Line #35 Horrible/ComicStrips


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9	->''"You're why newspapers are shrinking the comics page."''
10	-->--'''Rat''', ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine''
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12	Newspapers have given us classics like ''ComicStrip/TheFamilyCircus'', ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'', and ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}''. Unfortunately, they've also given us several [[DarthWiki/SoBadItsHorrible 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.
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14	For horrible graphic novels and comic books, see Horrible/ComicBooks.
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16	'''''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. Additionally, to ensure that the work is judged with a clear mind and the hatred isn't just a knee-jerk reaction, as well as to allow opinions to properly form, '''[[Administrivia/NoRecentExamplesPlease examples should not be added until at least one month after release]]'''. This includes "sneaking" the entries onto the pages ahead of time by adding them and then just commenting them out.
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19	!!Examples (more-or-less in alphabetical order):
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22	[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
23	%%Don't add ''9 Chickweed Lane'' onto here. Since the strip won Best Newspaper Comic at the 2006 National Cartoonists Society Awards, it's disqualified from being SBIH.
24	* '''''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, and blatant copy-pasting makes the characters appear superimposed upon the backgrounds. The jokes are so poorly delivered that they become hard to distinguish from the actual dialogue. '''''Reply All Lite''''', a single-panel "condensed" version, somehow manages to be ''worse'' by removing what little structure the original comic even had.
25	* '''''[[http://comics.com/working_it_out/ Working It Out]]''''' is so violently unfunny that it can 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; this "joke" was used ''three times''. Worse, it doesn't realize which comics are relevant enough to reprint. For example, a [[http://www.gocomics.com/workingitout/2012/12/01 strip]] made in 2007 that references Myspace, which was big at the time, was reprinted in 2012 - after Facebook had overtaken Myspace as the most popular social media platform.
26	[[/folder]]
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28	[[folder:Political Cartoons]]
29	%%* '''''Counterthink''''' is a ridiculous mix of PETA and the ChurchOfHappyology'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."
30	%%Zero-context example. Needs more evidence that it's horrible beyond having an offensive subject matter.
31	* '''''The Leftersons!''''' is a politically-themed comic in the vein of ''Mallard Fillmore'' that somehow manages to be more {{Anvilicious}} and less funny than its inspiration. The creator of the comic doesn't seem to understand American Liberalism, so the strip fails at satire, and the characters have no personality to speak of. The art is unbelievably lazy: 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.
32	* Many consider the reactions in the political strips of '''''ComicStrip/MallardFillmore''''' a textbook example of ConfirmationBias. The problem with that idea is that many people with similar views (conservatives, especially older ones) don't find the strip funny, those on the opposite side of the political spectrum tend to find the comic blatantly insulting, and non-political readers just find it unfunny. It tends to substitute talk radio talking points for punchlines, forgets to do its research, and 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 actually pretty sad since Bruce Tinsley's non-political strips can be genuinely funny and do show a flair for observational humor; unfortunately, they make up less than 10% of the strip's output. Not helping is the fact that ''Mallard Fillmore'' has horribly lazy and ugly art, which often consists of either [[TalkingHeads the duck's head shoved into a corner]] by a WallOfText or Mallard splayed out in front of the television with his (thankfully) undetailed crotch on full display. In 2019, newspapers such as the San Diego Union-Tribune dropped the strip due to [[https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2019/08/31/san-diego-union-tribune-drops-mallard-fillmore-hate-speech/ antisemitic humor]], proving they no longer even found the comic a worthy balance to its liberal cohorts. This led to a long hiatus and Loren Fishman taking over Tinsley's duties making new comics in 2020. And then the entire Gannett newspaper chain [[http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2021/03/03/entire-gannett-group-drops-mallard-fillmore/ dropped the strip]] over its depiction of trans women athletes.
33	* '''''ComicStrip/MinimumSecurity''''' is a naturalist comic about a girl and her anthropomorphic animal friends. It is filled with terrible artwork, Aesops that support using extreme violence [[note]](for example, one strip features one of the main characters ''blowing up a TV station'' [[DisproportionateRetribution for not supporting their views]])[[/note]] and {{Straw Character}}s representing people the artist disagrees with, which would be: non-vegetarians, Republicans, car drivers, people who use the internet, people who support technological advancement, people who buy things, people who wear clothes, people who 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 in its primary demographic consider it 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 in obscure newspapers]].
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Context Horrible / ComicStrips