I’m passionate about comics. I really love them. It bothers me that the Sunday comic section has shrunk in the last few years from six pages to only four. There are still the same number of comics, they’ve just been severely compressed.

But my big concern… why do my favorite comics keep dying? Why? It’s not fair. Brilliant, funny comics like Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, and Bloom County wither away and die while miserable pieces of shit like Family Circus, Hi and Lois, and Blondie continue to spew their humorless drivel over my comics page each and every day.

They’re not funny. I don’t know anyone who thinks that they are. Why are they still taking up space? Even Dilbert would be better than Rex Morgan. Would it be so hard to swap out Ziggy for I Need Help? I don’t think so.

And it’s not just print comic strips, either. My favorite webcomics keep dying, too. The first webcomic I ever read, The Parking Lot is Full, folded a couple years ago. It’s a very, very unsettling comic. There are things like this and this that honestly scare the hell out of me.

Krazy Larry, another excellent, frequently hilarious comic, has recently died. It’s been several months since the last update, with no word at all from the author.

Men In Hats, another one of my favorites, has recently stopped updating. It hasn’t been that long since the last update, but it’s been long enough to worry me.

It’s disappointing. I don’t have much hope for Krazy Larry, but I think that Men In Hats will pull back from the brink.

After listing a bunch of dead comics, I suppose I should list some current ones. I read General Protection Fault Comics (by a geek, for geeks), 8-Bit Theatre (also by a geek, for geeks), and Penny Arcade (I think you get the pattern by now).

So check them out. The archives for most of these comics had me laughing until I had tears in my eyes.