What's your favorite comic strip?--Al

-- Al Schroeder (al.schroeder@nashville.com), February 26, 2001

Answers

Pogo, hands down. Wonderful art, dizzy wordplay (accentuated by the incredibly expressive lettering), terrific characters, flawless pacing. All that plus Kelly mocked McCarthy back when that was a really risky thing to do.

And some great songs. I had an LP once called "Songs of the Pogo," featuring many of the songs from the strip, some sung by Kelly himself. I keep waiting for it to come out on CD . . .

-- John Bragazzi (utown@worldnet.att.net), February 27, 2001.

My current fad is with an online comic named "Acid Reflux", http://acid.purrsia.com - it's a family-friendly fantasy comic about a world where God is a small girl. It is more serial than gag-a-day, but once you get to know the characters there is something funny almost every day anyway.

-- Magnus Itland (itlandm@netcom.no), February 27, 2001.

Possumbly the best comic strip in the whole world, Pogo could be read on many different levels. Beloved Possum and all the critters, who was the animal that was Castro, a hyena ?

-- Denver doug (ionoi@webtv.net), February 27, 2001.

Probably a tie between Sluggy Freelance (http://www.sluggy.com) -- the continuing saga of two guys, three girls, a hyperactive ferret, a cannibalistic alien and a homicidal rabbit -- and Avalon (http://www.avalonhigh.com), a high school drama set in Canada.

In my opinion, the comic strip is dead as a "hardcopy" artform ...

-- Chris Davies (cricharddavies@hotmail.com), February 27, 2001.

Pogo, Krazy Kat, Blondie, Jiggs and probably early ones I'm not even familiar with. Does anyone remember 'Pete and Officer 6-7/8'?

-- Harry O'Brien (bellyup@webbox.com), June 16, 2001.

There have been several. Now, (Feb, 2002) For Better Or Worse. Pogo, Prince Valiant, Blondie and it's associated strip Beetle Bailey, Little Orphan Annie, Li'l Abner (obviously), and one or two others were favorites. But my favorite of all was Steve Canyon. For some reason, I identified with Steve, Summer and her son, and Steve's ward. The unexpected termination of the strip, in mid-stream, without resolving the story lines, was a shock. I actually felt betrayed! Strange, but after all these years I still feel that way. Not that I needed a Comic Strip to form an identity, but I guess I just liked the aeroplanes!

-- Walter C. Jants (wjants@aol.com), February 19, 2002.