I suggest you get new friends!

I was also actually going to write “..and I don’t put Mallard Fillmore on my preferred reading list just because he IS a fascist, either.” But I wasn’t sure if anyone really knew to what degree I am a right wing troll.

And you are correct about subjectiveness. I can’t for the life of me understand why ‘Zits’ is so popular; the main character Jeremey just annoys the living heck out me. But I recognize it is popular, so fair enough.

But I also have friends who tell me ‘Monty’ by Jim Meddick is a horrible strip, but I find it one of the funniest ones around…go figure.

I wonder if you can produce even one example of Trudeau’s work that would lead one to the conclusion that he’s a communist.

As for humor, it’s subjective.

I don’t expect every strip to be fantastically hilarious every time, but the truth is many are just on cruise control and floating by on past momentum. I think people cling to strips sometimes because they WANT them to be good or they are just familiar.

Doonesbury isn’t on my ‘ignore list’ because he’s a commie. He just ain’t funny.

Terry, read what I said again.
All I said was that despite the differences in style or skill, the ultimate end of both Mallard Fillmore and Doonesbury is they both leave me flat. They just ain’t funny.

I think sometimes the fact gets lost in the shuffle that ultimately comic strips are a business. They are there to help sell papers and the more readers a strip has, the better business it helps create. Artists sometimes seem to forget that is their main responsibility – they are NOT hired to change the world or remold or reshape society to fit their world view.

And TInsley, as much as you may hate his particular point of view, is only doing what Trudeau had been doing for decades before – preaching to his like minded, vicious little minions the same political scat over and over, belaboring the same tired extreme partisian claptrap Ad infinitum. He may draw a bit better than Tinsley, but as political hack go he’s as average and boring as the next doofus.

In the end, all that counts is how many eyes are willing to spend 30 – 60 seconds on a strip. And for me, Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore simply aren’t worth the time.

And before you so high handedly inform me what it is that I must recognize, I’d like to respecfully ask you to recognize a truty, and that is that Dilbert, Pearls Before Swine, Get Fuzzy, Pooch Cafe, Lio and several others get a lot of eyes reading them every day simply because they make people laugh.

And in the end, that is all that really counts for a *comic* strip, isn’t it? I’d argue that no matter how technically skillful a strip may be, the definition of a ‘superior’ strip is one that consistantly attracts readers with effective humor. USing that standard, I can think of about 20 strips that leave Trudeau in the dust.

I, like most readers, vote with my eyes when I read comic strips and just I don’t read Doonesbury or Mallard Filllmore anymore because they can’t regularly do what those other strips do, and that is make me laugh.

So I will admit that yes, there is ‘superior’ cartooing out there in the form of strips that are actually funny; and they do what they do very well and I look forward to reading those ‘superior’ strips every day.

And Doonesbury certainly isn’t one of them.

Oh, and Jesus didn’t engage in any political protest of any kind during his ministry – I think it is clear His goals were set a heck of alot higher than engaging in the protest of local politics. Jesus knowingly and willingly came to Earth to be gruesomely murdered on behalf of all of us in order to be the ‘stand in’ punishment for our sins before a just God, paying for our disobedience.

His purpose was of the highest motivation – unconditional, self sacrificing love. I think He cared as little about politics then as He would care now about health care reform – this world and life is temporary, as are the politics and issues of the day.

What Jesus was preaching and delivering was an eternal message – I don’t think the issue of Jewish leadership fraternizing with a Roman govermental entity rises to that same level of priority, IMO.

Yep, talk about ignorance. Trudeau STILL draws his strip, in that he does a very tight pencil work. He only has one assistant, an inker that traces over it.

Just because someone else inks the strip doesn’t mean that they do the drawing.