Comic strips you'd love to see as animated series

[mr3urious]

So, what strips (whether on paper or online) would you look forward to seeing as an animated series? Here's a few of mine.

- Calvin & Hobbes (if only Bill Watterson didn't have such a big stick up his butt when it comes to tasteful licensing, then this would be an obvious choice.)

- Baby Blues (I know there was a very short-lived one from 1999, but it's such an in-name-only adaptation that it barely focuses on Wanda and Darryl, let alone Zoe, the baby the strip is named after. A do-over with more involvement with the creators would be nice, and maybe have it focus on the later years of the strip with all three kids.)

- Zits (this would make for a nice network primetime slot if networks that aren't Fox weren't so stubborn about devoting some of their schedules to primetime animation. Jason Marsden would be very fitting for voicing Jeremy since every time I read a Zits strip, I just can't un-hear teenage Max Goof's voice. )

- Heavenly Nostrils (if a Calvin & Hobbes series would be unlikely, then C&H with a unicorn would be the next best thing. And since Tara Strong voices a certain other magical equine, why not have Grey DeLisle, who has worked with her on many other projects, voice the titular Marigold Heavenly Nostrils?)

- Pearls Before Swine (yet another obvious choice. I'd love to see how fourth wall gags are handled here.)

Note that these are all strips that the Comic Strip Critic endorses, and I wholly agree with him.

 

[Drtooth]

Comics are usually much better as animated adaptions. Even Garfield detractors love the 1980's cartoon series. Even Dilbert got some strong backbone in it in animated form. Even Marmaduke was better as a cartoon (though not by much and the cartoon sucked anyway...but not by much).

Now there is ONE comic strip that demanded a good animated adaption.

Robotman and Monty. Sure, we had that piece of crap Toy commercial from the 80's with an extremely neutered Care Bears version of the character. But I'm talking about the strip as it was in it's glorious 90's heyday. The strip itself wasn't afraid to have big, epic, action storylines. There was the unoffical X-files crossovers, the time that Monty had a nightmare where he was a prisoner of the Teletubbies and Mr. Rogers was their king, even the more comedy friendly saga of Monty becoming an Ice Cream man who had trouble unloading the cherry Bomb pops. The whole comic was rife for an animated adaption of some sort.

Yeah, even though the series is just Monty and Robotman's long out of the picture (also, Monty's fat for some reason) it still should get something beside impossible to find, out of print compilations of comic strips. It demands recognition of some kind.

Other than that, I wish Grimmy didn't end up a one season wonder that had a second season of repeats with just a new theme song. I'd venture to say that it was even better than Garfield and Friends was. I wish that I could find the one where Mother Goose has a Dr. Seuss expy as a lovestruck stalker. All I remember is her trying to turn him down in his style saying "I could not, would not with a Cop. I could not would not with a Mop" and a book called "How the French stole Labor Day".

 

[D'Snowth]

Not only that, but the BABY BLUES cartoon was an adult series at that, whereas the original comic, while occasionally showing a little maturity (Wanda breastfeeding, for example), is mostly clean. Then again, THE BOONDOCKS has a successful anime-inspired series that's very adult, while the comic itself. while still edgy, is a little tame in comparison.

As I've said before, I'd love to see an animated adaptation of GET FUZZY; Darby Conley was supposedly working out a deal for a movie back in the early half of the Turn of the Millennium, but that never materialized. I don't think OVER THE HEDGE's lack of success had anything to do with it, as Drtooth theorized a while back, as talks of a GET FUZZY movie predated OVER THE HEDGE. But I agree in that OVER THE HEDGE wasn't a spectacular movie, and I never even heard about the comic (and neither did a lot of people, apparently) until the movie came out.

 

[mr3urious]

Not only that, but the BABY BLUES cartoon was an adult series at that, whereas the original comic, while occasionally showing a little maturity (Wanda breastfeeding, for example), is mostly clean. Then again, THE BOONDOCKS has a successful anime-inspired series that's very adult, while the comic itself. while still edgy, is a little tame in comparison.

Not to mention heavily meddled with by executives. They pretty much forced a teenage babysitter character and a Simpsons-esque dysfunctional family in there, and focusing so much on the latter that the show might as well have been named after them instead. The show was almost about to be retitled Bluesville as well, and behind Kirkman & Scott's backs.

And breastfeeding is totally natural; nothing "mature" about breasts being used for their primary function.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

Family Circus, Nancy, Big Nate, Peanuts, and Pickles.

 

[Drtooth]

Uh... all of those were except Big Nate and Pickles.

And...seriously?!? Peanuts? Granted, it only had one short lived animated series, but... it was totally animated.

Of course, Nancy was trickier to place. Filmation did something minor with it.

Not only that, but the BABY BLUES cartoon was an adult series at that, whereas the original comic, while occasionally showing a little maturity (Wanda breastfeeding, for example), is mostly clean. Then again, THE BOONDOCKS has a successful anime-inspired series that's very adult, while the comic itself. while still edgy, is a little tame in comparison.

Boondocks is a special case, since it is written by the same guy who created it, and it has the same tone, but with the added benefit of being animated and not having a bunch of conservative newspapers pull it from circulation for having something to actually say. Though I think the show works best when it doesn't need politics to say anything. It has some of the best animated action sequences I've seen since Avatar (and I'm sure someone who worked on that worked on Boondocks... I know someone from Korra did). Anyway, the comic was never meant for a family audience. Don't see why he didn't just make more graphic novels.

While I don't think it would have made a great series, I wish we had another Far Side special back in the day. They had one and aired it once.

 

[D'Snowth]

Unless it was picked up by TV Land or something, I doubt an animated version of PICKLES would easily find an audience... not sure how many people out there would willingly want to sit down and watch an animated series about grandparents.

And breastfeeding is totally natural; nothing "mature" about breasts being used for their primary function.

Well, it still seems to be taboo, considering nobody seems to know whether or not it should be indecent or not... public breastfeeding is suddenly booming in my town (I was at Applebee's a couple of weeks ago, and a mother with huge jugs sitting at a table behind me pulled down her collar and started nursing right then and there), yet there's a great divide between people who say it's beautiful and natural, and people who say it's indecent and offensive... so I really don't know what to go with.

I digress, I forgot to mention that yes, I agree, I too would love to see a CALVIN & HOBBES series.

 

[Drtooth]

Calvin and Hobbs deserves an independently made, traditionally animated film of some sort. A series would have a weird demographic to find. Maybe an internet series? I agree. Bill's an amazing cartoonist, I get he doesn't want to follow in Garfield's footsteps... but really... C&H has a very respectful cult following that wouldn't want cheap garbage to sully the comic either. But it's that kind of narrow mindedness that lead to poorly drawn bootlegged shirts of Calvin peeing on things. Cheapens the strip? It ruins the strip's reputation.

 

[mr3urious]

I also forgot about Foxtrot. There's a lot of nerdy humor in that strip that would give it a strong audience, and a lot of visual humor that would really work well in animated form.

 

[Drtooth]

I'd almost want to see Disney make a TV series of the comedic sociopath version of Pooh from the comic strips. HEY! Someone needs to make the Griffins and the Teen Titans Go Titans look good!