Is this some philosophy thing, or have you just snapped?
Really, Labs, there's sun! and fresh air! outside!
Or at least, so the outside people tell me.
I think I'm obligated to ask: what's Gil Thorp?
This is really rather an obscure corner of the culture to be mocking so comprehensively.
Somebody else reads the Comics Curmudgeon, I see.
Gil Thorp does raise interesting questions, though:
1) In a medium that is at least partially built around visual communication, how is it that something as stunningly badly drawn as Gil Thorp achieves even modest success? Seeing it on a significant daily's comics page is like turning on the TV and seeing a public access show from 3 a.m. on a major network or cable channel.
2) The art isn't all of it. The other amazing thing about Gil Thorp is just the sheer confusion that comes from reading it in sequence. I almost think sometimes that it's like a way more subtle and canny kind of Zippy-the-Pinhead series built around narrative confusion, free-floating signifiers, and Waiting-for-Godot style dialogue.
I'm not mocking it; remember, this is someone who loves Stover at Yale. And I don't think it's that badly drawn, as comics go. I'm digging back to 2003 for the controversial "social conservative" plots.
remember, this is someone who loves Stover at Yale.
How could one possibly forget?
I bet you like Frank Merriwell, too. Honky.
Maybe you want to upload the original scan and link to it so that people can actually tell what the hell the comic is, Labbsy?
Yes, Labs, I will violate him for you on Saturday.
Isn't Labbsy's point that it doesn't matter? I thought the breakoff in the last panel was perfectly fine, as the rest of the comic was so incredibly boring anyway.
Boring? What about their riveting discussion of infanticide?
Wikipedia tells me that this strip has been authored by, like, thirty goddam people.
Somebody else reads the Comics Curmudgeon, I see
My first thought as well. So Labs, now that you're caught up, who the hell are the characters? I've never been able to tell them apart, aside from the announcer dude and Clambake.
16: That's not from the strip you put in the post. Which is boring. Admit it.
Look, kids, you don't want to start fooling around with "Gil Thorp." It's a "gateway" comic that leads to harder stuff like "Nancy" and "Mary Worth." Just say no.
Wikipedia tells me that this strip has been authored by, like, thirty goddam people.
Pricks, every one of them.
My life needs direction. Maybe I'll go back and read The Phantom from the beginning.
"In a medium that is at least partially built around visual communication, how is it that something as stunningly badly drawn as Gil Thorp achieves even modest success?"
Also, why are Gil Thorp's characters' heads permanently at a 30 degree angle?
9 (1): Have you seen its competition lately?
Newspaper comic strips haven't been based on quality art in my lifetime. They've been based mostly on appeals to nostalgia (Dagwood Bumstead, for the first of dozens of examples; get thee to the Comics Curmudgeon!), followed closely by saccharine shlock (Family Circus) and using clip art to prop up one-liners (Garfield). I'm tempted to offer a defense of Zits and Fox Trot, and I guess there could be other non-stupid ones out there which my local papers don't carry, but on the whole, Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County were the end of an era.
Anyone here familiar with the amazing article "How to Read Nancy?"
I wondered about Mark Trail too, and whether strips normally printed away from the comics page live in a different ecology.
Also, while like some of the commenters here I've long noted the peculiarities of this strip in particular, my understanding would be enormously enhanced if I'd ever met or read something by anybody who ever actually read this strip straight, without irony or whatever.
29: A quick glance at the first page of results for a Googlin' of "why I love Gil Thorp" suggests that the set of people who read it straight approaches zero. I could be wrong, though; 'twas but a glance.
So surprisingly enough, the art in Gil Thorp used to be pretty awesome.
Also note that the first plot line criticizes car-dependence.
Damn, why do the vintage strips have to be so small?