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Happy New Year, thread! My heart is warmed that I was able to summarize my love of Boarding House so well as to enter the OP. I was posting Jucika last year and did two full loops, I'm thinking I'll resume it later this year. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all and I'm thrilled the likes of The Creeps have returned to help fill the gap. For a genuine psychotic I love Sohn's style. Demons of Baseball is crazy as hell but it's the kind you can fall in love with. The art being outstanding and unique is great too. I think we're supposed to expect Copper's Wife/Planck's GF(I can't recall the last time she was addressed by name in strip!) to find that she has made a wrong choice and regrets it and goes back to Planck once he returns and shows off the true power of a DEMON OF BASEBALL!!! It's just really awkward since he vanished for extra years and she had a kid. I dunno if anyone could actually like her do-nothing character very much but this is soap opera adjacent writing, right?
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Jan 1, 2023 17:02
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Early Archie seems pretty solid, those strips are some nice rapid joke pacing and the art is slick. And I've always been a Jughead fan besides. I hope you'll keep it on!
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Jan 2, 2023 02:38
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I love Mr Sputter. He's like a wholesome Terrible Tempered Mr Bang. Scarlet is pretty good. The right mix of old timey super powered insanity and an actual bit of realistic grounding so far. Artifact Dealer can't die until he marries Bar Owner, you know the rules about my Bar Manga headcanon.  Really good Buni there. 
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Jan 4, 2023 15:02
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Woo, The Bus!Darthemed posted:Retail Ah, that nice sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. So is Jerry going to snitch on Marla for being at that trade show or is this when Stuart gets promoted and Marla has to bury her risky dream to take the sure money? Of course since Retail is very accurate and well written about the horror of the retail worker experience I think that second option is most likely. 
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Jan 5, 2023 21:44
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Jughead just radiates avatar worthy art in this strip, this rules. Powered Descent posted:You know, come to think of it, I can't recall Jughead ever having the slightest interest in the opposite sex. (Or the same sex, for that matter.) He's mostly just an observer and commentator of Archie's antics, like a slightly snarky Greek chorus who's always ready for a meal. There's A LOT of Archie so I'm sure there's a bunch of Jughead stories and inconsistencies and filler stories of Jughead having a girlfriend or trying to get a date but they tried to make him canon asexual recently, looking it up it didn't stick?? Maybe??? But honestly to me canon Jughead is this unflappable guy who doesn't give a drat about tail of any kind and isn't even proud of it, just a humble dude loving life and burgs.
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Jan 5, 2023 23:01
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Murdstone posted:Mark Trail As opposed to all the "hard work" Rusty did looking up concrete information about a fictional creature?  Also god drat the narration box butchery has been beaten into the ground this week!JethroMcB posted:When Archie Comics launched the "New Riverdale" lineup of titles in 2015, Chip Zdarsky made him a declared asexual in that universe...but it launched around a year before Riverdale debuted, the show where everybody fucks. I believe his asexuality still holds true for that comic line, but the TV show's visibility and success kind of sidelined the idea of making that a broader canonical truth about the character. Ahh. Oh well, heavy is the crown of Jughead lore. Thanks for the explanation!
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Jan 6, 2023 00:50
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Kennel posted:Dustin Even for Dustin this is getting pretty absurd. Did they decide to triple down and make the mother unbearably toxic and petty too? Ed is Ed and the sister is a caustic poison factory but yeesh.
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Jan 6, 2023 20:57
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I know it's played for comedy but I just got that kneejerk anger I get when a stupid character throws away free money. THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS CAN BUY MANY PIZZAS, JEREMY!!
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Jan 7, 2023 01:06
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Some Guy TT posted:I don't know either, for the record, but my assumption based on my knowledge of RETAILS FROM THE FUTURE is that she has to ditch the whole plan when she finds out she's pregnant and needs her health insurance. Oh yeah, that's the true retail life pain.
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Jan 7, 2023 15:02
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It's hard to go up against Foster but modern Val is really knocking it out of the park with this fun torch-lit night battle.Vargo posted:Heart of the City I wanna give credit to Heart for telling about four good jokes in the last week. This is a dramatic improvement over the often zero and it it keeps it up it'll be a pretty good strip. And I for one find this wonderful cartoony man busting a choir groove to be outstanding. 
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Jan 8, 2023 16:27
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If you don't want comic strip artists to repeat jokes have I got really bad news for you.  Nancy's a real rear end in a top hat to Sputter. Demons is getting pretty incredible, I can't wait to see the fallout from this guy getting second stringed. And Invisible Scarlett seems to be the cream of the batshit insane Brenda Starr-alike crop. Not too hard when Deathless Deer is your competition I guess. Giant Ethicist posted:Cthulhu and Girl What a wonderful last panel. 
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Jan 9, 2023 13:16
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Murdstone posted:Mark Trail So I thought it was just an occasional style choice but now I'm realizing that it has to be making a deliberate choice to draw everyone, all the time with flat white circles for mouths because like all things Mark Trail the author has driven it into the ground over the last week. I even hopped into the old thread and bounced off a few random pages to compare and yeah, Mark Trail is now too deadlined rushed for details like teeth, tongues and mouth shapes that it formerly bothered with.  I'm impressed. The strip is already rubbing shoulders with the worst in the history of the thread and isn't afraid to submit unfinished sketches in panels now. I mean hell, I'm still leery that the animal close ups are traced after the tiger cubs story beat me over the head with samples. How much worse can it get? 
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Jan 9, 2023 20:09
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The weird thing is it's not even really jokes anymore, Dustin Mom is just being an insane jackass.
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Jan 9, 2023 22:31
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Murdstone posted:Mark Trail Wow. We had to wait 4 weeks for it but god drat. Tiny Head Mark. Giving up on backgrounds entirely. The panel 2 gator being the size of a small, shapeshifting elephant. Everything going on in panel 3, from the absolute disaster attempt at perspective, the clearly unfinished sketch flipper on that middle gator, gator 3 being... possible, from a certain angle, but looking like somebody who didn't know what a lizard is just sketched a weird mammal fish hybrid. ... Why is this happening, anyway? Isn't Mark the seasoned outdoorsman? Did he really plan to drive a boat at night, into gator infested waters, into "rapids"? What? How did he reach rapids? Weren't the last few strips about how fast Mark is driving? So Mark's just an enormous moron driving at top speed? Wasn't the plan to take the kids down a river in a boat to help them look for a mythical creature? You won't find it unless the plot sledgehammers it into you, so Mark should've planned to just give the kids a nature tour and a little educational lecture. Gators don't chase boats in packs either but we already had the magical elephant last time so whatever.
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Jan 13, 2023 04:44
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it's funny because a teenager turned down 20 grand earlier for his retro beater and now the universe has punished him for no reason.
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Jan 14, 2023 05:44
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Selachian posted:Invisible Scarlet O'Neil 7/18-20/40 I love this stupid strip.
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Jan 14, 2023 17:45
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I know the answer is "comedy" but why is Zits determined to make me hate the teenagers.
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Jan 16, 2023 17:40
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Hempuli posted:B. Virtanen Excellent edit. I guess Virtanen really hits the mark because I was happy to never see it again.  though but man, these misery porn strips.
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Jan 17, 2023 19:31
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Demons of Baseball be like "woooahhh Planck and Maggie are gonna see each other for the first time in two years" and I'm over here like "I really hope Winnie goes back to visit his family.  "
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Jan 18, 2023 16:38
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quote:Mark Trail Between the hat in panel 4 yesterday and this panel 4 today Mark Trail is now discarding perspective too, I suppose! If those kids stood up they'd be a head taller than Mark. Maybe he sat down, while driving? And in a life or death emergency. Taking it easy!  Why the set up of the tracker? Here's a wacky idea: you can call Mark to see how things are going. Good thing Cherry read the script and knows he'll lose or damage his phone, probably.Ah well. You know Trail is getting good(for mocking) when the rate of errors picks up. Murdstone posted:Rex Morgan MD Looking forward to the kids getting shittier and shittier as mom struggles to get past an ever growing conga line of medical emergencies.
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Jan 19, 2023 01:04
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EasyEW posted:Sally Forth My eyes usually slide past Sally Forth but this is a really good strip. quote:Cranky Shafterbean Wasn't this comic shop part of some "aww shucks we're having financial difficulties" stories or mentions? Because incredible business sense to offer to gut your own profits there. At least he's very kind. quote:Thimble Theater (August 21, 1939) I know the answer is going to be a depressing understanding of life immediately after the Civil War but between this and Rocky and Bullwinkle, man, older cartoonists really went in on the "sometimes you're walking around and get lynched" storyline/gag, huh? They'd both be terrifying if the cartoons in question were even a touch more serious in tone. The punchline is cold blooded murder. Doomykins fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jan 19, 2023 |
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Jan 19, 2023 18:45
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I appreciate that Pierre was part of the all night death march and look forward to his great moment. Some Guy TT posted:The Demons of Baseball uwwwooohhhhhhh!!Best payoff in the entire strip by far.
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Jan 20, 2023 13:25
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I feel like Gil Thorp might actually be a strip if it slowed down and showed more than one out of three beats in any given story.quote:Gil Thorp Like is the woman in red some sort of... vape wholesaler? She sounds more like a fundraising organizer or something. And you know, vapes being treated with the same casual shadiness of hard drugs instead of something sold everywhere. In that last panel these two guys are up to something but I'm not even sure the author knows what.
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Jan 21, 2023 21:03
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Ohh. Ohhhh. That first panel makes a lot more sense if they're delivering money to her instead of getting product from her. Yeah I get it now, and an extra strip of set up to go with each of these two would've smoothed it out a lot. I'm fine with newspaper strip redundancy because the good strips know how to get it over with. It's your Rip Haywires and Mark Trails that'll shamelessly stretch two days of strips into a week.
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Jan 21, 2023 22:12
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Poil posted:That doesn't even look like him. Yeah, it's dramatically better. Some Guy TT posted:The Demons of Baseball Winnie rules.
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Jan 22, 2023 15:45
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Odonata posted:Someone explain Jughead to me. Why are his eyes always closed? Why is he always scowling? Fighting Trousers posted:Followup question: Why does Jughead, supposed high school student, look like he's 35? Heavy is the crown.
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Jan 25, 2023 02:49
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Hempuli posted:I probably complained about it last time too, but that last comic there encapsulates why this comic sucks really well. It's a well made comic but it's such a downer to the point that it stops being funny. All I think after every batch is "Virt would be really happy if he got in his car and drove in one direction. Or murdered everyone he knew." Making me miss Mr Milquetoast, who was pretty well meaning while being the butt of the joke almost every time. Doomykins fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jan 27, 2023 |
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Jan 27, 2023 16:20
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Murdstone posted:His plan is to take care of the kid for like a decade to hopefully get the money if the kid doesn't get too independent by then. He does plan to dump the kid as soon as he gets paid but yeah, adopting him from his abusive stepmother and raising him seems like a pretty stand up thing to do for a villain. If he was really cunning he'd make a sincere effort at it and if Mike is deemed independent enough to get the inheritance then Mike will probably be pretty inclined to treat his adoptive father well. quote:Mark Trail So the easy thing to do would be to mock the bad art and writing but I think the greater crime is spending a week of redundant strips stressing the danger of literally dozens of gators in a pile being within lunging distance and never drawing a single one actually making more than a territorial jaw opening at Mark. A bit more support for my theory that Jules can't actually draw animals. Two months of set up and then to not draw the red meat of the action.
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Jan 28, 2023 19:53
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EasyEW posted:
I hope not. "Things change, so don't criticize me" is pretty weak. I even like Randy's Popeye but I realize now that he spent 4-5 weeks telling roughly the same joke(and telling it well, admittedly) plus a few decent accessory jokes about some third-stringers as his first ongoing story. I mentioned awhile ago that Randy was having trouble at first with depicting action, the strip really is mostly SP with a Popeye skin, and considering how often he has played the "I've exhaustively read the Popeye wiki and Thimble Theatre strips" card, well, he's getting there but I think he should really try to take up the mantle of the insane IP they let him have. Come on Randy, give us a full length rambling story with TT action and adventure! He's just shown he can carry a plotline across Sundays! Genuine gut busters today.
Doomykins fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Jan 30, 2023 |
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Jan 29, 2023 23:46
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Giant Ethicist posted:
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 
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Jan 30, 2023 00:32
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Murdstone posted:Mark Trail Cool hands in panel 2! Last week I really didn't think Jules and Mark would be so dumb that Mark would push the boat into the water and then not immediately grab the literally adjacent railings:  But shame on me for thinking this strip will ever do something smart. The gators haven't even approached the boat this entire time, why activate the engine before Mark gets back in at all? Some Guy TT posted:The Demons of Baseball Yeesh. Kinda making the "no contact with the outside world while we torture you" training seem a bit much, eh? Maybe letting the boys write letters wouldn't have broken their focus after all.
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Jan 30, 2023 21:38
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Murdstone posted:Mark Trail hahahahahahaha holy gently caress Jules just tell them you want out of your contract, have some god drat dignity A contender but not quite beating 12 foot tall Rusty and the skate ramp.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:21
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Please do not mock Bets' tiny arm. She has family in the Mark Trail universe.
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Feb 3, 2023 15:28
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Murdstone posted:Mark Trail Jules is clearly bored of the absurdly lame story she decided to tell so it likely is unless we get a really bad Simpsons style plot extension. quote:The Phantom LMAO just make this strip about Phantom and Sarvana kicking fascist rear end everywhere tia.
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Feb 3, 2023 20:19
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Luann authors just uh, wrote this entire week+ of strips out and didn't reread the dialogue for a second, did they? "Wait a second, all the primary PoV characters are REALLY unlikeable!"
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Feb 4, 2023 19:50
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For the Ghost Who Flirts Awkwardly*!! *Translated from the Bandar tongue.
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Feb 5, 2023 01:26
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I really wanna read Fungoid. "Skip" Perkins! The shorter stories with no b plots might really help Mark Trail's pacing a lot but Jules phoned in an even more embarrassing nothing story than usual so it's very hard to tell. Also beating the boat thing to death and then the corpse into dust.
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Feb 6, 2023 19:55
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Jules would never honor Jamesallen, Mark caused a boatload of fireworks to explode in the first storyline where he made up with his estranged dad. It's real touching, the first major plothole in New Trail where Mark almost literally steps off camera and teleports away from Florida and all consequences as though it was a Peter vs Giant Chicken gag on Family Guy. I assume Mark's dad just murdered the clear and present eye witness Mark was fighting in that boat.
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Feb 7, 2023 16:37
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This would be an incredibly good time for Mark to remember he can talk to animals. Surely Jules won't disappoint for the 20th time in a row.
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Feb 8, 2023 01:09
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readingatwork posted:Blind Alley You know, Blind Alley isn't badly done but I think this perfectly summarizes the problem with its pacing. If I held a gun to your head and didn't let you search the past strips could you match those names to any of the characters? Hell, I can barely tell that Not-Ness is there after the deliberate effort to make them actually Not-Ness. And if they have a name, well, blow my brains out if you think I'm going remember it. I can't even remember the Hippies having a beef, Pod being around(who?) or why a Popeye character is real to these children. Giant Ethicist posted:Cthulhu and Girl Hitting even harder than I expected. 
Doomykins fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 03:52
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