A gift to Lounge. But nothing’s FREE. Strings attached. The Code of Hammurabi for comix

And we say, "Lounge," NOT "THE Lounge," the same as how it's NOT "The Today Show," it's "TODAY"!1


The downside is the gift (today's Pearls Before Swine) comes with my dicta of Hammurabi on Comix – my updated ratings system, no deviation allowed!1

Category 1: Unmentionables:: SO bad they are never to be looked at, ever. The ones not named here AT ALL. Including ALL of the soap opera “story” types. DROPPED UNQUESTIONABLY, never have been UNdropped.



Category 2: Have talent & their niche, but ultimately have some kind of agenda, slant, boring. Something cloying or mean (Family Circus, the artist "mean&quot , or just something WRONG, or just tired. DROPPED LONG AGO.

For Better or For Worse, Sally Forth, Marvin, Rose Is Rose, Family Circus.



Category 3: A CRUCIAL category:: They’re good, even classics, but SO predictable and repetitive, stock characters & situations. RECENTLY DROPPED.

* Blondie, The Lockhorns, Hi and Lois, Get Fuzzy, Beetle Bailey, Barney Google, Non Seguitur (the unicorn lost me, or was it “Overboard”?).



Category 4: Same as #3 but their sharpness of concept lets them stay as KEEPERS.

* Garfield, Crock, Wizard of Id, Zits, Andy Capp, B.C., Baldo, Luann (yes, LU***ANN, all RIGHT?!1)



Category 5: MUST-keeps: Mostly one-framers, the sharpest of the sharp::

* Bizarro, F Minus, Brevity, Dilbert, Doonesbury, Mutts (just TOO adorable & cute, CHARMING!1), Pearls Before Swine, Piranha Club, Zippy the Pinhead, Close to Home, Frazz, Fusco Brothers, Hagar the Horrible (just, THE BEST), Barney & Clyde, Frank & Ernest.


ON PERPETUAL PROBATION: Zippy (SO weird, & I’ve got to zoom to 400 to read the crowded print) and Frazz (tortured concepts, sometimes creepy with the janitor hanging with kids). But strangely hypnotic.

And now the dessert, today’s PBS, nothing unusually great, just good again: