Reviving an old tradition, I would like to invite all CIDU readers to list any comics that they have “recently” added and/or dropped from their reading lists (this question hasn’t been asked in quite some time, so everyone is free to interpret what “recently” should mean). Bill normally scheduled this question for Dec. 31st, but since that would conflict with the Sunday Funnies, I decided to move it up to Friday, so that everyone can think about it over the holiday weekend.
For comparison, here are links to the available discussions that appeared in Dec. 2018 and Dec. 2019, along with an intermediate call for comic suggestions that Bill posted in March 2019. (Any similar posts for 2017 and earlier were destroyed by “Comicgeddon”; I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for a 2020 list, before I realized why Bill hadn’t created such a post at the end of that year.)
P.S. I assume that almost all “new” entries will be for reading comics online, but in the unlikely event that anyone has started reading a new comic in newsprint (a.k.a. “fishwrap”) form, please let us know!
Comics I Don't Understand 
I’ve added “The Other Ones,” https://theotheronesbylee.wordpress.com
I’ve been greatly impressed by the new Flash Gordon over at Comics Kingdom – having someone revive the moribund genre of the adventure strip in 2023, and have it actually be good, was not on my bingo card.
I’ve recently added “Basic Instructions” by Scott Meyer at GoComics.
https://www.gocomics.com/basicinstructions/2023/12/25
a weekly update apparently.
“Basic Instructions” has been revived by Meyer, who’d ended the strip some years ago and put it in reruns, partly in order to spend more time on his science fiction novels. Nice to see it back with new strips.
In less happy news, The Nib, which was a website featuring a number of left-leaning cartoonists, ended its run.
Some months ago, I started letting the rss feeds on comics build up, and instead of reading more than a hundred different comics every day, I’d read three week’s worth of a few.
Turns out it’s a great way to figure out which comics I really don’t like. If I’m thinking I have to read this one, I cut it.
So bye, bye Mary Worth and Popeye.
And I may cut Oglaf, if it keeps being ‘safe’.
Referring to the comic at the header, do people use “Marie Kondo” as a verb? (I even had to look up that reference as I’d forgotten about her).
I’ve decided to drop Pooch Cafe – Pooch has gone from cute/annoying to just annoying. I kept reading Basic Instructions and yeah, I like the new version. And I’ll take a look at Flash Gordon – I dropped that (and Prince Valiant) years ago but I didn’t know it had been rebooted.
Grawlix: Any noun can be verbed, even a proper noun.
Just remember that, as Calvin said, “Verbing weirds language.”
I was just asking if anyone actually did use her name as a verb, as I don’t recall hearing it in use.
Recently resumed Liberty Meadows, which has been repeating its run for many years now. Stumbled onto an oddity called In Security, about a hyper young married woman who looks like an anime or Powerpuff Girl. The art is interesting if affected; strips are dated 2007. Also Johnny Hazard, Big Ben Bolt, 1960s Flash Gordon as well as the reboot, editorial cartoonist Tom Toles’s peculiar “Randolph Itch, 2 AM”,
This year discovered reprints of the full run of Ernie / The Piranha Club on Amazon and have gone through the first decade. Followed when it was in my local paper, but it was dropped a few years in. Got a deal on the reprint volumes of Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates some time ago; on my list of reading projects.
On Facebook, one John Wells is posting continuities of Our Boarding House, Gasoline Alley from various eras, Winnie Winkle, David Crane, vintage Judge Parker and Rex Morgan, 1970s Gordo, and a few others.
At mrboffo.com there are several years worth of Mister Boffo and Willie n’ Ethel, up to the present, plus the shorter-lived Cats With Hands.
I’ve added Danielle Corsetto’s Elephant Town (https://www.elephant.town/), but that’s about it.
I hadn’t heard about Basic Instructions’s return, that’s good news.
Growlix: I’ve heard KonMarie used as a verb, and a quick search shows claims of “Kondoing” and “Marie Kondoing” but I think all of these are limited to use among her fans and blogspammers seeking content.
While it’s been static for over 20 years, thevc.com is awesome if you’re in tech.
@ bensondonald – I had never heard of “In Security” before and was about to ask you for a link, but discovered that it was easy to find (at GoComics).
P.S. The author (Bea R.) responded to reader’s concerns about gaps and reruns on 31-Mar-2021: “I feel flattered that people are actually missing me … The next arc (‘Windy girl’) will start publishing on Monday. Our updates might become a tad spotty. But don’t worry, we are still here to stay…”
P.P.S. Sadly, the original archive runs from Jan. 2017 until Dec. 2022, but appears to have switched to pure reruns as of Jan. 2023. It’s worth noting that the strips are not dated, and the copyright years appear to reflect when each strip was drawn, and not when they were actually published.
After CIDU received a reader suggestion for a Phoebe and Her Unicorn cartoon, I have added it to one of my GoComics lists, and have been enjoying it.
It may be more than a year already that I’ve been following Adult Children, also on GoComics, but it’s worth mentioning anyway.
I have added, but am not reading closely nor particularly enjoying, Olive & Popeye , Rae the Doe, and Never been Deader on Comics Kingdom. Wait, sometimes Rae the Doe has something I chuckle over. Here’s one I just added to a January OY posting:
(Now I’ll be waiting for the “Haven’t we seen this used already?” comments.) :-)
I decided to give the relatively new Alley Oop another try. The art is not bad, but the writing is about to make me remove it again.
I also gave the new Flash Gordon a try. The art is awful, but the writing is generally pretty good.
Grawlix (6): Kondo doesn’t “bring me joy.”
I know I’ve added and removed some over the past year or so, but I didn’t keep track of which. If we’re going to do this again next year, perhaps I should keep an archive of my current AppleScript so I can compare it then.
@ Mitch (15) – Far be it from me to criticize a re-run, especially when you warn everybody that it was (or will be?) a re-run, but please don’t forget jjmcgaffey‘s characterization of the “kerning pun”, as it appeared in June. ;-)
Oh, thanks! When I saw it on Comics Kingdom — with the date given as Saturday, December 30, 2023 — I thought it looked familiar, but I mentally wrote it off as memory of something similar. So I guess June to December didn’t seem to them a bit quick for rerun…
Grawlix –
I am about the best organized, unorganized person I can be. For a couple of years (probably more like10 plus years) before Covid came along we would go out for dinner on Friday night and then go to a local Barnes and Nobles. Robert would walk around and look at books, toys and such. I was reading my way through their organizing books. I came across Marie Kondo’s book and for the first time I actually disagreed with someone who deals with this subject so much that I sent an email to her. (I figured that if she had an email address in an English language resource someone must do translating for her if she does not speak English.) The reply I received did not make any sense at all and I am guessing it was sent for her and not by her anyway and the person was not fluent in English.
I had emailed her about her theory that everything one has must spark joy. My point being – my toilet bowl brush does not spark joy, but I have to keep it as it is a heck of a lot better than putting my hand into the toilets to clean them. My clothes do not “spark joy” but if I went out without them I would be cold in winter and arrested for being in the nude in public (a sight no one wants to see). And most of what does “spark joy” she would say to get rid of as unneeded – such as my teddy bear collection and my collection of pieces I have embroidered over the decades but never done anything with (it is easier to take the pieces to demonstrations I do and also to my embroidery chapter meetings for “show and tell” if they are not finished into something as they can be rolled up for storage and transportation).
My more than 1,000 LP records spark joy. Sometimes I listen to one or two of them, although mostly I listen to my compact discs which also spark joy. My hundreds of 78 rpm records also spark joy. I had to buy a special turntable to play them. My leather-bound books spark joy. A long time ago I used to put magazines into cardboard boxes when I finished them, and if I pull one out to read through the 50-year-old magazines they spark joy. But all of these things that spark joy weigh thousands of pounds and take up hundreds of cubic feet of space. At some point soon I need to downsize.
To agree with Meryl A, my snow shovel and snow blower and lawn tractor do not spark joy. My mops and brooms especially do not spark joy. My gym clothes spark fear and loathing.