy.
>
> Your Verdict: ?
Wry humor. Easier on the eyes than similar political strips.
> _Dick Tracy_, Joe Staton, Mike Curtis.
> My Verdict: Read; if Tracy starts doing detective work must-read.
>
> Your Verdict: ?
A waste of newsprint since the magnetic space coupes went away.
--
Mark Jackson - http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~mjackson
If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers,
the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them
with copies of /The Elements of Style/. The first-greatest,
of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy.
- Dorothy Parker
Stephen Graham
> 'D' comes in with fifteen strips, by my count, so I'll take
> the first half of them today:
Most of which I haven't ever looked at.
> _Dick Tracy_, Joe Staton, Mike Curtis.
>
> Your Verdict: ?
The recent change in staff has made it much better looking and actual
plots. I still don't read it.
> _The Dinette Set_, Julie Larson.
>
> Your Verdict: ?
Along with _Cathy_, this is a strip I used to skip over when it was
carried by my local papers. Really dislike the art, the characters and
the "jokes".
> _Dog Eat Doug_, Brian Anderson.
>
> Your Verdict: ?
The art is really strong, which is usually enough to get me to read a
strip. I'm not sure why I don't.
Heather Kendrick
nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
> _Dog Eat Doug_, Brian Anderson.
This is the only one of these that I read, and I believe it's one I
began reading on your recommendation, Joseph.
> Pros: Adorable puppy. Great supporting cast of animals. Baby
> that's plausibly kid-like without being obnoxious.
>
> Cons: If you can't stand babies nearly half the strip is a loss.
> Squirrels aren't seen nearly enough.
Your evaluation of this strip is just about mine. Unfortunately I'm in
the "can't stand babies" camp (and, particularly, "can't stand baby
humor") so that part of the strip is indeed lost on me. I enjoy the
animal strips enough that I keep reading. The dog is reasonably fun but
the best fun comes from the other animals (such as the squirrels that
you mention).
The art in this strip is a plus. As I've mentioned before, I'll read a
strip with really good art but so-so humor before a strip with bad art
and good humor.
> Your Verdict: ?
Read.
Heather
ba...@dontspam.silent.com
Heather Kendrick
ba...@dontspam.silent.com wrote:
> You missed out Dilbert.
He's only reviewing GoComics.com strips. (I think he's going to have to
put a disclaimer to that effect in future posts or he's going to keep
getting followups like this.)
Heather
Mike Beede
> On 7/11/2011 1:19 AM, Joseph Nebus wrote:
>
>> _Dick Tracy_, Joe Staton, Mike Curtis.
>
>> My Verdict: Read; if Tracy starts doing detective work must-read.
>>
>> Your Verdict: ?
>
> A waste of newsprint since the magnetic space coupes went away.
Amen, brother.
Mike Beede
D.D.Degg
>
> He's only reviewing GoComics.com strips.
So what is the deal with Dilbert?
It is a Universal Uclick strip
(it even says "Dist. by Universal Uclick"
in my local papers),
it's available on http://www.gocomics.com/features ,
but it's not offered on their custom page.
When UU got the strip earlier this year they said,
"Universal Uclick will syndicate Dilbert in print, online and on
mobile devices."
They have an information page for the strip:
http://www.universaluclick.com/comics/strip/dilbert
So what's going on there?
D.D.Degg
ba...@dontspam.silent.com
Jym Dyer
>> My Verdict: Read, unless the arguments do drive you crazy.
=v= Another one that I used to read courtesy of the now-moribund
alternative newsweekly industry. Dunno how I missed these when
I made the comics.commageddon switch. I'll add it to my list.
>> _Dick Tracy_, Joe Staton, Mike Curtis.
> A waste of newsprint since the magnetic space coupes went away.
=v= Yeah, I remember when they killed Moon Maid in a bombing
to get rid of all that stuff, and then brought back Pruneface
in a failed attempt to return to the post-WWII glory days.
That was what? 1978? It hasn't been any good since.
<_Jym_>
Jym Dyer
=v= As part of its overall tech-savviness, _Dilbert_ was online
before the syndicates. Scott Adams' local paper at the time
(and still?) was the _San_Jose_Mercury_News_, and they had what
seemed to be a sweetheart deal, as well as a fantastic online
comics feature of their own. I imagine that business contracts
are involved, and maybe they were really long-term?
<_Jym_>
Mark Jackson
>> So what is the deal with Dilbert?
>
> =v= As part of its overall tech-savviness, _Dilbert_ was online
> before the syndicates.
Clarinet newsfeed, November 1993.
Joseph Nebus
Yeah, I just forgot about Dilbert. I'd built a page from adding
all the gocomics.com strips in order as they appeared [1] and you can't
put Dilbert in a build-your-own-page, for reasons that I'm sure a
certified genius would certify. I'll include it in D, Part 2, though.
I may go through the King Features comics when I'm done with
this pass, although it'll be hard finding a dozen ways to say `soap
opera strip, unintentionally funny, lacking progression of time'.
[1] I've also been adding further strips as they straggle in to
gocomics.com. This hasn't been a problem for, like, _Spot the Frog_
which finally rejoined the land of the sort-of living, but it does mean
I'll need to cycle back around for strips like _Buni_ started after this
progression but whose letters had already passed.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ba...@dontspam.silent.com
I wouldn't worry too much about Dilbert. I only mentioned it for
information but then I got shirty. I hadn't noticed that you cannot
add it to a page. That REALLY makes sense. Keep up the great work.
Heather Kendrick
nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
> >Hm, right. If it appears on http://www.gocomics.com/features then it
> >counts, I think.
>
> Yeah, I just forgot about Dilbert. I'd built a page from adding
> all the gocomics.com strips in order as they appeared [1] and you can't
> put Dilbert in a build-your-own-page, for reasons that I'm sure a
> certified genius would certify. I'll include it in D, Part 2, though.
Well, I wouldn't think you would have to. If this is "the Official RACS
Gocomics.com *Page*" project, I don't think you have to include stuff
that you can't put on a Gocomics.com page. I assumed you were only
going through the things that appear on the custom page builder.
Your choice, though, of course.
Heather
Heather Kendrick
ba...@dontspam.silent.com wrote:
> I wouldn't worry too much about Dilbert. I only mentioned it for
> information but then I got shirty. I hadn't noticed that you cannot
> add it to a page. That REALLY makes sense. Keep up the great work.
It was partly my mistake. I didn't realize that there were strips on
Gocomics that could be accessed through "Features" and not through the
custom page. I was going by the custom page builder and as a result did
not think they carried Dilbert there.
If I seemed a little shirty myself, it's because we've already gotten at
least one "you skipped X" when "X" was a non-Gocomics strip and I was
hoping a boilerplate disclaimer might head off having that happen a lot.
I probably sounded tetchier than I meant to.
Heather
D.D.Degg
> I may go through the King Features comics when I'm done with
May?
I think most of us here are hoping
you WILL do KFS after Gocomics.
D.D.Degg