Missing the golden age of comics and funny pages

Where has all of the talent gone?

from JoeUser Forums

I'll probably be dating myself quite a bit here, but what the heck.  As you can see in my article title, I'm wondering just what has happened to the talent level of the artists that are doing the comics now versus say 10 years or so ago?!

Never mind that I really miss Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson was a genius darn it!) and wish that Berke (or Berkeley) Breathed had never stopped doing Bloom County, then later Outland and Opus (at least he is back with new Opus strips now).  I'm more referring to the artists that used to do many of the serials that show up on the comic pages even to this day.

Some artists seem to continue to take pride in their works, and clearly put effort into it, but others seem to take obvious short-cuts and do work that looks sloppy and without real concern for the history of the strip, the fine art work and detail that used to be there, or even the text in the dialogue balloons.

I miss the attention to detail and the obvious care that went into drawing these strips in the past.  It seems that some of these strips have been handed off to people that just don't even care, and are doing them simply to collect a pay check.

art
1,165 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top

I could list a long, long list of strips I remember along the way, but some recent examples: Judge Parker, Mary Worth, and several others that have seen artist changes and not for the better.  (Sorry to whomever is drawing them now, but they aren't holding a candle to the people that used to).

Some seem a bit better, albeit in a different style, such as Rex Morgan, M.D.

Either way, it would be nice if people that did the art work did a decent enough job to not make things seem like they were done by people with little or no artistic training.

Oh well, just my weekly rant I guess....

Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
I still smile when I see "blondie" in the funny papers, they have been there long before I was born and maybe will be there after I die.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
I will make you feel young.  I miss Pogo!  "We have met the enemy and he is Us!"
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
it would be nice if people that did the art work did a decent enough job to not make things seem like they were done by people with little or no artistic training.


same goes for cartoons. The quality just isn't there anymore and this pixelated stuff just doesn't cut it for me.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Are you a fan of comic strips from the "Dinosoar" age,  the fifties and before that?
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top

Are you a fan of comic strips from the "Dinosoar" age, the fifties and before that?

Given my actual age, and my youth that was grounded in the '60's, I'm a fan of the comics that were around when I was younger.

I've always been hooked on comics, and to this day I subscribe to 3 different comics providers (you can get comics by e-mail from multiple sources, including, but not limited to: http://www.comics.com, http://www.dailyink.com, and http://www.mycomicspage.com).  I'm subscribed to those three because each has something exclusive to it that the others don't carry.  While some comics are available from more than one of the sources, my master list of favorites isn't available from just one.

Each of those sources charges approximately $15 per year (U.S.) for an e-mail subscription that gets comics automatically delivered to you daily.  At $45.00 per year, it's still far cheaper than a subscription to the Washington Post -- a paper that continues to "warehouse" some of my favorite strips (like the old, some would say corny!, The Phantom).  The Post is also a paper that I'd read strictly for the comics, and perhaps a smattering of the business and sports pages, but otherwise I'd find almost nothing of value in the paper (I could use it to line my bird's cages so they can crap on it I guess).

The Post also has a bad habit of taking strips out of their comic pages, to give other strips a test run.  That's fine if they're taking away stuff I don't like, but it sucks badly if they take away one of my favorites.

Anyway, my favorites cover just about all of the current era, and back into the 60's and before.  That includes the moldy oldie Dick Tracy and more.