The list of comic strips I read, which I detailed here, has changed somewhat since that date. I’ve added a few comic strips and dropped others. The current list is 9 Chickweed Lane, Big Nate, Dilbert, Frazz, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, Pibgorn, Sheldon, Unfit, Foxtrot and The Order of the Stick. I’ve dropped, PvP, Rose is Rose and Luann; the additions are The Order of the Stick, 9 Chickweed Lane, Sheldon and Unfit. (OotS and Pibgorn update less frequently than once a day.)
PvP I stopped reading for the reasons listed here, and while I’ve read the odd strip since then (I’ve seen specific strips linked from other websites several times) I don’t really read it any longer.
Rose is Rose got the boot because it stopped being funny. Simple as that. It’s now merely “cute”. Part of this probably has to do with the fact that Pat Brady no longer has anything to do with the day to day creation of the comic. He’s the “creator” and some guy named Don Wimmer actually does the writing and illustrating.
I lost interest in reading Luann when it got less and less funny and the plotlines ceased to go anywhere. This, I have often noted, is a problem for some comic strips. Nothing changes for years, people don’t age, their lives don’t advance, their characters don’t change, but one day the artist wakes up and thinks “Character development! Persistent changes!” and proceeds to craft a storyline that alters the world of the comic strip or its characters in a lasting and permanent way. But then what? The story line runs its course and then the writer has to decide if he will continue to develop characters or allow them to become immobile once again in this new setting. The latter is the choice made by Greg Evans. Some comics can handle only advancing in a permanent way once in a blue moon. Luann cannot.
Unfit I started reading after I saw it on the front page of comics.com as the feature strip of the day one day. I read back through the 30 day archive and laughed quite a bit, so it got added to the daily rotation. Lately, however, the jokes have gotten stale and stupid and the artwork was always mediocre (and that’s being generous) so it’s one I’m thinking about dropping as well.
Sheldon was added in the same fashion as Unfit, but the artwork in it is of a higher quality and the humour has continued unabated. I don’t know that Sheldon is a comic that appears in newspapers, in fact, I rather doubt that it is. On rare occasions there will fail to be a comic available for a given day or two running and one would hardly think that a newspaper would accept that.
Finally, 9 Chickweed Lane is a comic by the same person that writes and illustrates Pibgorn. There are a few characters that occasionally cross-over between the strips, but Chickweed is much more firmly grounded in reality. I’m somewhat on the fence about it too since not too long ago since the cast of characters has changed and the current storyline involves a nun who ceased to be a nun because she fell in love with a priest and their currently burgeoning relationship. So far, nothing deal-breaking has happened that would cause me to quit reading, but I am uncomfortably suspicious that something of that nature is in the offing. Moreover, Pibgorn has ceased to be light-hearted and delightfully entertaining and rolled over into pretentiousness. I am hanging in there because the current storyline can last only so long and its end will, hopefully, mark a return to more enjoyable times.
Neh 