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%% Due to the nature of this trope, finding a proper image will be very tricky.
%% DO NOT add an image to this page without discussion in Image Pickin'.
%% Image Pickin' thread for reference: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1482208684003082500
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->''"You're why newspapers are shrinking the comics page."''
-->-- '''Rat''', ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine''

Newspapers have given us classics like ''ComicStrip/TheFamilyCircus'', ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' and ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}''. Unfortunately they have also given us several stinkers, as well. Common among the trash heap of the funnies are [[LazyArtist poor art]], jokes a 5 year old wouldn't find funny, poor characterization, and inane plots. There are also bad political cartoons, which have [[TheWarOnStraw bad caricatures of the opposing side]], poor arguments, and little purpose other than being {{Author Tract}}s.

For horrible comics on the internet, see Horrible/{{Webcomics}}.

For horrible graphic novels and comic books, see Horrible/ComicBooks.

'''''Important Note:''''' Merely being offensive in its subject matter isn't enough to justify a work as Horrible. Hard as it is to imagine at times, there's a market for all types of deviancy (no matter how small a niche it is). It has to fail to appeal even to that niche to qualify here.

----
!!Examples (more-or-less in alphabetical order):
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
%%Don't add 9 Chickweed Lane onto here. The strip won Best Newspaper Comic at the 2006 National Cartoonists Society Awards, and is therefore disqualified from being SBIH.
* '''''[[http://kingfeatures.com/comics/comics-a-z/?id=Between_Friends Between Friends]]''''' is best described as a LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek in comic strip form, but without humor, intentional or accidental. It's even worse whenever it tries to be serious. Nobody [[TheUnfairSex with a Y chromosome]] escapes unscathed unless they're [[AuthorAppeal Viggo Mortensen]] or a [[MrFanservice reasonable facsimile thereof]]. All the "empowered" women are depicted as insecure DoesThisMakeMeLookFat types who both agonize over buying the low-fat double-whipped frappuccino and pound back the cheesecake like there's no tomorrow; they don't fare well either.
* '''''[[http://comics.com/reply_all/ Reply All]]''''' doesn't even have the saving grace of having passable art, as it resembles a 5th-Grader's UsefulNotes/MSPaint webcomic. Pupils are drawn outside the actual eyes, characters' hairstyles make them seem balding, blatant copy-pasting makes the characters appear superimposed upon the backgrounds. Even the jokes are so flatly delivered they become hard to distinguish. '''''[[https://www.gocomics.com/reply-all-lite Reply All Lite]]''''', a single-panel "condensed" version of Reply All, manages to be ''worse'' by removing what little structure the original comic even had.
* '''''Shadows''''', which ran in The Sun, has a poor script and even poorer CG artwork. It also blatantly [[FollowTheLeader panders on the current vampire trend]]. Strangely, [[ReplacementScrappy it replaced]] ''Striker'', a much better strip that had run for years. Fortunately, it got cancelled in early 2013 and ''Striker'' was brought back.
* '''''[[http://comics.com/working_it_out/ Working It Out]]''''' is a comic so violently unfunny that it might accidentally get a pity laugh out of the reader. Most of the "jokes" consist of really bad puns, boring and unfunny office "humor" everyone's heard a million times before, and things that seem like they're supposed to be jokes, but aren't. One example is a comic where the boss character is playing with his cell phone with the caption informing us that he likes to fire employees through text messages, and this "joke" was used ''twice''. Moreover, it doesn't realize which comics to reprint are relevant. For example, a [[http://www.gocomics.com/workingitout/2012/12/01 strip]] made in 2007 that references Myspace, which was quite big in that time, [[WereStillRelevantDammit was reprinted in 2012]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Political Cartoons]]
* '''''Counterthink''''' is a ridiculous mix of PETA and Scientology's most paranoid fantasies. Topics include why spending money on drugs, rather than [[AllNaturalSnakeOil herbal placebos]], is bad; "doctors are incompetent, egotistical butchers"; "[[ScienceIsBad technologies are dangerous]]"; and "chemical additives, including Fluoride, are evil."
* '''''The Leftersons!''''' is a political themed comic in the vein of ''ComicStrip/MallardFillmore''. It somehow manages to be ''both'' more {{Anvilicious}} and less funny than its inspiration. The creator of the comic doesn't seem to understand American Liberalism, and so the strip fails at satire. The characters have no personality to speak of. The art is unbelievably boring; many panels, and even layouts for entire strips, are [[CutAndPasteComic reused again and again with random background color changes]].
** An example of its failure: the son of this StrawCharacter family is named Stalin and wears a Darwin-fish shirt, and his hair is done in a random-ass TotallyRadical 1980s punk style, which shows you how up to date the author is.
* Many consider the reactions in the political strips of '''''ComicStrip/MallardFillmore''''' a textbook example of ConfirmationBias. The problem with that idea is that much of those with similar views (conservatives, especially older ones) don't find the strip funny, either. Those on the opposite side of the political spectrum tend to find the comic blatantly insulting, which is probably the point. Non-political readers just find it joke-free. Check any comics board with a newspaper section and note how many posts on [[FanNickname "The Duck"]] contain the phrase [[DontShootTheMessage "I'm a conservative, but..."]]. The comic itself would probably be relegated to right-wing websites and newsletters were it not used as a "counter-balance" for the liberal viewpoints presented in ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}''[[note]]Indeed, as papers started dropping ''Doonesbury'' reruns, ''MF'' was dropped right alongside them.[[/note]]. It tends to substitute talk radio talking points for punchlines, forgets to do its research, and it frequently repeats the same "joke" over several strips from slightly different angles. It overuses [[StrawCharacter Straw Liberals]] and stereotypes of people of color, many of whom are in the regular cast. This is made all the sadder because Bruce Tinsley's occasional non-political strips can be genuinely funny and do show a flair for observational humor. Unfortunately, those strips make up less than 10% of the strip's output. Discussing ''Mallard Fillmore'' on Blog/TheComicsCurmudgeon is now an automatic banning offense.
** It may be redundant to mention, but ''Mallard Fillmore'' also has horribly lazy and ugly art which often consists only of [[TalkingHeads the duck's head shoved into a corner]] by a WallOfText. And if it's not ''that,'' you'll often see Mallard splayed out in front of the television with his (thankfully undetailed) crotch on full display.
* '''''ComicStrip/MinimumSecurity''''' is a naturalist comic about a girl and her anthropomorphic animal friends. It is filled with terrible artwork, [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop aesops that support using extreme violence]] (one strip features one of the main characters ''blowing up a TV station'' ''[[DisproportionateRetribution for not supporting their views]]'') and [[StrawCharacter straw characters representing people the artist disagrees with]], which are non-vegetarians, Republicans, car drivers, people who buy things, wear clothes, use the internet, exist, etc. The artist has tried doing more conventional humor and failed at it. She also collaborated with another naturist artist to make ''As The World Burns'' (which can be found listed in [[Horrible/ComicBooks the page for Comic Books]]). [[DontShootTheMessage Even the groups it is targeted at believe it to be too extreme and enforcing for their taste]]. You can still read the old strips online in a sense of {{Irony}}, as the artist frequently mocks technological advancement. However, [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes some strips haven't been found nor scanned as they were originally printed on obscure newspapers]].
[[/folder]]
----

to:

%%
%%
%% Due to the nature of this trope, finding a proper image will be very tricky.
%% DO NOT add an image to this page without discussion in Image Pickin'.
%% Image Pickin' thread for reference: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1482208684003082500
%%
%%
->''"You're why newspapers are shrinking the comics page."''
-->-- '''Rat''', ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine''

Newspapers have given us classics like ''ComicStrip/TheFamilyCircus'', ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' and ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}''. Unfortunately they have also given us several stinkers, as well. Common among the trash heap of the funnies are [[LazyArtist poor art]], jokes a 5 year old wouldn't find funny, poor characterization, and inane plots. There are also bad political cartoons, which have [[TheWarOnStraw bad caricatures of the opposing side]], poor arguments, and little purpose other than being {{Author Tract}}s.

For horrible comics on the internet, see Horrible/{{Webcomics}}.

For horrible graphic novels and comic books, see Horrible/ComicBooks.

'''''Important Note:''''' Merely being offensive in its subject matter isn't enough to justify a work as Horrible. Hard as it is to imagine at times, there's a market for all types of deviancy (no matter how small a niche it is). It has to fail to appeal even to that niche to qualify here.

----
!!Examples (more-or-less in alphabetical order):
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
%%Don't add 9 Chickweed Lane onto here. The strip won Best Newspaper Comic at the 2006 National Cartoonists Society Awards, and is therefore disqualified from being SBIH.
* '''''[[http://kingfeatures.com/comics/comics-a-z/?id=Between_Friends Between Friends]]''''' is best described as a LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek in comic strip form, but without humor, intentional or accidental. It's even worse whenever it tries to be serious. Nobody [[TheUnfairSex with a Y chromosome]] escapes unscathed unless they're [[AuthorAppeal Viggo Mortensen]] or a [[MrFanservice reasonable facsimile thereof]]. All the "empowered" women are depicted as insecure DoesThisMakeMeLookFat types who both agonize over buying the low-fat double-whipped frappuccino and pound back the cheesecake like there's no tomorrow; they don't fare well either.
* '''''[[http://comics.com/reply_all/ Reply All]]''''' doesn't even have the saving grace of having passable art, as it resembles a 5th-Grader's UsefulNotes/MSPaint webcomic. Pupils are drawn outside the actual eyes, characters' hairstyles make them seem balding, blatant copy-pasting makes the characters appear superimposed upon the backgrounds. Even the jokes are so flatly delivered they become hard to distinguish. '''''[[https://www.gocomics.com/reply-all-lite Reply All Lite]]''''', a single-panel "condensed" version of Reply All, manages to be ''worse'' by removing what little structure the original comic even had.
* '''''Shadows''''', which ran in The Sun, has a poor script and even poorer CG artwork. It also blatantly [[FollowTheLeader panders on the current vampire trend]]. Strangely, [[ReplacementScrappy it replaced]] ''Striker'', a much better strip that had run for years. Fortunately, it got cancelled in early 2013 and ''Striker'' was brought back.
* '''''[[http://comics.com/working_it_out/ Working It Out]]''''' is a comic so violently unfunny that it might accidentally get a pity laugh out of the reader. Most of the "jokes" consist of really bad puns, boring and unfunny office "humor" everyone's heard a million times before, and things that seem like they're supposed to be jokes, but aren't. One example is a comic where the boss character is playing with his cell phone with the caption informing us that he likes to fire employees through text messages, and this "joke" was used ''twice''. Moreover, it doesn't realize which comics to reprint are relevant. For example, a [[http://www.gocomics.com/workingitout/2012/12/01 strip]] made in 2007 that references Myspace, which was quite big in that time, [[WereStillRelevantDammit was reprinted in 2012]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Political Cartoons]]
* '''''Counterthink''''' is a ridiculous mix of PETA and Scientology's most paranoid fantasies. Topics include why spending money on drugs, rather than [[AllNaturalSnakeOil herbal placebos]], is bad; "doctors are incompetent, egotistical butchers"; "[[ScienceIsBad technologies are dangerous]]"; and "chemical additives, including Fluoride, are evil."
* '''''The Leftersons!''''' is a political themed comic in the vein of ''ComicStrip/MallardFillmore''. It somehow manages to be ''both'' more {{Anvilicious}} and less funny than its inspiration. The creator of the comic doesn't seem to understand American Liberalism, and so the strip fails at satire. The characters have no personality to speak of. The art is unbelievably boring; many panels, and even layouts for entire strips, are [[CutAndPasteComic reused again and again with random background color changes]].
** An example of its failure: the son of this StrawCharacter family is named Stalin and wears a Darwin-fish shirt, and his hair is done in a random-ass TotallyRadical 1980s punk style, which shows you how up to date the author is.
* Many consider the reactions in the political strips of '''''ComicStrip/MallardFillmore''''' a textbook example of ConfirmationBias. The problem with that idea is that much of those with similar views (conservatives, especially older ones) don't find the strip funny, either. Those on the opposite side of the political spectrum tend to find the comic blatantly insulting, which is probably the point. Non-political readers just find it joke-free. Check any comics board with a newspaper section and note how many posts on [[FanNickname "The Duck"]] contain the phrase [[DontShootTheMessage "I'm a conservative, but..."]]. The comic itself would probably be relegated to right-wing websites and newsletters were it not used as a "counter-balance" for the liberal viewpoints presented in ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}''[[note]]Indeed, as papers started dropping ''Doonesbury'' reruns, ''MF'' was dropped right alongside them.[[/note]]. It tends to substitute talk radio talking points for punchlines, forgets to do its research, and it frequently repeats the same "joke" over several strips from slightly different angles. It overuses [[StrawCharacter Straw Liberals]] and stereotypes of people of color, many of whom are in the regular cast. This is made all the sadder because Bruce Tinsley's occasional non-political strips can be genuinely funny and do show a flair for observational humor. Unfortunately, those strips make up less than 10% of the strip's output. Discussing ''Mallard Fillmore'' on Blog/TheComicsCurmudgeon is now an automatic banning offense.
** It may be redundant to mention, but ''Mallard Fillmore'' also has horribly lazy and ugly art which often consists only of [[TalkingHeads the duck's head shoved into a corner]] by a WallOfText. And if it's not ''that,'' you'll often see Mallard splayed out in front of the television with his (thankfully undetailed) crotch on full display.
* '''''ComicStrip/MinimumSecurity''''' is a naturalist comic about a girl and her anthropomorphic animal friends. It is filled with terrible artwork, [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop aesops that support using extreme violence]] (one strip features one of the main characters ''blowing up a TV station'' ''[[DisproportionateRetribution for not supporting their views]]'') and [[StrawCharacter straw characters representing people the artist disagrees with]], which are non-vegetarians, Republicans, car drivers, people who buy things, wear clothes, use the internet, exist, etc. The artist has tried doing more conventional humor and failed at it. She also collaborated with another naturist artist to make ''As The World Burns'' (which can be found listed in [[Horrible/ComicBooks the page for Comic Books]]). [[DontShootTheMessage Even the groups it is targeted at believe it to be too extreme and enforcing for their taste]]. You can still read the old strips online in a sense of {{Irony}}, as the artist frequently mocks technological advancement. However, [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes some strips haven't been found nor scanned as they were originally printed on obscure newspapers]].
[[/folder]]
----
[[redirect:Horrible/ComicStrips]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:


* ... and speaking of that, many consider the reactions in the political strips of '''''ComicStrip/MallardFillmore''''' a textbook example of ConfirmationBias. The problem with that idea is that much of those with similar views (conservatives, especially older ones) don't find the strip funny, either. Those on the opposite side of the political spectrum tend to find the comic blatantly insulting, which is probably the point. Non-political readers just find it joke-free. Check any comics board with a newspaper section and note how many posts on [[FanNickname "The Duck"]] contain the phrase [[DontShootTheMessage "I'm a conservative, but..."]]. The comic itself would probably be relegated to right-wing websites and newsletters were it not used as a "counter-balance" for the liberal viewpoints presented in ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}''[[note]]Indeed, as papers started dropping ''Doonesbury'' reruns, ''MF'' was dropped right alongside them.[[/note]]. It tends to substitute talk radio talking points for punchlines, forgets to do its research, and it frequently repeats the same "joke" over several strips from slightly different angles. It overuses [[StrawCharacter Straw Liberals]] and stereotypes of people of color, many of whom are in the regular cast. This is made all the sadder because Bruce Tinsley's occasional non-political strips can be genuinely funny and do show a flair for observational humor. Unfortunately, those strips make up less than 10% of the strip's output. Discussing ''Mallard Fillmore'' on Blog/TheComicsCurmudgeon is now an automatic banning offense.

to:

* ... and speaking of that, many * Many consider the reactions in the political strips of '''''ComicStrip/MallardFillmore''''' a textbook example of ConfirmationBias. The problem with that idea is that much of those with similar views (conservatives, especially older ones) don't find the strip funny, either. Those on the opposite side of the political spectrum tend to find the comic blatantly insulting, which is probably the point. Non-political readers just find it joke-free. Check any comics board with a newspaper section and note how many posts on [[FanNickname "The Duck"]] contain the phrase [[DontShootTheMessage "I'm a conservative, but..."]]. The comic itself would probably be relegated to right-wing websites and newsletters were it not used as a "counter-balance" for the liberal viewpoints presented in ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}''[[note]]Indeed, as papers started dropping ''Doonesbury'' reruns, ''MF'' was dropped right alongside them.[[/note]]. It tends to substitute talk radio talking points for punchlines, forgets to do its research, and it frequently repeats the same "joke" over several strips from slightly different angles. It overuses [[StrawCharacter Straw Liberals]] and stereotypes of people of color, many of whom are in the regular cast. This is made all the sadder because Bruce Tinsley's occasional non-political strips can be genuinely funny and do show a flair for observational humor. Unfortunately, those strips make up less than 10% of the strip's output. Discussing ''Mallard Fillmore'' on Blog/TheComicsCurmudgeon is now an automatic banning offense.

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