History TakeThat / ComicStrips

* Make of this what you will, but toward the end of ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'', Charles Schulz produced an arc in which Charlie Brown goes to renew Snoopy's dog license, and a few strips with other licenses sent to him. In the last strip, Charlie Brown was told that Snoopy didn't need a license for 'that', shown in the last panel: an assault rifle.
** If anything, that was a "Take That" against the National Rifle Association.

-->"Buttons sometimes break. Use 40 tokens to diagnose the problem."

*** It made a similar TakeThat at girls who watched ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' only because of Creator/OrlandoBloom and not because of a nerdy devotion to the book. This being Jason, it doesn't cross his mind that there can be overlap between those fan groups.

* It was inevitable that someone would do this regarding the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}. According to ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'', "Soon kids across the world will be rushing home from school so they can Wii."
* ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' has actually done a Take That against the entirety of newspaper comics. In one story, the father of the family is forced to confront the fact that the comic strip he loved as a kid, "Captain Goofball," has lost all its appeal over the years, and is simply no longer funny. It's basically the author's way of commenting on the way that there are so many comics in the newspapers these days which were once funny, once had a lot of appeal, but are now simply tired and boring ("Garfield" or "Family Circus", anyone?).
** This is a much lighter Take That than many of the other examples on the page, in that Amend is willing to admit that they ''were'' funny. You'd never hear Watterson say that.
*** And he usually refrains from taking shots at specific comics in general, although he will give them some good-natured ribbing on occasion (like a strip poking fun at the political commentary in ''ComicStrip/TheBoondocks'').
** ''[=FoxTrot=]'' also shows how vampires everywhere have been DarthWiki/RuinedForever [[http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2009/10/25 here]].
*** It made a similar TakeThat at girls who watched ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' only because of Creator/OrlandoBloom and not because of a nerdy devotion to the book.

* Mark Tatulli's ''Lio'' is known as much for its morbid sense of humor as it is for its parodies of other comics. He got a lot of interweb hits when he took a few shots at ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'', but it may initially seem strange that he frequently shows his main character tormenting the kids from ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}''. But not so much when you discover that he received a torrent of hatemail when a newspaper used ''Lio'' as a replacement for ''Peanuts'' reruns.

* Mark Tatulli's ''Lio'' is known as much for its morbid sense of humor as it is for its parodies of other comics. He got a lot of interweb hits when he took a few shots at ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'', but it may seem strange that he frequently shows his main character tormenting the kids from ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}''. Not so much when you discover that he received a torrent of hatemail when a newspaper used ''Lio'' as a replacement for ''Peanuts'' reruns.

* While ''Sally Forth'' is known for being rather safe material, the current author Francesco Marciuliano tends to take repeated jabs at his competition using his own webcomic ''[[http://www.medium-large.com/ Medium Large]]''. He usually does this by portraying well-loved icons in disturbing scenarios, but he once did a more pointed strip referring to ''Momma'' as "starring some squiggles and what may be a nose."
** Of course, he takes jabs at ''Sally Forth'' [[http://mediumlarge.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/thursday-april-8-2010/ too]].

** On the announcement of the retirement of the comic strip ComicStrip/{{Cathy}}, Stephan posted some [[http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/on-the-retirement-of-the-comic-strip-cathy/ ruminations]] on how the many Take Thats he had made early in his career, and how Cathy Guisewite responded. Mildly heart-warming.

** ''Family Circus'' itself [[http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/ive-already-contacted-a-lawyer/ responded]] to ''Pearls Before Swine'''s Take Thats with a strip where the kids read a book called ''Pig and Rat Get Lost'', which causes them to leave the room to watch TV.

** On such ''Pearls Before Swine'' storyline showed the Family Circus family ''harboring Osama bin Laden''. Yes, it's RefugeInAudacity, but it manages to be funny while pointing out how [[{{Glurge}} glurgy]] and trapped in the past Family Circus is.
*** And, at least if Pastis' directors commentary is to be believed, Bil Keane actually liked those strips.
*** At a comics convention, Pastis was giving a talk, and mentioned strips using each others' characters, adding that it was all done in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Jeff Keane (now doing the strip) stood up and yelled "Go to Hell, Pastis!" and stormed out. It was all staged, of course.

* ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine'' is pretty well known for take-thats, usually in the mouth of the resident {{Jerkass}} Rat, or the psychopathic Guard Duck. Popular targets are ''ComicStrip/{{Cathy}}'' and ''ComicStrip/FamilyCircus''. The strip also mocks itself, so Pastis probably doesn't mean it... most of the time.

--> "I have committed other thefts with a clean and unfettered conscience. ''Garfield'' was too calculated and too successful not to freely raid for illicit character cameos. ''Calvin and Hobbes'' was too good not to. ''Calvin'' creator Bill Watterson took these thefts in stride and retaliated in private with devastatingly effective illustrated salvos, hitting me in my most vulnerable places. Bill's sketch is an editorial comment on my addiction to the expensive sport of power boating and the moral compromises needed to fund it. That's me doing the kicking. The chap on the dock represents my cartoon syndicate boss, which says it all, methinks."

** Bill Watterson's foreword to Bill Amend's first ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' book is basically an extended take that against Jim Davis. For example, Watterson champions Quincy the Iguana for not thinking "the cute thoughts that quickly get most comic strip animals in the greeting card business."
*** Of course, one could also make the case that there are no Quincy the Iguana cards because the average person thinks ReptilesAreAbhorrent.
*** And now that Quincy is arguably the most popular character and [[WolverinePublicity appears on the cover of almost every book, calendar and other piece of ''[=FoxTrot=]'' merchandise]] (which to be fair still isn't all that much) Watterson probably doesn't care.

** ''ComicStrip/LaCucaracha'' once did a subtle take that to ''Pearls''. In a response to [[http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2005/06/26 the strip]] where Rat wrote a letter to a comic syndicate saying strips appealing to minority groups aren't funny, ''La Cucaracha'' (one of the said demographic strips) [[http://www.gocomics.com/lacucaracha/2005/08/14 did a Sunday strip]] a couple months later that features the main characters getting a similar letter, signed by "Steve Pasty", who is depicted as a redneck white trash. Unlike other examples listed, which are meant to be light-hearted, this one is actually meant to be critical of Pastis, and was drawn as a rebuttal to his points.

* [[SmallNameBigEgo Brooke McEldowney]], author of ''ComicStrip/NineChickweedLane'', had his author avatar Thorax breezily condemn anyone who didn't like the [[PowZapWhamCam warped perspective]], [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness ornate dialogue]] and [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop Ayn-Randesque morals]] of his characters as imbeciles; he had earlier blamed his being forced to move his more openly sexualized fantasy strip Pibgorn on beefwits who were stuck in the past.

** ''Family Circus'' itself [[http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/ive-already-contacted-a-lawyer/ responded]] to ''Pearls Before Swine'''s Take Thats with a strip where the kids are read a book called ''Pig and Rat Get Lost'', which causes them to leave the room to watch TV.

** The comic took a subtle shot at some of his critics and readers with a Sunday strip that saw [[http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20070930&name=Funky_Winkerbean Les Moore reading the Sunday comics]] to his bedridden wife Lisa, remarking "They always made you laugh. I guess that's why they're called the funnies." This was Tom Batiuk's response to critics' complaints about the recent lack of humor in ''Winkerbean'', especially because of the "Lisa's cancer" storyline. He wasn't too pleased that people didn't like him slowly [[TrueArtIsAngsty torturing one his characters to death]] in what used to be a gag strip.

* ''ComicStrip/BigNate'' has [[TakeThat/BigNate its own page]].

* It was inevitable that someone would do this regarding the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}. According to ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'', "Soon kids across the world will be rushing home from school so they can Wii." Then again, this is arguably funny enough to merit a pass.

** Not a political comic, but when the sound effect for barfing is '''''[[UsefulNotes/BarackObama BARRACK]]''''' two days in a row...

* It was inevitable that someone would do this regarding the {{Wii}}. According to ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'', "Soon kids across the world will be rushing home from school so they can Wii." Then again, this is arguably funny enough to merit a pass.

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* ''Liberty Meadows'' has often parodied other newspaper comics. While some of these parodies are affectionate, others are clearly take-thats. For example, one arc had Frank on a date with "Debbie the Psycho," a thinly-veiled ''Cathy'' stand-in who constantly babbled about swimsuits and her weight, nearly [[DrivenToSuicide driving him suicidal]]. Other strips mocked the sentimental banality of late-period {{Peanuts}}.

* Make of this what you will, but toward the end of ''{{Peanuts}}'', Charles Schulz produced an arc in which Charlie Brown goes to renew Snoopy's dog license, and a few strips with other licenses sent to him. In the last strip, Charlie Brown was told that Snoopy didn't need a license for 'that', shown in the last panel: an assault rifle.

*** It made a similar TakeThat at girls who watched LordOfTheRings only because of Creator/OrlandoBloom and not because of a nerdy devotion to the book.

** ''[=FoxTrot=]'' also shows how vampires everywhere have been DarthWiki/RuinedForever [[http://www.foxtrot.com/2009/10/10252009/ here]].