Unfunny comics

So B.C. creator Johnny Hart died on Easter Weekend...

I came across a collection of his old work when I was a kid. Some of it was really funny.

Around the time Bush 43 got elected, Hart went all Zell Miller on us and I've resented him ever since. I am hoping his crappy, preachy, holier-than-thou, shove-Jebus-down-everyone's-throat comic strip will now disappear from my newspaper. The minute a funny person starts taking themselves and/or their religion seriously *in the context of their work* is the minute they stop being funny and just become plain obnoxious. He went from "comic strip" to "bully pulpit" about 8 years ago and would never have gotten published in the first place if he had been so sanctimonious at the start of his career. The only reason he got away with it in the end is because he was an old habit that died hard for a lot of newspapers and their audiences...

Not funny.

He was a skilled cartoonist, and he brought me a lot of laughs when he kept his observations to everyday topics. When he became "born-again" his cartoons simply stopped being funny. Any other cartoonist serious about their work instead of prosthelitizing could've gotten the Easter message across with a snarky comment about eggs or bunnies, but he had to get heavy-handed with the sacrifice issue. When I read his strip, I felt less that I was learning something through sarcasm or satire that made me laugh, and more that I was simply being preached to. That doesn't make for any kind of good comic, unless you're Jack Chick. His subtlety simply vanished, and it's a damned shame - he was good at one time.

Now all we need to do is to push the guy responsible for Marmaduke along with the guy responsible for Garfield off a nice, high cliff.