Why are funny animal comics dead?

As someone who likes Funny Animal media, I would love to know... Why are they pretty much dead in comic book form? Does anybody out there want to see a return of the Funny Animal genre?

Does Archie Sonic count?

Let me rephrase that... Comedic Funny Animal comics. Sonic has a degree of seriousness about it.

Ah. In that case, isn't DC still publishing Loony Tunes comics?

They are, yes, but I don't hear much about them.

Have you checked them out yourself?

Funny Animal comics are usually targetted towards children, while increases in the price of comics have made them harder for children to afford.

Well, except for Fritz The Cat and its ilk...

But you're right. Most funny animal characters these days are in licensed comics. It was the case even at the dawn of comics though.

My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic comics are huge right now, and Boom! Comics Disney line (including Darkwing Duck and Rescue Rangers) was doing excellently until Marvel and Disney yanked the licenses away just to sit on them without doing fucking anything with them. So there's still a market for that; publishers are just shortsighted and prefer ignoring it most of the time.

I usually see a couple of indie ones in "end of year" lists, but the genre not really my thing, unless it has some sort of adventure to it like the Scrooge Mc Duck ones.

My understanding is the genre is still fairly big in Europe.

Europe, I know, has more of a mix of comics than us, in that you can find funny comics readily available... And I damn well haven't been able to find any original, non-licensed funny comics that aren't indie in years.

Yeaaaah, they are definitely more common around here. Donald Duck comics for example are still somewhat big deal in Finland.

Except Donald Duck comics aren't original or unlicensed. I think that's what Aldo is looking for.

I was simply pointing out that funny animal comics and funny comics in general aren't easily found unless they're licensed. I don't mind them - when done well, they're good. But you generally don't see original comics that are funny.

I have to wonder if the spectacular "WTF happened here?!"-ness of Cerebus the Aardvark left a bad taste in the mouths of mainstream comic publishers, and that's why original "funny animal" titles are so rare in comparison to comic adaptations like MLP:FIM.

edited 16th Apr '14 10:56:15 AM by Willbyr

I never thought anybody would respond to this, it's been so long...

But even in the heyday of funny animal stuff a lot of it was licensed. There were original characters, sure, but you had the Disney comics, WB comics, a comic based around Columbia's Fox and the Crow cartoons... Adaptations of cartoons were common even then!

I don't think a comic for adults would have that effect on kids' titles. Adult funny animal comics seem to have gone, pretty much. Fritz the Cat and its like are dead.

edited 16th Apr '14 12:08:10 PM by Aldo930

There is much less of a "let's throw this out there and see what happens" attitude among comics publishers anymore. There isn't a lot of opportunity for risk, especially since there aren't any mainstream anthology comics like there used to be.