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Why do you read this thread anyway? This poll is closed. |
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| I enjoy reading contemporary newspaper comics. |
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64 | 26.02% |
| I hate reading contemporary newspaper comics. |
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42 | 17.07% |
| I enjoy reading historical newspaper comics. |
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88 | 35.77% |
| I enjoy reading newspaper comics from foreign countries. |
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52 | 21.14% |
| Total: | 246 votes | ||
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I usually skip mark trail, is the final panel text box a routine thing? Because yikes if so
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Apr 21, 2022 18:08
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| # ? May 30, 2024 11:17 |
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I really hope Phantom's mission goes off swimmingly and then Mozz is like "huh, guess I was barking up the wrong tree there, anyway"
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Apr 21, 2022 18:29
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davidspackage posted:I really hope Phantom's mission goes off swimmingly and then Mozz is like "huh, guess I was barking up the wrong tree there, anyway" It was just part of Mozz' plan to get the Phantom to rescue her.
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Apr 21, 2022 18:35
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Into Ilves  Nancy  Dustin  Mandrake 
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Apr 21, 2022 18:48
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Calaveron posted:I usually skip mark trail, is the final panel text box a routine thing? Because yikes if so It started coming into prevelance a while back and has just never left I wasn't as down on the comic before but the narration box has killed my drive to read it entirely.
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Apr 21, 2022 18:53
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At least that latest Mark Trail text box is actually somewhat humorous. The others I've read added no value.
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Apr 21, 2022 19:42
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Doomykins posted:The new Mark Trail universe is comically small with how often the same characters cycle in. This is the 3rd time with Bee Sharp? ... out of 4? Of course that's true with Cricket too. I can only hope Daggers shows up tomorrow. My Lovely Horse posted:does Jules think comic book stores are a highly Portland-specific thing and when you go you have to take the opportunity to buy a graphic novel the way you have to try the pizza when you're in NYC and the cheesesteak when you're in Philly? Once again I have to ask, why do we even still have Mark Trail? Like, why do we continue to produce it? It's not like Mark Trail is a big name or even a recognizable one like Hagar the Horrible or Family Circus. There's no merch to be sold. There's no big fanbase to get upset if the strip ended (and whatever amount of those types of fans it had were driven away by Jules). There is literally no need to have this character in the paper anymore. No one is calling for it. If the only way to "preserve" Mark Trail is to strip away everything that makes it identifiably Mark Trail then maybe it's not that important to have Mark Trail. (Everything I just said goes for Nancy as well, but Nancy definitely still has greater recognizability than Marky.)
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Apr 21, 2022 20:01
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Mildly Unsettling Gary   
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Apr 21, 2022 22:02
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Vargo posted:Once again I have to ask, why do we even still have Mark Trail? Like, why do we continue to produce it? It's not like Mark Trail is a big name or even a recognizable one like Hagar the Horrible or Family Circus. There's no merch to be sold. There's no big fanbase to get upset if the strip ended (and whatever amount of those types of fans it had were driven away by Jules). Nu Mark and Nu Nancy both have the same positive thing going for them, and that is that it likely pisses off the old guard that was upset that the old, creatives were let go due to lack of talent, or lovely political views, or just general fucker status. That's about it. You could replace the name recognition of Nancy with an OC named Sally, who lives with her aunt Mitzi and her best friend Puncho, and the jokes would be about as good. It's still the overall story about a little girl who likes sweets, and doesn't like chores, but set in the modern day. Yeah, a lot of it is the same joke recycled over and over, but so is every other strip here. Nu Mark has a little tougher row to hoe as this story is a modern reboot, where rather than being an adventurer forest ranger, this mark is more on the blogger/activist champion of the environment. Which is actually a pretty good direction for a modern version of Mark Trail. I like the message: Nature is cool, NFTs are bad for many reasons, here's fun animal facts and sad animal facts and here's how you can help. That's great. But unlike Nancy, you can't really take these same kind of characters and make a new strip quite as easily. Or maybe it's a bit harder to sell to a paper a new concept rather than just rebooting a classic.
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Apr 21, 2022 22:13
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The problem with these modern Nancies and Marks Trail is that they came out swinging strong at pissing old people off and that was it, at best they're tepid strips occasionally worth a glance, but more often than not and at least Nancy because I never bothered with Mark Trail pre or post reboot, it's the same tedious set up and joke of Nancy or any of the other interchangeable children talking to themselves or to another interchangeable child setting up some sort of social anxiety thing and the final panel either reinforcing it or rejecting it by ironically reinforcing it with very slight variations
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Apr 21, 2022 22:18
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From John Allison's Twitter; https://twitter.com/badmachinery/status/1516831456110252038?cxt=HHwWjMC42YeL74wqAAAA
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Apr 21, 2022 22:43
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My Lovely Horse posted:is, not to put too fine a point on it, the only difference between Jules and James Allen that she's got the correct basic political attitude and does that, while a good thing in and of itself, not kind of confirm the right-wing narrative that that's the only thing that counts in getting an artistic job these days, because the selling point of New Mark Trail sure as gently caress isn't her stellar storytelling ability or breathtakingly detailed artwork? So, while Rivera's MT has lots of faults, it's very very different from Allen's. Doomykins posted:The new Mark Trail universe is comically small with how often the same characters cycle in. This is the 3rd time with Bee Sharp? ... out of 4? Of course that's true with Cricket too. I can only hope Daggers shows up tomorrow.
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Apr 21, 2022 22:59
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Haraiso Days  End Chapter 2! I do agree that Miss Haru is being kinda presumptuous and manipulative here, but then the trope is "the bartender knows her customers better than they themselves do," so within the text she was doing explicitly the right thing.  As an immigrant, personally I'm more ehh about the idea that "people who are not from here should stick together and eventually go home, since it suits them better."Night Visitors  Monya the Grey: Chapter 7   When I first shared this, someone pointed out that Tonda here is actually on the right track - the weird dog tentacle thing is basically star-shaped.
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Apr 21, 2022 23:13
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Olivia Jaimes at least seems to care about Nancy. Look at this from the first week with Jules:  And this one from last week with somewhat similar panels.  It seems pretty clear to me she's cranking these out with as little effort as possible. I don't even blame her either. It's probably a "I'm only going to put X effort into a project for X amount of money" thing and I doubt she's getting much per strip. At most it's a good thing to have on her work history when looking for new clients. Murdstone fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Apr 21, 2022 |
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Apr 21, 2022 23:25
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Medenmath posted:I'm sure I've said this before, but when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s I always wanted to like Prince Valiant but bounced off the seemingly slow pacing and impenetrable backstory. I think reading it on a daily basis, and from the beginning, helps a lot. The pace of the story isn't actually slow at all, but the weekly nature of the strip gives that illusion. I'm amazed Foster was able to put out artwork of this quality even on a weekly basis though. The man was a very talented machine.
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Apr 21, 2022 23:31
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I would feel more bad about what Haraiso Days does in this chapter if she wasn't doing it because Asako found love with that guy and was going to let him go, sometimes you gotta just have the melodrama form of romance in your story. This is exactly why Funny Online Animals should not be allowed to dual-wield flintlock pistols.  Everybody's A God drat Parent Now        
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Apr 21, 2022 23:57
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Vargo posted:Once again I have to ask, why do we even still have Mark Trail? Like, why do we continue to produce it? It's not like Mark Trail is a big name or even a recognizable one like Hagar the Horrible or Family Circus. There's no merch to be sold. There's no big fanbase to get upset if the strip ended (and whatever amount of those types of fans it had were driven away by Jules). Because a company owns the rights to Mark Trail. That's it, that's the entire reason. They own Mark Trail, and therefore, there are people at the company whose job it is to find a way to turn that into money -- at least some amount of money. Even if it only breaks even, that is better, as far as they're concerned, than owning it and doing nothing with it, especially since if they spend too long doing nothing with it, they will lose the rights and someone else might figure out how to make money from it. Business is dumb. Trilobite fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Apr 22, 2022 |
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Apr 22, 2022 00:26
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Probably also Mark Trail has a spot on a lot of comics pages. If they keep it going, they keep the spot and don't have to sell a new thing. You don't give them a chance to swap you out and inertia keeps the train rolling.
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Apr 22, 2022 00:32
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Pickles Zits 
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Apr 22, 2022 00:40
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Haifisch posted:The Lockhorns So Loretta and Leroy are enough clients to keep Pullman's practice going. There's an interesting thought. And I'll say this for Big Nate. Having read latter-day Nate, at least you can say it's not another strip that started strong but sadly declined.
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Apr 22, 2022 00:53
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Giant Ethicist posted:As an immigrant, personally I'm more ehh about the idea that "people who are not from here should stick together and eventually go home, since it suits them better." See maybe it's because I'm not an immigrant, but I didn't take it that way. To me, the actual place they were from was set dressing for the idea of "Don't let yourself be afraid to follow love for material reasons." He could have been going anywhere, and the owner would have told her to follow him. I do agree that your reading is valid and eeeeeh but I daresay that the author is not intending to make that point.
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Apr 22, 2022 01:04
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Take it From the Tinkersons is so drat good. Not in the way Val is, Val is a loving epic, but TIFT is hilarious in its own way. It has grown on me so much.
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Apr 22, 2022 01:09
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Jucika "168 - Jucika Tries On A Swimsuit" "169 - Jucika Wants To Sleep"  Murdstone posted:Olivia Jaimes at least seems to care about Nancy. I think Modern Nancy is lazier than Modern Garfield so that's a rather odd show of caring. It's interesting how Olivia and Jules both did nearly the same thing at almost the same pace: arrived with much noise, shook the status quo lightly in their first few months and then quietly never did it again, moving on to 2+ years of mediocrity or worse. I still remember the original thread reaction to Sluggo Is Lit. That was years ago. Speaking of... WOW. Look at that first strip. God drat. No wonder I wanted to like New Trail. Not a narration box in sight. Just dialogue and character personality and on screen action, living in the moment. quote:At most it's a good thing to have on her work history when looking for new clients. I get what you mean and with newspaper standards as lax as they are I can't blame strip authors who phone it in but I laugh thinking of using such terrible output as portfolio building. "So what can we expect from you as our artist?" "Did you read the new Mark Trail?" "Yeah, it's loving awful." "Heh heh, yeah boi, but I got all that good publicity." "Hired."
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Apr 22, 2022 01:30
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Murdstone posted:Look at this from the first week with Jules: Somebody's missing an opportunity somewhere, though. Brigman manages good art on Mary Worth, and she has to split payments with the writer. There has to be some way for Rivera to get enough from Mark Trail for her to be able to get her neck shapes right. Mark Trail seems like it would be a good IP for line extensions like video shorts or tour certifications, but not with this as the flagship.
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Apr 22, 2022 01:33
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Murdstone posted:Olivia Jaimes at least seems to care about Nancy. I'm gonna take the other route of "doing a daily strip was probably more intensive and she couldn't keep up the initial wave of quality" and not "she's actively putting in less effort per strip"
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Apr 22, 2022 01:35
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Yeah - I think the Mary Worth comparison is actually a good one because you can see a clear difference between them - May Worth's day-to-day is largely just talking heads, with other kinds of framing being the exception, while Mark Trail's day-to-day business is a lot more ambitious. I don't think Brigman would ever consider drawing a panel like the one where Mark is using his phone to spy on people behind him. Mary Worth's art is a lot cleaner, but I think that's not because the artist is getting paid more or cares more or anything like that, but simply because the comic itself has already pared its style down to accommodate the restrictions of constant deadlines, and the artist works within a space that lets them spend time on the art that matters rather than getting stuck into figuring out the actual geographical space of a room. Ian's house is a blank wall and some lovely brown curtains over a window while the comic book store has bookshelves with perspective and displayed comics and a counter and a door. This is, imo, one of the hardest things to learn about delivering a commercial comic strip for an artist: you have to keep boiling away elements of what you want to say until you are saying it in the most efficient way possible with the least number of moving parts, and that means less detail in the things that don't matter. Where Mary Worth breaks away from its talking heads, it typically avoids drawing character detail at all by just portraying them in silhouette because there's a finite amount of detail that can be drawn on deadline and it just got used up on scenery. Jules is trying to draw it all and the result tends to look rushed, because it has to be.
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Apr 22, 2022 02:03
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Wasn't the Mom the one who wanted the Limo in the first place?
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Apr 22, 2022 02:23
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Doomykins posted:I know newspaper comics aren't exactly THE BIG MONEY but Trail and Nancy are some pretty egregious trend setters. Vargo posted:(Everything I just said goes for Nancy as well, but Nancy definitely still has greater recognizability than Marky.)
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Apr 22, 2022 03:02
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i do like olivia jaimes' nancy
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Apr 22, 2022 03:06
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I like it when it's not kids having anxious inner monologues longer than a Congressional filibuster about something trivial, so....5% of the time?
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Apr 22, 2022 03:24
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I'm still reasonably on board with nu-Nancy too. Jules' Mark Trail kind of comes and goes for me. Our Boarding House (October 31-November 2, 1921)    Toonerville Folks (January 27-29, 1919)    Dok's Dippy Primary (January 29, 1914)  With George R. Worley, once again we'll have to settle for an incomplete story.  Little Lefty gives us "Hey, comrade kids! Let's put on a show!" (June 1-3, 1936)    Blondie (From Zero), in which love conquers all, except a heroine who's open to bribery. (December 7-9, 1931) 
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Apr 22, 2022 03:27
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That rear end in a top hat saving his booze better hope the Powerful Katrinka doesn't come by.
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Apr 22, 2022 03:53
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Apr 22, 2022 03:55
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Apr 22, 2022 04:54
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god i hate luann tho
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Apr 22, 2022 05:07
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rannum posted:I'm gonna take the other route of "doing a daily strip was probably more intensive and she couldn't keep up the initial wave of quality" and not "she's actively putting in less effort per strip" Yeah I'm guessing those early strips were probably part of a structured, prepared pitch presentation and afforded Jules weeks of prep work. Now she's in the grind and can't spend as much time lovingly sketching out every installment. Honestly I might be harder on Nu Trail if it wasn't posted right next to Mary Worth every day. When I scroll down and see a strip where a woman sits in her car and thinks to herself the exact same thing she thought yesterday, which is "I could probably clear this misunderstanding up with ANYBODY if I would talk to them about ANYTHING....But I CAN'T!" suddenly Trail's rougher visuals and "Wait, huh?" plotting don't seem so bad to me. Kennel posted:Nancy Really good Nancy today by the way
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Apr 22, 2022 05:11
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In today's Blueberry: Guffie makes an entrance, or Blueberry makes his move, or Things start to get chaotic...  
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Apr 22, 2022 05:14
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JethroMcB posted:Yeah I'm guessing those early strips were probably part of a structured, prepared pitch presentation and afforded Jules weeks of prep work. Now she's in the grind and can't spend as much time lovingly sketching out every installment. In terms of plotting, yeah, MW's "nothing happens" is even worse that MT's "nothing happens that makes sense". But Rivera seems to be leaving a lot of easy stuff on the table. I can see how it might be hard to make a satisfying end for the Prius car chase. But it's a few minutes of thought to clean up plot problems like the FL + OR family trip (they go to FL, Cricket Bro invites them to OR) or getting Bee Sharp into this plot. Comparing nuTrail to nuNancy, nuNancy manages about 1-2 good strips a week (usually Sundays are good) and the rest is filler. With nuTrail, it's almost never satisfying because I see there *could* have been something good there but it's not done right. Hmm, I guess I have to admit the Sunday MTs are usually pretty good so there is that. curtadams fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Apr 22, 2022 |
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Apr 22, 2022 06:08
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I read Mary Worth more than Mark Trail because I get so tired of MTs unfollowable weird plots, at least I can keep up with nothing happens or wilbur bad.
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Apr 22, 2022 06:25
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| # ? May 30, 2024 11:17 |
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His Divine Shadow posted:I read Mary Worth more than Mark Trail because I get so tired of MTs unfollowable weird plots, at least I can keep up with nothing happens or wilbur bad. Mary Worth is amusingly bad. Old Mark Trail was sometimes hilariously bad. New Mark Trail is just bad.
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Apr 22, 2022 06:31
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