'B.C.' cartoonist Johnny Hart dies

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/artandlife/1404AP_Obit_Hart.html

you know, the guy who injected sanctimonius Jesus bullshit into his "comic strip" with increasingly frequency over the years to the point that it was just painfully unfunny on a regular basis.

it just got to the point that between him, and Bil Keane's Family Circus, you'd rather stab your fucking eyes out than read the comics over your goddam Rice Krispies anymore.

it sucks that the real greats like Watterson, Breathed, Larson, MacGruder, and others quit drawing their strips... i guess they didnt want to become parodies of themselves like Hart. Oh well.

anyhow...

so long Johnny Hart. Here's to hoping no one tries to continue your syndication.

4/11/2007 6:00:00 AM

So much hate.

4/11/2007 8:33:31 AM

Family Circus has gotten weird lately.

4/11/2007 8:56:29 AM

i saw this on sunday

kinda fitting he died on easter weekend

and if you haven't read family circus latley, you really don't know what you're missing

keane's son has taken over and the kids are slowly turning into little assholes

4/11/2007 9:00:22 AM

liked the strip

4/11/2007 9:34:40 AM

wow


let it be known that joe_schmoe is a fucking first class asshole.


RIP

4/11/2007 9:46:03 AM

Yeah Family Circus is the heat, you obviously have no taste joe_schmoe

4/11/2007 10:01:37 AM

Quote :

"keane's son has taken over and the kids are slowly turning into little assholes "

for serious? i havent read it in a few years.

hmm.

i shall look into this.

4/11/2007 10:34:08 AM

Quote :

"wow let it be known that joe_schmoe is a fucking first class asshole."

4/11/2007 10:45:12 AM

Dear Everyone.

I have come to a sad realization. I am an empty shell of a man. At 3:00 am this morning, I made fun of the dead. combined with my recent SPARTAAAA photochops, i think if I were to die today, my spirit would have such a negative balance it would be doomed to a hellish torment.

I shall remove myself from this site for a longish period of time while i attempt to restore my karma. perhaps i will volunteer at a homeless service or a childrens hospital.

I just feel too dirty to continue in this manner

Sincerely,

Joe.




[Edited on April 11, 2007 at 11:02 AM. Reason : BYE ]

4/11/2007 10:58:51 AM

I love BC

4/11/2007 12:21:30 PM

Quote :

"wow let it be known that joe_schmoe is a fucking first-class asshole."

[Edited on April 11, 2007 at 12:33 PM. Reason : .]

4/11/2007 12:30:35 PM

Quote :

"wow let it be known that joe_schmoe is a fucking first-class asshole."

also:

4/11/2007 1:03:12 PM

Quote :

"it sucks that the real greats like Watterson, Breathed, Larson, MacGruder, and others quit drawing their strips... i guess they didnt want to become parodies of themselves like Hart. Oh well."

Berke Breathed still does a sunday strip, last I knew. "Opus"

4/11/2007 2:24:59 PM

BC had its moments, but yeah I was tired of the Christian stuff, especially when he was playing the victim.

4/11/2007 2:45:09 PM

Quote :

"wow let it be known that joe_schmoe is a fucking first class asshole."

4/11/2007 3:36:48 PM

His comics were pretty witty, I think, you're singling out his greater abilities because of a bias.

BUT, NO ONE WOULD'VE NOTICED THAT WITH THE WAY YOU PRESENTED THE THREAD.

4/11/2007 4:31:53 PM

pretty sure i agree 100% with what joe_schmoe posted

4/11/2007 8:33:06 PM

Quote :

"I just feel too dirty to continue in this manner Sincerely, Joe."

Don't leave...It's OK Joe... if the SoapBox is about anything...it's about forgiveness, tolerance and love.

4/11/2007 9:04:48 PM

Quote :

"His comics were pretty witty"

his comics were the exact opposite of witty. they relied on obvious puns, inane observations, and fundamentalist ideology.

that's not to undermine his death. There's no need to take pot-shots at him or his death.
but that doesn't mean that his comics didn't still suck.

The Comics Curmudgeon weighs in on his comics.....
http://joshreads.com/?cat=13
http://joshreads.com/?cat=42

4/11/2007 9:11:14 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgW1w_hSZWA

4/11/2007 11:13:43 PM

on second thought, joe_schmoe isn't an asshole


i'll be making the same thread about Gary Trudeau when he finally kicks the bucket

4/12/2007 8:01:23 AM

double post!

[Edited on April 12, 2007 at 8:11 AM. Reason : kd]

4/12/2007 8:06:57 AM

Well, I wasn't a big fan of his comics, but then again I've bitterly hated everything on the comics page since Far Side went away.

4/12/2007 10:59:09 AM

wow some of you guys need to chill the fuck out if all you can think about when you read a damn FUNNY PAPERS comic strip are the religious undertones

4/12/2007 11:00:50 AM

http://joshreads.com/images/07/04/i070408bc.jpg

It's not like it's undertones. It's hitting you in the face.

It's a discussion about bible verses regarding the crucifixion of Jesus.

In a "funny" comic.

Called BEFORE CHRIST.

logic pwnt

4/12/2007 11:05:06 AM

You know, his comic really was funny until he had his Come to Jesus moment. If you read his early stuff, it's really witty.

4/12/2007 11:05:59 AM

Hey I didn't like it either, but someone out there did for how long its run. Plus was there anyone else out there writing and illustrating two strips out there at the same time? That was probably his biggest mistake.

Anyway, RIP


And bring back Calvin and Hobbes

4/12/2007 6:08:22 PM

bah, fuck it. Yeah I'm an asshole.

Quote :

"me: I shall remove myself from this site for longish time while i attempt to restore my karma. perhaps i will volunteer at a homeless service or a childrens hospital. "

two days is long enough. and yeah, sure I'ma go volunteer someday, but right now ive still got internets to conquer. besides my karma is so far in the red, its going to take a lot more effort than Im ready to deal with now.

so a couple points i wanna make, not so much to justify myself to you, but just to rationalize my shitty behavior in my own mind. which is all that really matters, you know.

First of all, i wasnt gloating over his death. the man lived to be 74. He lived a very full life, did what he wanted to do, and was surrounded by friends and family when he passed -- I can only hope I do so well.

plus as noted earlier, he died on Easter weekend. Which is pretty good timing for a guy with a messianic complex who apparently imagined himself to be persecuted for his religious beliefs.

Quote :

"If you read his early stuff, it's really witty."

true. I had a paperback of old BC comics from the 70s, it was pretty damn funny. but that was back when the comic was actually about cavemen, and attempted to be humorous.

the past 20 years since he quit drinking and became an anti-science fundamentalist, and started using his comic syndicate as a pulpit, the strip has been miserably unfunny. And not just because of the oh-I'm-so-persecuted-because-I'm-a-Christian schtick. but just as much because (as the Comic Curmudgeon writes)

Quote :

"B.C. ... typical loopy state: the weird verbiage, convoluted but not particularly funny, the setup that’s ultimately just one character telling a joke to another, and the punchline that’s dependent on a series of odd assumptions and that seems like it might, in a parallel universe, be funny, but in this one is not."

so, you know, RIP for the man Johnny Hart, and best wishes to his family.

but as far as his BC comic strip goes, please bury that shit along with him. it should have died a natural death long ago.







[Edited on April 13, 2007 at 2:20 AM. Reason : ]

4/13/2007 2:07:28 AM

Well as much as I love Calvin and Hobbes, I wonder if he had tried to write it for 49 years if it would have gotten stale. Part of having a good story (or tv series, or series of movies, etc) is knowing when to end it. Watterson chose to end his strip at the height of its popularity and left everyone wanting more instead of running it into the ground.

4/13/2007 9:08:27 AM

recent interviews with watterson suggest he might be emotionally over the strip and working on other artistic endeavors

but it's hard to tell...the man is insanely quiet and withdrawn from public

4/13/2007 9:33:14 AM

^^ exactly. Bill Watterson played it perfectly. He could have continued to write C&H well after it's prime. He could have sold licensing rights and made untold millions of dollars. But he never sold out, he worked C&H into a nearly perfect art, then quit, leaving a strong legacy and people are still reading it daily, 10 years after the last one was written.

[Edited on April 13, 2007 at 9:36 AM. Reason : .]

4/13/2007 9:36:42 AM

pretty lame but i mean isn't a newspaper a forum for expressing your views? he's religious, let him speak his mind

4/13/2007 12:40:48 PM

Pearls Before Swine is my new favorite, although I still love Zits, Calvin & Hobbes, Foxtrot, Dilbert, Arlo & Janis, Non Sequitur, The Far Side, and several others. Peanuts is humorous although not as much as others; I enjoy it for it's philosophical look on life (and occasional humorous moment).
I eventually plan to own all comic collections from all of the aforementioned strips.

4/14/2007 2:20:15 AM

Get Fuzzy & Pearls Before Swine

they give me hope

4/14/2007 2:51:35 AM

so, if you have such a huge problem w/ BC preaching on the funny pages, what's your opinion of Gil Thorpe? What about For Better or for Worse?

4/14/2007 8:10:36 AM

Gil Thorpe simply isn't funny. What's wrong with For Better or for Worse?

4/14/2007 10:03:56 AM

Quote :

"Which is pretty good timing for a guy with a messianic complex who apparently imagined himself to be persecuted for his religious beliefs"

I wonder how he could ever feel like this


I had no clue BC was a religious comic strip


either I didn't read that deep into it or didn't care

4/14/2007 10:11:16 AM

i don't like FBOFW because it pushes its agenda on me

just like Gil Thorpe

just like BC

but completely opposite, politically.

just make me laugh, dammit, stop trying to get me to believe in shit.

4/14/2007 10:11:48 AM

hahaha gil thorpe is hilarious

4/14/2007 11:55:37 AM

Quote :

"I had no clue BC was a religious comic strip either I didn't read that deep into it at all"

fixed it





[Edited on April 14, 2007 at 12:44 PM. Reason : ]

4/14/2007 12:44:09 PM

To be fair, maybe he just hasn't read it in the past 10-15 years.

But I think we can all agree that nothing is worse than FUNKY WINKERBEAN.

[Edited on April 14, 2007 at 1:04 PM. Reason : http://joshreads.com/images/0606/i060625fw.jpg]

4/14/2007 12:49:43 PM

yeah, you sure got me Joe Schmoe

I quit reading comic strips back before I hit puberty, so I apologize


so it's been a good 15 years or so


and back then I didn't care, nor did reading it when I glanced at the funnies make me think I needed to go to church, it was just well... a comic


and like I said, you think it's so weird that this guy feels persecuted.... if people like you routinely bashed him I'd say he is correct in his belief

[Edited on April 14, 2007 at 3:22 PM. Reason : just an outsider opinion]

4/14/2007 3:22:13 PM

yes, us athiests or otherwise non-christians who apparently make up <10% of the population in the US are really persecuting him hard by posting our trivial complaints on a po-dunk message board

4/14/2007 3:25:31 PM

don't roll your eyes at me

I'm not a christian, I don't believe in any of that church/god shit

but I'm saying, it's just a comic strip

I don't really give a shit if he's religious or not, but joe's blatant bashing of the guy is kinda telling


"I FUCKING HATE THESE PEOPLE AND THEIR CHRISTIANITY!!!"

"GEE HE'S WEIRD FOR THINKING HE WAS PERSECUTED FOR HIS BELIEFS, I WONDER WHY HE THOUGHT THAT, MAYBE HE'S JUST WEIRD????"


DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR


[Edited on April 14, 2007 at 3:30 PM. Reason : whatever, just a comic strip]

4/14/2007 3:29:30 PM

i don't think that funky winkerbean sucks as much as it's just so damn depressing and joyless

4/14/2007 3:59:54 PM

i used to love robotman and monty

but when robotman left it started to suck


ziggy hasn't been good in years...

4/14/2007 4:13:51 PM

http://www.drinkatwork.com/medlarge228.gif

4/14/2007 6:33:03 PM

and 8 days later his partner for Wizard of Id died

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/04/19/obit.idcartoonist.ap/index.html

Quote :

"LYNCHBURG, Virginia (AP) -- Brant Parker, who for decades illustrated "The Wizard of Id" comic strip, has died just days after the passing of his collaborator on the comic. He was 86. Parker, of Lynchburg, died Sunday at a nursing facility there from complications of Alzheimer's disease and a stroke he suffered last year, said Kathy Kei, an editor of "The Wizard of Id" at Creators Syndicate. Eight days earlier, the strip's writer, cartoonist Johnny Hart, died of a stroke at his storyboard, according to his wife. He was 76. The pair collaborated on the strip for more than 30 years beginning in 1964, each winning the National Cartoonist Society's highest honor, the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year. In 1997, Parker handed the illustration of the cartoon over to his son, Jeff Parker, who continued working with Hart by fax. The two met in 1950, when Parker, then a staff artist for the Binghamton (New York) Press, was judging a high school art competition. One contestant, a teenager ten years his junior, left such an impression that Parker arranged a meeting. Eventually, their partnership led to "The Wizard of Id," which follows the tyrannical ruler of an imaginary kingdom called Id. Also featured are the kingdom's inhabitants, often referred to as "Idiots." "It's a clever satire on American culture and politics, but it speaks to readers on an everyday level as well," said Kei of the strip, which is now syndicated to more than 1,000 newspapers. Born on August 26, 1920, Parker served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and the Korean War. Before meeting Hart, he worked animating Donald Duck for Disney Studios. Parker is survived by his wife of 60 years, as well as five children, 13 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren."

4/19/2007 9:09:13 AM

Quote :

"just make me laugh, dammit, stop trying to get me to believe in shit."

that's why i find boondocks entertaining.... it makes fun of black 'activists' ...

4/19/2007 10:08:55 AM