by CIDU Bill

Comic strip suggestions?

Once more, I need to Marie Kondo my daily reading list. Maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe it’s just some strips that’are getting old. Hell, maybe it’s “I’ve been running CIDU for 23 years burnout,” who knows?

In any case, what replacement strips might bring joy to my mornings?

 

67 Comments

  5. Unknown's avatar

    I can’t speak to anything you should add, but I’m fairly sure I could list some you should drop, because your commentary about them suggests that you don’t really enjoy them (any more, if you ever did).

  7. Unknown's avatar

    I think I’m in the same place as you, Bill. I haven’t read a comic in a whole week. I decided to read books in the time I would spend on comics. (I don’t seem to have time for both these days.) I don’t know if it’s permanent, but I feel a bit freer.

  10. Unknown's avatar

    Personal synchronicity (Sally Forth wasn’t loading for me yesterday, so I didn’t see this strip until just now):

    (At least one other strip referenced Kondo today and yesterday, but not as a verb)

  11. Unknown's avatar

    But the solution, Bill, is so very easy. If you don’t enjoy them any more, don’t read them.

  17. Unknown's avatar

    “But the solution, Bill, is so very easy. If you don’t enjoy them any more, don’t read them.”

    True, but….

    First, there’s the emotional attachment to strips one used to like, and possibly even grew up with.

    Second, since it used to be good, there’s the feeling that it’s just going through a slump and it’ll get good again. Even if the slump has been years long.

    Finally, there’s FOMO and the general reluctance (of some people) to get rid of anything.

    You gave good advice, but it’s harder to follow than it is to know that the advice is good.

  18. Unknown's avatar

    “Precisely what I meant by “I need to Marie Kondo my daily reading list.” James.”

    You know what to do. Sometimes you just need a little external push, almost like permission, to actually go through with it. I got the sense you were looking to get that from somebody. It’s not like it used to be, where if you didn’t get yesterday’s paper you’d never get a chance to see yesterday’s strips again. They’re on the Internet, and things that are on the Internet are on, not forever, really, but for a very long time.
    Commit to taking a week off from Frazz, two months off from Retail. I bet you won’t miss them. I don’t guarantee you that something else won’t get on your nerves like they used to, but it’s a re-entrant program, you can loop around as many times as it takes.

  21. Unknown's avatar

    If you’re in tech, thevc.com is completed but often great. And if you’re not in tech, probably lots of CIDU there.

  24. Unknown's avatar

    Well, they’re easier to tell apart than the characters in B.C.

    The main complex character is Alex (the dark-haired one in the most recent CIDU). She’s been Betty’s friend for a long time, but when she married a rich man, their relationship changed. Especially when Alex came in as a corporate ax-man and fired Betty. (No hard feelings, of course.)

  25. Unknown's avatar

    Thanks, but do have any idea how many many people, over the years, have attempted to explain B.C. to me?

    Honestly, I can’t remember the names of my nephews in California (though to be fair, all of them are drawn identically)

  27. Unknown's avatar

    I don’t know if you already read it, but I’ve recently added “Breaking Cat News” and I’m enjoying it very much. Also “Macanudo” by Liniers. I don’t understand it half the time, but I enjoy it even when I don’t.

  30. Unknown's avatar

    That’s like discussing “Tristram Shandy” and referring to a couple of the characters as “my father” and “my Uncle Toby”.

  31. Unknown's avatar

    Andréa, they all look so much like their father, I suspect their features were all copy-and-pasted.

    I should probably elaborate that “nephew” is family shorthand: these are actually my cousin’s grandchildren.

  32. Unknown's avatar

    So, to hark back to another thread that drifted there: they are your 1st cousins twice removed…

  35. Unknown's avatar

    CIDU Bill: I hope you ‘thanked each comic strip for its service’ before you deleted it.

    CIDUers: Great spoof of the whole mariekondoing fad:

  38. Unknown's avatar

    One should always be open to new PsOV; I dislike c*ts, but still read ‘Breaking C*t News’ and ‘Business C*t’. I dislike babies/children, but still read ‘Baby Blues’, ‘Cul de Sac’, etc. I’d’ve missed many a chuckle or laff if I’d just stuck to reading the comics that reflect only my likes.

  40. Unknown's avatar

    Thanks, Winter, but I already have a healthy queue. If it ever runs low, though, I’ll definitely put out a special call for feline comic strips.

  41. Unknown's avatar

    Well, I’ll third (or fourth or fifth) BREAKING CAT NEWS; even if Bill can’t be tempted by cat-heavy humor, perhaps some of the rest of you can be.

    Of other new(-ish) strips I’ve been testing, I do like WALLACE THE BRAVE, but I’m not as enthusiastic about it as a lot of people seem to be. On the other hand, while I’m not a *big* fan of the new NANCY, I don’t dislike it as so many people seem to do (it may help that I never cared for, and seldom read, earlier versions of the strip). Perhaps this means I’m just wishy-washy (aside from my unseemly enthusiasm for cats, of course). . .

  43. Unknown's avatar

    My long comment got skunked, as expected, so, briefly: Girl Genius if you want to catch up for weeks, xkcd for unique, somewhat technical gags.

  44. Unknown's avatar

    “skunked” in what way, Treesong? I don’t see an earlier comment from you in Moderation or in the Spam or Trash folders (which very rarely get false negatives, but I checked)

  45. Unknown's avatar

    I first heard of BCN on the usenet group rec.arts.sf.written. I have it in my GoComics selection, but I’m not obsessed with it the way some are.

  46. Unknown's avatar

    OK, I’ll try to reconstruct it.
    The best comic out there, IMHO, is Phil and Kaja’s triweekly Girl Genius (girlgeniusonline.com), set in a world of mad geniuses and starring the moderately sane Agatha Heterodyne. It’s funny but it’s not a gag-a-day comic, and it’s been going for 20 years (plus some time as a comic) so there’s a lot of catching up to do. Ditto for other favorites like Carry On at http://www.hirezfox.com/km/co/ (hyena succession struggles in Rackenroon, Africa) and skin-horse.com (a government agency devoted to helping nonhuman people).
    Among gag comics I particularly like oglaf.com (but it’s NSFW more often than not) and xkcd.com. The latter’s jokes are often technical, and it’s spawned the fan site explainxkcd.com, so you wouldn’t have much to do. The latest, as of 22 Mar, shows Google Trends maps he’s produced over the years. explainxkcd explains: ‘Google Trends is a website for visualizing Google search activity by date and region. Each map colors in states according to which of two (or more) search queries was more popular.’ The xkcd maps include frostbite/heatstroke (with the north/south division you’d expect, shark attack/childbirth (shark attack is coastal, of course, but for some reason KY NV WV also favor it), and resume tips/skateboard tricks.

  47. Unknown's avatar

    I have read a lot of organizing books and think they are all lacking in real life. Marie Kondo!!! My reaction on reading her book (take everything out by category, get rid of anything that does not “spark joy” – to simplify it for those who might not know) is that – 1 – Does anyone find a toilet bowl cleaner (or any other cleaner) that sparks joy? 2 – If I got rid of everything which does not spark joy I would be standing naked in the street in front of our house, with Robert – also naked, and on some days he would not be there either.

    Just saw an article in an organizing magazine on how to organize one’s closet – it works for the typical 8 ft x10 ft closet. Huh, our small bedroom is about 8 ft X10 ft. If I had a closet that large I would not need help. I need help with closets that are 2 ft deep x 3ft wide (door is 2 ft wide), 7 ft high and either has the ceiling of the stair case coming up through its floor or the eaves of the roof coming down through its ceiling – lowering the height of the closet for 1/2 to 3/4 of the 3 ft length of the closet. I am not sure if all them together come out to 8 ft x 10ft.

  49. Unknown's avatar

    So Meryl, I have to ask: why bother with the Teddy Bear Village, if it doesn’t spark joy? I mean, seriously!

  50. Unknown's avatar

    I mean, I mean my question seriously. (Sorry, the last message looked like I might have been being sarcastic or disingenuous or mocking; I don’t mean it like that!)

  51. Unknown's avatar

    Sorry Meryl, I don’t mean to sound sarcastic, disingenuous or mocking, I meant I mean my question seriously. (And my last message to try and correct my previous message got eaten into the aether by wordpress…)

  56. Unknown's avatar

    @ Andréa – I wasn’t following this thread, but when your name shows up under recent comments, it’s usually worth another look.

  59. Unknown's avatar

    larK – I understood. Well, it keeps Robert happy as he has something to buy for me. When I read her book and came up with the comment it was before the village took hold so they might be joining us outside too I guess.

    Another thing about her book is that she talks about closets as they are in Japan, not here. A closet was originally a personal space – a woman might have a room that she used as her office, but she would say it was her closet. I happen to see a Japanese movie on TV and the closet was a separate storage room. So much of what she says about closets is usable for a 2×3 foot storage area that has the top of the stairs rising through the floor of it – or the roof eaves coming down through its ceiling as our are.

  61. Unknown's avatar

    I did not post #2, as I was concerned some might find it offensive; knowing what ‘Doc and Raider’ is about, consider yourselves warned . . .

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