A year and a half ago, I wrote a review of a Get Fuzzy anthology for the Comics Journal. Somehow, though, it got lost in the ether that is email, and so it never got published. Thus rejected, it has come here to the blog to find a home.
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I’m Ready For My Movie Contract
Darby Conley
Andrews McMeel Publishing
128 pages/B&W
$10.95/softcover
978-0-7407-6922-1
Darby Conley’s Get Fuzzy is, as the strip itself mentions several times, an almost indecently faithful Garfield clone. As in Garfield, there’s a mean, domineering cat (Bucky); a dumb, sweet dog (Satchel); and a nerdy, vaguely artsy owner (Rob.) And also as in Garfield, the animals are sentient, but not quite adult — sort of a cross between pets and small children. Rob even carries Bucky around in a Baby Bjorn.
There are a couple of differences from Jim Davis’ franchise. First, Bucky’s a Siamese, which (for a Siamese owner such as myself) is automatic bonus points. And, perhaps more importantly, Conley has dispensed with most of the ossified Garfield gags. Bucky isn’t fat, he doesn’t care about Mondays, and he doesn’t eat lasagna. Instead, he yearns to consume monkeys, engages in credit card fraud, and is terrified of beavers. Or, as he puts it, “They curse all that is good! They curse all that is wholesome! I tell you, beavers are evil!”
The double entendre makes that a good bit funnier than it’s meant to be, of course. Similarly, the high point of the book is a misprinted sequence in which Satchel mouths an empty speech bubble, Rob says, “On the same monkey,” and then we get a close up of some sort of bizarre test pattern with an Indian chief’s head in the middle. The nicest thing about these bloopers is that they’re really not all that far removed from the spirit of the strip as a whole. Conley must have done a lot of weed at some point; Satchel and Bucky’s confused almost-clever-but-then-totally-boneheaded patter is quintessential stoner humor. “Rob: T. rexes don’t even exist anymore!” “Bucky: Exactly. Therefore, a beaver is a million-billion times more dangerous than a T-rex.” Satchel: “You just blew my mind.” I mean, that could almost be lifted from A Scanner Darkly.
Conley’s art is pretty decent for the comics page — he has serious troubles with perspective, and I find his grayscale effects irritating, but his character designs are cute and winning rather than Dilbert or Pearls Before Swine-ugly. He’s helped somewhat by the fact that he rarely attempts physical or slapstick humor — instead, the jokes are mostly bad puns and zoned-out verbal goofiness. In his heart, I think Conley really is more fourth-rate Peanuts than second-rate Garfield. And yes, that’s a compliment.
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So as I said, this was written at the end of 2007 or thereabouts. Since then, my son went through a very intense Get Fuzzy phase. This involved reading our three Get Fuzzy collections over and over (and over) again. At the same time, he was obsessed with Garfield, which we read over and over. We also got to hear the strips repeated back to us without any context or description (so you get a strip which sounds something like: “I’m going to steal Jon’s chicken. Hey where did that vine come from! Isn’t that funny!”)
So a couple of points here. First, after this intense exposure, I think that I was right that Get Fuzzy is not really a knock-off of Garfield — and maybe wrong that it is a knock-off of Peanuts. In its running gags and its rhythms, its really maybe closer to Bloom County in a lot of ways. (Which is fine with me; I like Bloom County. But it’s important to make these distinctions.)
Second, reading these strips aloud (and other comics) has really, really made me appreciate story books. Not that I have anything against comic strips qua comic strips…or, okay, maybe I do, but that’s not the point I’m making here. The point I am making here is that reading comics aloud kind of sucks. When I read a regular story book, I’m often able to pretty much zone out; I can just read along without paying much attention to what I’m doing because…well, it’s a narrative, it only goes one direction, you don’t really have to think about it that hard. Getting downtime like this is really crucial when you’re a parent, and I greatly appreciate it.
With comics, it’s a lot harder to do that. You have to pay more attention to where the text goes in the first place, and in the second you have to make sure the small child is following along, since he’s got to be able to figure out who says what. Admittedly, after the millionth repetition, he pretty much knows who’s saying what…but after the millionth repetition you’re ready to go insane anyway, so the benefit is not as great as it might seem.
On the plus side, though, comics seem to be really good for teaching reading. The constant interplay between text and pictures, and the aforementioned need to follow which text goes where, has really helped my kid parse a lot of words. The first word that he read out of context without any prompting from me, in fact, was “Garfield” (we were in the car and he said, “That sign says Garfield!” I said, what? and started looking around for an advertising poster — but he was actually reading the street sign for Gafield Boulevard, which we were driving on.) He also taught himself to read sound effects like “Crash!” and “Zip!” because he sees them so often on the page.
So…less restful, but better reading comprehension. A few minutes of peace vs. a lifetime of learning. Yep, I’d make the same decision; a few minutes of peace, every time. But if I have to be irritated, I guess it’s good that he’s learning to read. Because then he can go off with a book by himself eventually and leave me alone.
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And here’s the first post in the roundtable.
Jim Henson and Garfield? Say it ain't so.
Argh. Fixed.
I hate reading comics aloud…Katie makes me read Peanuts and Little Nemo to her…and it's so annoying…I sometimes feel compelled to say "Lucy says…and Charlie Brown says…" because these things aren't in funnies, but seem necessary when reading out loud, etc. I can't understand why she wants to read them out loud…she reads everything else to herself. Hopefully the younger one will skip this stage of existence….
I hate Get Fuzzy too…
For the record, I'm skeptical about comics being a better aide to reading than picture books. I think they can be somewhat confusing, esp. with irregular page layouts. I think they're good for kids who have trouble with reading…since they can follow the story with no words at all..and can get tricked into reading when they think they don't really want to… For young kids, who have no aversion to reading, however, I think picture books work just as well if not better. With comics, II find myself explaining trajectory of words/images much more than with straightforward picture books—
Huh. For me Get Fuzzy really stands out from the comics page. Odd angles, everyone looks really mussed up and unhealthy, and the jokes are odd and dilapidated. In fact the whole strip looks dilapidated. It's not a big favorite of mine, I like it okay, but I wouldn't say it was too much like Garfield or Peanuts or any other strip, even Bloom County (which is the closest but still leaves a lot of distance).
I guess that i'm the only real get fuzzy fan that has bothered to comment.
I love the verbal word play, even when it falls flat sometimes, but when its good its really good. I do think that it works better in the collections however! Just as Conley has that week's strips on his board and they make sense as a whole, i enjoy the jokes more that way.
Also, Conley's using linework that just ins't reproducing well at this size anymore. Just a few years ago it was largers and more interesting to see rob's stubble and the zipatone wasn't closing up as much. Its the second thing on the SF Chronicle's comics page that i read.
I do kind of like Get Fuzzy. It's not great, but it's consistently fairly funny. It doesn't really hold up to repeated readings, but I sure enjoy it more than Garfield.
Out of curiosity: is there any comic strip that's worth getting excited about? I find there are a lot that are fairly decent, none that ring my bell. In fact I can't imagine anyone caring that much about any of them.
The two I save for last are Doonesbury and Dilbert, and I could do without either pretty easily. In fact if I'm reading the comics page, it means I'm wasting time and should be doing something else.
Get Fuzzy stands out to me for the look of it–the combination of ugly-grungy and cuteness in the art is sort of distinctive; Conley doesn't feel like a genius, but there appears to be some actual talent and effort made in his artwork, which is unusual on the comics page. And I love wordplay, so the punning and Bucky's constant mangling of words consistently amuses me, although it rarely makes me laugh out loud.
Mutts is always the contemporary strip that gets the most critical love…but I think it stinks. Almost never funny…I also think Get Fuzzy is rarely funny, and its bedraggled look doesn't appeal to me in the context of the daily newspaper funnies. I know Zits and Baby Blues are pretty bourgeois pleasures, but at least they deliver what they set out to deliver…amusing commentary on middle class parenting/life. I also think the art in Zits has an amusing elastic quality. Terri Libenson's strip "Pajama Diaries" is the latest darling of the funnies pages commercially, moved to the top of the page in many papers…but it's pretty bad (even though Noah and I went to high school with her–and me college as well). (Remember her Noah?) I know this isn't breaking any critical ground, but I think the shrinking of the funnies not only blunts their appeal, but also actively discourages innovative creators from using it as their primary medium. You have to squint even to see the damn things…and I usually don't even bother these days, even when I do read a newspaper, which is probably less than once a week. I also think Garfield is better than Get Fuzzy, or at least was in its first few years, before the same repeated gags really got old.
I've been rereading those old Garfields to the child; the gags got infinitely repeated almost instantly.
I think Davis is a better artist than Conley, actually. But I agree with Cerusee that Conley's verbal humor is pretty good.
I don't remember Terri Libenson at all, I must admit….
She did the comic for the "West Side Story" I think- of which you were the editor, I think…
She was in your class too…
Your memory's fading
I haven't read it in an actual newspaper context very regularly (because I don't get a newspaper regularly) but the first collection of Richard Thompson's CUL DE SAC is pretty special. Though I might just think so because it's set where I grew up (and where Thompson lives). But Spurgeon likes it, so I must be on solid critical ground, right?
A few months ago, I was assigned to read to a fifth-grade class as part of Community Reading Day. I brought in Scott Christian Sava's Hyperactive to read (it's a great book but unfortunately a bit difficult to read to a class of fifth-graders, for the reasons outlined above plus the fact that there are a lot of wordless panels).
But I was really curious about what the kids read. Everyone professed to love comics, but they split into groups: A handful liked manga (Dragonball Z). There's always that one kid who likes superheroes. And pretty much everyone else read Calvin and Hobbes. I thought this was an interesting choice because it hasn't been in a newspaper for years, but the anthologies are easy to find. A few also liked Fox Trot, but none read any of the current comics.
For myself, I like Arlo and Janis and Stone Soup, but that's because I feel like the creators are spying on me. I have two teenage daughters, and Stone Soup hits the nail on the head all too often.
Tom Crippen said… Out of curiosity: is there any comic strip that's worth getting excited about?
Like Jason said, Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac is the best right now. In pure talent Thompson is probably the only true successor to Watterson.
Of lesser rank but still better than other strips are Mark Tatulli's Lio and(sorry Noah) Pearls Before Swine. Stephen Pastis may not be a great drawer, but at least he takes enough care to make the most out his gags. He's a far better writer than both Conley and Jim Davis.
Just read a few Cul De Sac's online in the hopes of being delighted…I don't see it, unfortunately. I see how it's in the Peanuts/Calvin and Hobbes lineage, but I'm not overly impressed. Maybe I'll try a book of them though… Of course it doesn't appear in our local rag(s), which are truly awful newspapers…
I miss the Washington Post…not that anyone here cares.
Eric B. – Doesn't the Washington Post web site carry comics?