The Poll: What's the Funniest Comic Around?

What's the funniest strip going these days?


(Creators)Enlarge Comic

Thanks to you all, 'Riffs has received more than 100 suggestions since last week. Now, it's time to start whittling 'em down.

Sure, "funny" is as subjective as a "Judge Parker" story is long. (And "funny," honestly, is only one criterion to judge a comic.) But that's the joy of it -- trying to find a strip in a mass-market industry that brilliantly appeals across many types of audience.

So based on your 15 most-mentioned candidates last week, let the polling begin.

By Michael Cavna |  January 27, 2009; 11:00 AM ET  | Category:  The E-Mailbag
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Cul-de-sac is a strip that is always clever and insightful, more than laugh-out-loud funny. ("Clever" works too, of course, but I would put that strip into a separate category from the true "gag" strips.) Of the remainder, many of these strips are often funny, and several of them are in fact usually funny. Some of them are indeed **very** funny - when they are funny at all - but they are inconsistent. I would put Pearls into that category; when it's on-mark, it's unbeatable, but too often it falls back on "Boy, aren't those crocs stupid!" humor that gets as tedious as "Wow, that Garfield sure is lazy and fat!". Dilbert can cut to the bone, but it too can often miss the mark widely. Get Fuzzy is egregious that way; sometimes the wordplay is inspired (as the artwork always is), but sometimes it's just strained. I therefore voted for Brewster Rockitt, since it has a very high percentage of funny strips, and the funniest among them are winners indeed.

Posted by: seismic-2 | January 27, 2009 12:03 PM

Write in for Lio...

Cul de Sac is a close second though.

PBS and Get Fuzzy are obviously two of the best of this generation, but they are getting a little bit tiring lately.

Posted by: jessecline | January 27, 2009 12:43 PM

Oh and Dilbert is pretty darn consistently funny too and deserves an honorable mention.

Posted by: jessecline | January 27, 2009 12:45 PM

I HATE Pearls... what is the obsession? It's mean and/or depressing.

Posted by: HallieRoseC | January 27, 2009 2:20 PM

I agree with HallieRoseC.. "Swine" is terible, mean and depressing. My husband loves Paranha Club, and every now and then, he will suggest I read it...and he will be right, it is funny funny that day. "Swine" has no such days....period.

Posted by: ZeldaJane | January 27, 2009 2:23 PM

Enjoy all of these, but if I had to live with only one comic, it would be xkcd (xkcd.com), even though it's not a daily.

Posted by: pltrgyst | January 27, 2009 3:27 PM

I also vote for Lio.

Posted by: nottenst | January 28, 2009 12:38 PM

I vote for Lio too. It's consistantly unique and funny. Also sort of sweet in a twisted way. Why isn't it on this list?

Posted by: rkato6654 | January 28, 2009 11:31 PM

Lio ...

Posted by: horacio2 | January 29, 2009 10:35 AM

Whoa - what happened with the votes since last night. There were a couple of hundred votes and Pearls before Swine had a pretty consistent 29% and Cul de Sac had 13%. Now Pearls drops to 16%, Cul de Sac is 29% and Pooch Cafe (which wasn't even in the running if I remember) is 23%!

Did we have some vote stuffing overnight?

Posted by: elyrest | January 29, 2009 1:16 PM

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