We'll Miss You Brenda Starr

So for the past few weeks I have repeatedly mentioned how much I have been enjoying Brenda Starr, blissfully unaware that it was announced in early December that the strip would end January 2nd. (I actually do have a saved google news search for comic strip news. I'm still scratching my head on how it missed this one.)

Brenda Starr, 1/2/2011

And there she goes....walking into the sunrise, quoting Vonnegut. Not quite an "ack" in Mom's living room, eh?

On the one hand, I am not happy to see a strip I enjoyed so much end. On the other, I am glad I never ending up feeling about Brenda Starr the way I do about so many of the zombie strips.

They even slipped in a little shout out to one of my favorite comic strip artists on Saturday, and I sat there wondering why, never thinking to do a couple of quick googles to see what the deal was. Duh!

Brenda Starr, 1/1/2011

Ramona Fradon was the regular penciler on the strip for 15 years, from 1980 to 1995. Ramona was one of the first women to break into comics (back in the 1950s) and did a lot of work for DC comics. Her wikipedia bio seems to be pretty trustworthy.

I have a real weakness for both Dale Messick's (Brenda's creator) and Fradon's style on the strip.

Messick:

A strip from Messick:

Messick has the class golden age serial strip feel that I really learned to love as a kid.

Fradon:

A strip from Fradon:

Fradon is a little more cute and cartoony, but in a great way.

It's popular to make fun of The Super Friends, and I loathed the cartoon even as a kid, but I enjoyed her work on that comic book. Hey layouts and design were both quirky and dynamic, a nice break from the often staid and tedious DC Comics of the day.

But the real charm in Brenda Starr was that it never committed the sin of taking itself too seriously. The older strips are tough to read at times as it was very much a romance strip, but unlike many of the other strips of its day, there were some deliberate laughs in there. The newer strips of the past decade or so have been a real treat for me; as the Huffington Post article I linked to explains, Brenda Starr grew up a bit and started to include some commentary on the evolving news industry.

I'll miss you Brenda Starr. The current creative team seemed to leave the door open to some sort of new incarnation. Here's hoping!

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The More Childish, the Better

If it's Tuesday, this must be the Daily Comics Review!

Do me a favor. If you have a dog, or know someone with a dog, check out Dog Spelled Forward or steer your friends there. I think it's a pretty decent blog, if I say so myself.

Comics!

Funky Winkerbean, August 24, 2010

Well, the prospect of capitalizing on Les' book sure pulled Funky out of his, er, funk.

But on to the funny bits.

Vintage Phantom, August 24, 2010

The last panel needs a thought balloon: "Damn! Was it the bare-handed deer hunting or the native campfire dances?"


Brewster Rockit, August 24, 2010

I really love this strip. Plays on "Uranus" are among the oldest jokes around, but they never fail, do they?

I've mentioned how much I enjoy Brenda Starr's utter refusal to take itself seriously before. The past few days are a great example.

Brenda Starr August 22, 2010

Brenda Starr August 23, 2010

Brenda Starr August 24, 2010

From "tv people are so melodramatic" to the barbs over reality show producers vs. reporters, the strip is a wonderful contrast from the other adventure/drama serials still in print. The fact that, on Sunday at least, Binky bares a slight resemblance to Danny DeVito is a little bonus.

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Hot, Non-Living Action

Another glorious Wednesday is upon us!

In other news, have you heard about Carafe? It's a webcomic sort of deal. It doesn't have a storyline and pretty much anybody can submit a comic if they want. I did. It's my debut as a creator of comics and not just a complainer-about-comics. I hope to see you next Tuesday*, when it will run.


*sorry, I couldn't resist.**

**This is for those of you that didn't get it. Click here to find out. Warning: not for younger viewers and/or those offended by things.

Brenda Starr 1/27/10

Because I'm short on time, I'm just going to read the bold words.

Late meeting EDA. EDA? Eco-Developers Association nearly sexy dead body. Harry else needs poor man.

Anyone else confused as to why that guy thinks that the EDA is almost as awesome as necrophilia?



Cathy 1/27/10

He wants to have sex with his . . . phone? iPod? What is that thing?

Well, whatever it is I think it's a safe assumption that it's a better lover than Cathy.



Brewster Rockit 1/27/10

I can't help but feel like Toby the HR bot is similar to something I've seen before . . .

TOBY 1/27/10 and Dilbert 1/23/10

I guess it's not a direct ripoff of either one, but an amalgamation of both of them.

Does that mean that both Pandolph and Adams can sue? I'm pretty sure they won't, but could they if they wanted to?

Also, neither Dilbert nor TOBY are very funny in these particular instances.

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Uneasiness

Today's basically things that made me uneasy when I was reading the comics today. I hope they make you uneasy, too! Or at least that my unease provides you with some entertainment.

Gasoline Alley, 12/18/09

I'd bet that kindly old bearded man is actually Santa Claus in disguise, here to give us a heaping helping of the true meaning of Christmas. Which, in this case, is paying $500 to save a cat. Truly it is a time of miracles.

Safe Havens, 12/18/09


I was going to try and ignore this, but I can't. Seeing a young man lust after Santa Claus (who is actually a young lady in Santa Claus' body at the moment, but even so) is very disturbing.

Brenda Starr, 12/18/2009

You know what else is disturbing? That drawing of Patch in the first panel. "I'M GONNA TEAR OUT YOUR THROAT!" he seems to be saying, and considering how he seems to be a dog wearing an eye-patch, I think he could do it.

Do you know what's most disturbing, though?

Garfield Minus Garfield, 12/18/09

The fact that Jon Arbuckle is a furry.

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Containment Breach

It's a magical Tuesday. Why is it magical? I don't know, you'll have to find out for yourself.

That didn't make any sense. Oh well. On, to comics!

Chuckle Bros 9/15/09

Ok, I get it, you wanted to do a joke about an old flame. But was having the punchline involve a living, presumably sentient, torch necessary? You couldn't have gotten your point across with any kind of subtly? Or at least more subtle than this? I'm no comic strip writer, but I do expect better than this.



Drabble 9/15/09

Yeah, that policy of containment really worked well with communism. Oh wait, it didn't. We lost two wars and millions died because of 'containment'. We should have just invaded Russia and taken out all the leaders. That would have been much simpler than all the time and effort we wasted in Korea and Vietnam. More people would have died though, so I guess that would have sucked. But it would have been a lot faster than waiting around for 50 years.



Brenda Starr 9/15/09

As someone that writes things that others read, I understand how hard it is to get your point across sometimes. However, I don't think bolding every other word makes it any easier to understand what you've written. If anything it makes it harder. Think about how it would sound if this was being performed by actors. Would 'met', 'once', and 'wife left' really be stressed? That's only one sentence, you can't stress that many words in a sentence unless somethings about to explode.

Brenda Starr is by far the worst of the bunch in terms of over-bolding. Even Mark Trail knows when and when not to bold. He suffers more from overuse of every punctuation mark except the period. Perhaps the over-bolding is something that Brenda Starr is known for and it just continues as some sort of legacy thing, I don't know or care. I hate soap strips. Except Mary Worth, that one's pretty good.

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Return of Saturday Comics

Miss me? No? I know, you just want Saturday comics.

Blondie 10/4/08

Today we learn that Blondie is purposely trying to kill Dagwood for his sweet, sweet life insurance which is the only reason he continues to work for J.C. Dithers.

Gasoline Alley 10/4/08

It's pretty nice that all of Rover's problems went away with one suspicious car accident. Wait, wouldn't a sultan have 900 children to seek revenge?

Family Circus 10/4/08

Then with one swift movement, Billy shows Dolly why he likes to play with crayons. Dolly is then left traumatized and begins refusing to play with crayons ever again.

Garfield 10/4/08

Jon's been yammering about his past girlfriends all week now. Isn't he still dating Liz? Quit talking about your mutant exes and give Liz a call, Jon. Give Liz a call.

Apartment 3-G 10/4/08

Because as we all know, all drug users can't shut up. They just keep talking and talking. And they just get so annoying as they keep talking and talking. And talking and talking. And because they are so doped up on drugs they just don't know when to shut up and you can only take it for so long until you just have to kill Alan.

Mary Worth 10/4/08

What does Mary Worth know about marriage? Her husband is dead.

Brenda Starr 10/4/08

What the--? Nice shiny change of topic. There's a pretty, unconscious woman just lying there and your about his son? Priorties, people!!!

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The Daily Comics Flood of 8/6/08

The gates have burst and comment-worthy comics have spilled everywhere! This will be our longest post to date with oodles of daily comics of the good, bad and ugly varieties. Thanks for everyone who contributed yesterday, the concept seems to work and it will definitely rear its ugly head again in the future. We're always looking for more ideas, send us an email any time!


Crankshaft 8/6/08

The endlessly useless Crankshaft forgot to water Lillian's flowers, big surprise. "Maybe I can stomp these dried up plants back to life!" Who's looking forward to the next few weeks of elderly people saying mean things to each other? Hopefully the intensely beating sun will induce heat-stroke and finally take the old bastard out.


Curtis 8/6/08

Jokes about fucking your teacher never get old but I was under the impression that Curtis was still in elementary school, which is a little young if you ask me. King Features Syndicate needs to hire some new coloring staff who care enough about continuity to do some back research. Take a look at Miss Honeystump from today's comic strip compared to when she debuted in July in the comic just below. They can't even keep people's ethnicity right anymore.



Mandrake the Magician 8/6/08

At first read I was very apprehensive to post this Mandrake comic. Not many people follow the elaborate plot currently underway involving a villainous book reader, poorly working water pipes and blah blah blah... can you believe this is an actual storyline? It's easier to live with yourself if you just take this comic at face value - it's actually less boring that way.


Brenda Starr 8/6/08

This week has been a flashback in Brenda Starr to give us more information about why they're in Kazookistan and instead of redrawing past events, Cartoonist McLazystien is just reprinting strips from the 80's. I wasn't old enough to remember much from that decade but apparently Brenda Starr was being drawn by someone with an intense hatred for pens. So much so that they did their best every day to use as much ink as possible, filling in any blank space around.


Lio 8/6/08

A perfect example of doing more with less. These old comic strips could really learn something from the new guys - if they really cared about pushing the medium instead of playing it safe.


Off the Mark 8/6/08

Nothing about Off The Mark, which was great today, but I often contemplate how to lay out my daily post. Today was bad strips first, sometimes it's by size, does anybody care anyways?


Speed Bump 8/6/08

Here's hoping everything is going well for my Friends Brett and Jana and their new baby!


Overcompensating 8/6/08

"This wasn't the best choice of a comic to go right after toddler humor... maybe."

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The Daily Comics Shall Continue! 7/25/08

Ok, so Bryce is on vacation, but I am here to carry the torch. No matter how slow or burdensome, or hot that torch may be.

Fortunately for you, dear reader, Bryce will return tomorrow. Until then, please read through this mediocrity and come back soon.

Basic Instructions 7/25/08


Basic instructions is always kool. Almost as kool as mullets.

Bob the Squirrel 7/25/08


Is there supposed to be a secret message hidden in all comics that use random bold words? "I Too Want 5 hours between us." This sounds like a secret, perhaps forbidden, longing. Too bad it is in a code. We will never figure it out.

Brenda Starr 7/25/08


My mother loved France more than she loved me. I sense a potential love interest between Sage and Miella, followed by teenage pregnancy and child abandonment. Keep That Cycle Goin'!

Brewster Rockit 7/25/08


I know we would all agree when I say, "There should really be more bondage in comics." When all I have to turn to is Bound and Gagged, this is a breath of fresh air.

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The Thursday Haiku Comics Review Extravaganza! 7/17/08

Blog readers, Rejoice!
More haikus, more laughs, success!
We love your comments!


Basic Instructions 7/17/08

Too close to home here.
Ninety percent of the time
my eyes bug out too.


Crankshaft 7/17/08

I got crankshafted!
I should have predicted it,
Gram was going down.


The Quigmans 7/17/08

Little gangster kids.
The Quigmans missed the memo,
Fensler Films was first.


Mark Trail 7/17/08

My mind is reeling.
Kelly Welly - transformer?
Eyes spreading farther.


Snapshots 7/17/08

With a rebel yell,
A brave sheep broke the shears of
Oppression and wool.


The Amazing Spider-Man 7/17/08

Spidey is Psychic?
How else can he find Vulture
without directions?


Brenda Starr 7/17/08

Ms. Starr - pro wrestler?
Sage wasn't ready for it,
Sleeper Hold of Death!

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