CBR (aka Comic Book Resources) creates dozens of lists every day.
Yesterday Haiden Sayne created a list enumerating the “15 Best Comic Strips Of All Time.”
Walt Kelly’s Pogo, Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy, Gary Larson’s The Far Side, and Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates didn’t make the list. Neither did Stephan Pastis’ Pearls Before Swine, Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby, Will Eisner’s The Spirit, or James Childress’ Conchy.
On the other hand Garfield, Beetle Bailey, Life in Hell, and The Amazing Spider-Man comic strips made the Top 15.
Conchy! Great little strip.
I think Wallace the Brave deserves a place on any such list published after, say 2018 or so.
No top 15 list is complete without Chuck Jones’ CRAWFORD
Remove Garfield. Add Pogo and Ernie Pooks Comeek.
No Pogo, but Garfield? Really?
Where is the Ghost who walks, the Phantom?
I opened this article locked and loaded to gripe about how young people don’t think anything interesting happened before they were born, but about half these comics are legitimate classic selections. Others are baffling (Tarzan, Spider-Man and Mickey Mouse are giant intellectual properties, but were they all-time great comic strips?). And the omissions are galling. Gasoline Alley, Polly & Her Pals, Terry and the Pirates, Cul de Sac, Pogo.
But I’m pretty sure the only point of lists like this is to get people griping and saying to each other, “Can you believe this?” Job well done, CBR.
Brian, check out the early Mickey Mouse adventure strips. It was definitely one of the all-time great strips. Mickey Mouse Versus the Phantom Blot in particular is often considered a high point of popular culture.
Usual John, I’ve seen them (I’ve read some collections, and didn’t the Smithsonian book reprint several weeks worth?). It was great stuff for sure, but I still wouldn’t put it in the Top 15. Just one guy’s opinion though.
Near as I can figure, this is a list compiled by one guy, and just what his criteria was in assessing what makes a great comic strip is anyone’s guess. It’s also a fool’s errand to even attempt proclaim a top 15 in the history of comic strips. Cartooning is an artform, and as the old truism goes, art is in the eye of the beholder. Everyone’s list will be different than anyone else’s.
Wtf? Calvin and Hobbes!
“Wtf”?
Where’s Calvin and Hobbes? You forgot to show a Calvin and Hobbes panel, also where’s Rose is Rose? Where’s For Better or Worse? You also missed the Charlie Brown comic strip also known as Peanuts. You also forgot Garfield comic strip or even Zits. If possible, please update this article to show Calvin and Hobbes panel example.
In the near future I want to see a Daily Cartoonist article called “Comic strips considered the Worst.” I would read that article for sure.
Click on the CBR link to see images of their Top 15,
the images here are some I thought ought to be included on that list but weren’t.
If someone publishes a Bottom 15 list we will let you know.
We should not forget the comic artists place in American History. Walt Kelly’s opossum Pogo took on Joseph McCarthy, Nixon, the John Birch Society and the Vietnam War. Before Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel’s political cartoons warned Americans about Adolf Hitler, Mussolini and Japan. Charles Schulz encouraged a young Black sketch artist, Morrie Turner and Wee Pals, to become the nation’s first fully integrated cartoon strip. Perhaps more than any other profession, “sequential artists” reflect the best in American zeitgeist.
Saddest list of the universe without Pogo and the unsurpassable genius (graphic and literary) of Kelly. Not only essential, but inevitably in the very first place. His legendary modesty would even allow him to share it with the Peanuts or Krazy Kat. But don’t forget it, more relevant than ever.