Comics

Awhile back I mentioned writing about comics, and I did, but just as I was about completing my post, my laptop did a full blown lockup. The odd thing is that never happens, ever. It's a rock solid machine. It was a rather long post with lots of links too. Either bad karma or I wrote something to anger the gods. So I've waited about two weeks now for things to calm down and I'm going to try again (with lots of draft saves along the way).

I've read comics my whole life and loved them. I still have some comic books from the 50's and Mad Magazines, National Lampoons and more. But I'm really talking the daily newspaper type of comic here. This genre has moved to the age of the internet quite well, with many of the regulars available along with old discontinued strips rerun and new web comics. Just as an aside, I may never understand how Bill Waterman, Gary Larson and Berkeley Breathed all walked away from some of the most successful strips ever made. True artists I guess.

Lets start with the daily dead tree comics. I've bitched before about the way the Bakersfield Californian was stupid enough to let a voluntary non-scientific poll drop some of the best comics around. In particular Doonesbury and Non Sequitur, but this is Bakersfield. Unbelievable was putting in mildly. Sheer moronic stupidity and editors with a lack genitalia. Yet the Family Circus endures. Sigh......... need an online fix of these and some other good ones
http://miette.develooper.com/~ask/comics/
Besides the two mentioned there are reruns of Calvin & Hobbs (one of the best strips ever made) and Peanuts (good but not always). The Sunday Real Life Adventures and others that are hit and miss, Close to Home, Cornered, Loose Parts and Reynolds Unwrapped.

Other sites to look for comics.
Comics.com carries repeats of Lil Abner. Now I'm showing my age, but by the time the sixties rolled around I was just becoming a teenager and I was starting to 'get it'. You couldn't find a strip that was funnier and had political and social jabs that were better than the editorial page. Course as I said, I was weaned on Mad Magazine, and this was well before Doonesbury showed up. Other favorite of mine you can get there are Ballard Street and Frank & Ernest(Malaprop Man - terrible puns - love it).
Ucomics.com has some others we don't get in B'field as well as some old repeats too. Favorites include The Boondocks and Citizen Dog.

Now both these sites have both free and fee comics. The only one I wish I could see is Bloom County, but I'm not going to pay to reread it. Berkeley Breathed is without doubt one the the great comic strip writers and artists of our time. He's back again with OPUS which is not officially available online (but look hard and you can find them).

For newspaper sites with available comics try
http://sfgate.com/comics/
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/
both good for catching your favorites when not at home.

Next up in part deux - Web Comics