I think cartooning is a great form of art that is often overlooked. Even thoughs (EDIT: OMG, I can't believe I actually spelled "those" like that!) who do it themselves don't quite grasp the idea of providing humour through the art of cartooning. Some cartoons really lack visual appeal, and most cartoonist stay in the game long after they should just for the money (I've got your lasagna right here, Garfield!). But just like any form of art, it's not about the money, it's about what you want to express, and how you express it, even if it's humour. Just like musicians, poet, or painters, cartoonists definately deserve respect amongst the art community for its style and creating one of the most important human responses, laughter.

I hope people use this thread to talk about some of their favourite comics and either share some great "works" lol, opinions about comics, or even cartoons on TV (web comics are welcome as well). Please don't talk about comic superheroes and its art though. I think that's a subject which deserves its own thread. ALL OPINIONS SHOULD BE CONSTRUCTIVE! I'm not so much concerned about "I think (insert comic) is great." without explaining why as I am "(Insert comic) sucks." Comments like those are annoying, especially if he who say them isn't intelligent enough to explain why.

One cartoonist that I believe who certainly deserves recognition though is Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes. None of his comics come without a great story or drawing which either shows fantastic detail or hightens the humour of his strip. He's one of the rare people who shows he understand cartooning as an art form through his strip alone.

I'll share some examples (I was going to scan them, but this project led me to discover my scanner is broken):



This comic is pretty unconventional, in that it shows a lot of black. People don't draw this much into a strip often just for a few laughs, and I think it shows much originality. The thing I like most about Calvin and Hobbes is the center of the strip is a small child. Watterson uses that to create wonderful landscapes or story styles, such as film noir, to reflect a child's imagination.




This is also unconvention in that Sunday strips are usually shown with traditional sets of boxes and your average dialogue. Instead, Watterson tells a story through a poem Calvin wrote with long verticle panels, illustrating each stanza and Earth's plight perfectly in just four panels. His creative style is shown best through his Sunday strips. I recommend picking up a collection of his comics the next time you're at a book store and at least browsing through the book, if you aren't already familiar with it.


Umm... lol ok someone else, please.

lol Maybe I should specify that it doesn't have to be as in depth as I took it. All the other stuff was just bonus insight on the topic that one could delve into if they pleased. Just post funny strips or about comics you like. I put most of that crap so it didn't seem like one of those "post your favourite comics here" threads with the "we already have a 'favourites' thread" response. Just put pictures or links to funny strips. Or is it people are just scared of reading posts with lots of typing?

You said we could also express our opinions on cartoons on TV, and so I shall. My favourite cartoons are all on Cartoon Network, and they are:

<center> </center>

Dexter's Laboratory is probably my all-time favourite cartoon. The first few seasons are HILARIOUSLY funny, nearly every episode of them. And there are many. But then, they switched the animation style and some of the voice actors, and the show became unfunny and uninteresting. But the original seasons still remain brilliantly hilarious works of cartooning. My favourite episodes are probably the one with the mechanical parrot ("Dexter's a cookie!"), the opera episode depicting the story of Dexter's birth, and the Mach 5 episode, in which everybody tooks extremely fast and have very long monologues. There are so many others that I love, though, such as the Muffin King episode, the Dodgeball episode, the James Bond episode, the Action Hank episode, and many more.

Samurai Jack, while lacking the brilliant comedy of previous Genndy Tartakovsky creations such as Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls, makes up for it with absolutely breathtaking visuals and design, awesome animation, and interesting and original plots, stories and ideas. Any fan of animation should check out this show. My favourite episodes: when Jack learns to jump good from the furry blue monkeys, Jack and the Scotsman with the machine gun leg, the Three Blind Archers episode, and the first episode with Demongo the soul collector.

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is a relatively new show, and it only has a handful of episodes, but what episodes it has showcase absolutely brilliant cartooning work. The characters are wonderfully designed and characterized, the animation style, achived mainly with Macromedia Flash, is smooth and wonderful to look at, and the episodes are interesting, original and brilliantly funny. Bloo might be one of my favourite animated character. I don't have a favourite episode, they're all equally charming and sweet.

Another show I occasionally enjoy is The Powerpuff Girls. While many of the episodes aren't that interesting, occasionally they come up with some absolutely BRILLIANT episodes. For example, the Beat-Alls episode is probably my favourite episode of any cartoon on TV. Other brilliant ones are when Miss Bellum is kidnapped (the entire episode is an homage to The Big Lebowski), the episode where Mojo Jojo has to babysit the girls ("If I were a rake I'd rake Rake RAKE!"), and a few others.

I use to love Dexter's Laboratory (and Power Puff Girls for that matter), but I stopped watching cartoons all together for a while until my girlfriend helped rekindle my love for animated humour. She watches Nickelodeon, so I tend to watch a lot of Spongebob and Fairly OddParents (FOP). I don't find FOP's animation to be too spectacular or original, but it's very witty. Spongebob has more detail in its background, and the jokes are often humourous. Another element Spongebob has in its animation is the inclusion of what they call "paintings," the single frame pictures that use far more detail to highten the joke. I don't see this often used. FOP uses these occasionally, but the only other cartoon that comes to mind at the moment that did was Ren & Stimpy. I wish I had a picture as an example of this.

I should start going to bed earlier.

I cannot express in words the immense love I have for Calvin and Hobbes. It seriously pains me everytime I see those pirate Calvin car stickers of him pissing on something. When/if I have kids I shall make them read every single Calvin and Hobbes comic ever created.

I don't remember watching too many cartoons on tv religiously, but I did love Daria.

Opus the penguin is awsome i luv his comic strips they make u and lol

I was hoping that this would be a Topic about Doug but you managed to use Calvin & Hobbes so I'm not at all disappointed.