![]() ![]() Breathed insisted on certain standards for Opus that were alien to the industry: the freedom to tackle uncomfortable political issues, the refusal to publish his strip online, and the insistence on a full half-page from any newspaper that wanted to syndicate it. Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson openly (and successfully) battled for less restrictive standards for his Sunday comics, but he still managed to tell years of terrific stories in a four-panel format before retiring his strip in 1995, amid frustrations over near-constant attempts to commercialize it.Īnd that brings us back to Berkeley Breathed, who was heralded as a potential savior when he returned to the comics page with the Bloom County spin-off Opus. Decades before its slide into corporate mediocrity, Peanuts packed plenty of zen koan-like wisdoms into a four-panel format, which quickly became the industry standard. But while the conditions that led to canonical masterpieces like Little Nemo or Krazy Kat are long gone, it's not impossible to use the modern limitations of the medium to greater effect. But these are the exceptions to the rule in a medium that encourages its most successful creators to join a syndicate, start a conglomerate, and churn out a never-ending stream of comics endlessly riffing on the same themes.Ĭomic enthusiasts tend to wax nostalgic over the medium's glory days, when a cartoonist like Winsor McCay or George Herriman could command a full-color newspaper page for a single comic. In 2007, Funky Winkerbean creator Tom Batiuk drew similar controversy for a lengthy storyline that depicted a major character dying of breast cancer. For Better or For Worse - the rare newspaper comic to age its characters in real time - drew controversy for a number of polarizing storylines, from the death of family dog Farley to the revelation that a prominent supporting character was gay. When newspaper comics have pushed the limits of the medium, it's been in service of a different but related goal: serialization. Fred Basset makes bland, terrible jokes about a British dog.Įven the newspaper comics that made some vague stabs at contemporary resonance, like Dilbert or the now-defunct Cathy, quickly devolved into the same kind of shallow, repetitive gags they originally seemed to rebel against. Marmaduke makes bland, terrible jokes about a big dog. Hagar the Horrible makes bland, terrible jokes about a Viking. ![]() The Wizard of Id makes bland, terrible jokes about a kingdom. And it's not like the rest of his comics-page cohorts are any better. I don't mean to pick on Davis he's pretty upfront about Garfield being a business first and a comic strip second. "I'm involved in lots of meetings and there are always business decisions that have to be made since there are licensing, publishing, TV syndication deals in almost every country." I read e-mail, answer letters, address business issues," says series creator Jim Davis, explaining an average work day, on the official Garfield website. It's been a front for the multimillion-dollar Garfield brand, which survives only by pushing a supremely uninteresting character into the cultural consciousness. In all but the most literal of terms, Garfield hasn't been a comic strip for decades. The primary example of the art form's laziness is a comic strip devoted to the idea of being lazy: Garfield, which newspapers and readers alike politely tolerate as it drops a Monday-hating, lasagna-eating fart every day. The talent required to do so can currently be found at Boom! Studios, and hopefully, the Autobot/Decepticon war resumes in comic book form from this publisher soon.At a time when both the newspaper industry and the comics industry are looking to expand their market shares, it raises the question: Why are newspaper comics so terrible? These comics will likely be a fresh continuity, so care would have to be taken to avoid simply replaying the franchise's greatest hits. This could mean a lot of crossover potential, the Transformers and Power Rangers would make the most sense teaming up given the Zords' similarities to Cybertronians.Īs mentioned, neither Hasbro nor anyone else has come forward to state who will be handling the Transformers line from here on out. Boom! has also found success with Magic the Gathering, which, like Transformers and Power Rangers, is currently a Hasbro property. ![]() From classic heroes like Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Grimlock and the Dinobots, to newer faces such as Windblade and Drift, there's a lot of potential to give fans what they want while expanding beyond the well-trodden paths by focusing on more overlooked characters. ![]() Much like the various teams of Power Rangers, there are numerous Autobots and Decepticons to be focused on through multiple Transformers comics. ![]()
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