Lileks discusses a major decision at his newspaper:

Everyone was casting votes on new comics to replace Boondocks. It’s going on indefinite hiatus; the strain of drawing three panels of oversized TV sets illustrating sixteen consecutive “Brokeback” jokes has taken its toll, and the creator is stepping away for a while. The options were grim. You have no idea how many lame, derivative and unfunny strips the syndicates have – and those are the ones that got the syndie deals. Made me appreciate “Chickwood Lane” all the more, even though it annoys me for some reason. (It seems basted in its own self-regard. Still read it, though.) The editor had looked at the column I recommended, but said it wasn’t syndicated yet. It goes without saying that the brilliant Achewood comic cannot be featured in a family paper, and Penny Arcade would never bother to recalibrate its language just to be in the paper. I say that without sarcasm, incidentally: “being in the paper” isn’t the high holy calling it once was. Why should it be? There’s something about shooting for the mass market that blandifies comics into tepid farina. “Get Fuzzy” works, as does “Pearls Before Swine,” but they’re rare.

Let's say we start a blog campaign to replace Boondocks with this guy. I can just imagine the fusillade of simultaneously exploding liberal heads all over the nation. It would be hard to avoid bloggy triumphalism if that were to happen.

And of course, today Boondocks, tomorrow...Doonesbury. That would be the apocalypse.

"Let's say we start a blog campaign to replace Boondocks with this guy."

I looked at it. It's not funny. But if your criteria is whether or not it is politically correct, I guess that it doesn't have to be funny.

"But if your criteria is whether or not it is politically correct, I guess that it doesn't have to be funny."

That certainly explains why "The Boondocks" has survived all these years.

I live in Los Angeles. If the Strib signs places Day by Day, I will get a subscription by mail for a year.

There's a difference between funny and good. Boondocks was never funny to begin with, and Doonesbury hasn't been funny since the Earth's crust cooled. Yet a lot of people consider both of them to be good.

The point is that Muir tilts at targets that most Strib (and perhaps other newspapers') readers find sacrosanct, and the reaction of those readers would be more amusing than any collection of squiggles and words you can name.

And at a bare minimum, the characters are much more pleasing to the eye, even when they're not saying saying funny things.

Bring back Waterson!

Are you completely out of your mind? Look, I'm not a conservative, but you can't actually think that Day by Day is funny. That strip has simply got to be one of the most unfunny attempts at humor EVER. Muir is to comic strips what William Hung is to pop music.

Look, I'm not a conservative, but you can't actually think that Day by Day is funny.

I'm not a conservative, either, but I think it's often funny and generally quite biting. I can see, though, why some people don't think that having their pretentious viewpoints skewered is funny...

Mallard Fillmore, of course. Funny, with an incredibly high liberal irritation factor.

Day by Day is occasionally funny. The Boondocks was unfailingly, day in and day out, steeped in self-loathing.

I'm sorry, was that supposed to be a direct comparison? It just came out.

Really, Aaron whatever seems to have really been one angry guy at the way the world made him... rich and famous for very little work.

This guy has no political agenda and right now he only draws a strip a week (which I'm sure could be changed), but he's funny. Real funny.
http://www.no-town.com/

Yeah, I've never understood why so many comic strips really, really suck. It's like they barely even try.

Don't tell anyone that you don't like Boondocks. You could lose your NPR tote-bag privileges.

And as for Mallard Fillmore, it was "never ever ever funny. It's become this strident thing. He has his cast of straw men, like teachers, and he'll make some supposed joke like 'Gosh, they're not teaching kids, they're just giving them condoms,' and that's the punch line. What the f*** is that?" And the guy who said that -- Dan Perkins aka "Tom Tomorrow" -- draws a comic that is more insightful than Dilbert.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Boondocks animated show. I've found it to be quite good.

Maybe he's leaving the strip to focus more on the show?

I'll vote for day by day also. Yup, it's funny...and actually has believable characters...vs Dunes...whatever, whose characters are still in Viet Nam.

"Really, Aaron whatever seems to have really been one angry guy at the way the world made him... rich and famous for very little work."

Very little work. Only the first three years or so of the strip were actually drawn by him. It's actually drawn by a Boston artist named Jennifer Seng while Aaron's out doing his radical chic thing. He supplies the "ideas" ...

And Doonesbury hasn't been drawn by Garry Trudeau for a couple of decades.

Sam Hurt's Eyebeam has been gone for more than 20 years, but it's still funnier than half of what's in the papers now.

Sam's homepage

how about Prickly City? Fits all of Scott Adams points about cartoon humour (you have to hit several catagories at once to be humourous).

"I can see, though, why some people don't think that having their pretentious viewpoints skewered is funny..."

The example you linked to wasn't funny. Is it actually funny at other times? Or do you only support it because you agree with it?

Personally, I think that The Family Circus is the only good comic strip left. Little Billy, now that kid's a rascal...

I would like to suggest that it is not just Doonesbury and Boondocks that are political. If you notice, many "straight" comics and one-panel cartoons have taken to offering occasional gratuitous slaps at Christians, Bush, Conservatives, Cheney, etc. It gets cheap laughs. The whole comics page is going political.

Would it kill a paper to have one overtly conservative strip? Mallard just doesn't cut it - it should be something that can be daily and topical, like Doonesbury pretends to be.

So what will it take? Target a few very lib papers that carry Boondocks and Doonesbury already? My target would be the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Editor in Chief is Mark Trahant: marktrahant@seattlepi.com

Be nice, and just suggest a little political diversity could not hurt. After all, the P-I employs David Horsey as a political cartoonist, and David is one of those people who could find a way to use the word "Halliburton" in a cake recipe if he had to. Know what I mean?

How about replacing Boondocks with State of the Union ?

The example you linked to wasn't funny. Is it actually funny at other times? Or do you only support it because you agree with it?

Here's a clue, Tom. What's "funny" is a subjective thing. Just because you don't find it so doesn't mean that others won't, or shouldn't.

BUt in fact, I don't think of DBD as "funny" so much as satirical, and usually spot on. Kind of like I used to think of Doonesbury, back in the seventies, when I was young and naive, and Trudeau wasn't burned out and bitter. I know they're called the "funny pages," but that doesn't mean that the cartoons all literally make one laugh.

But all that aside, if you didn't like that particular one, you can certainly click on the "Previous" button to check out some others.

I'm with you, Rand. Day By Day is the ONLY comic I remember to read regularly.

No, you don't understand: Day by Day is objectively the complete opposite of funny. Seriously. You guys can do better than this, though if you think Mallard Fillmore is funny, you might be doomed.

The problem with Day By Day is that he can't and shouldn't be working on the schedule that syndicated cartoonists maintain. Muir has the pattern of trying to id one topical piece and skewering it for about a day or two within a day of his hearing about it, so it is still fresh and topical with his audience.

The typical syndi draws a weeks worth of strips, two or three weeks in advance and sends them in to an editor for review. Editor will send it back if he thinks its 'not good enough, etc.' This has a natural impact on the quality that the reader sees. Cartoonists who started off weak artistically develop decent artistic skills. Topics will, at best, be about topics that are 2 or 3 weeks old, and might not be relevent to the topic anymore, or will be about the things that can't be changed.

The quality that Muir brings will unfortunately be crushed.