monday, october 25, 2004
Scientific polling comics
A year or two ago, for some inexplicable reason (advertising space? uneven page numbers?), the LA Times split its eight-page Sunday Comics section into two four-page parts. I liked this, since my little sister and I used to fight over it and sometimes it ended up in shreds. Now we each got a part. But which section to grab?
I decided to find out. I graded each of today’s comic strips with my uber-objective funny scale: -2 (dumb) to +2 (amusing). Zero = no reaction at all. The data.
Comics I and Comics II each have 14 strips. Comics I also has a back page of reading material for younger kids. It’s a nice idea, but the content is bland veering on stupid. Comics II has a full-page ad on the back. I think Comics II has the advantage here since my eyes skip over ads.
The average funniness of Comics I came out to be -.14 (barely dumb). The median? Zero. Mutts and Foxtrot tied at 2. I’m biased towards Mutts, however, because my fourth-grade teacher liked it; it wasn’t particularly funny today. I sort of like Foxtrot’s nerdy boy, but I already forgot what the strip was about.
Comics II scored an average funniness of .07 (barely amusing). The median was zero again. Herman and Non-Sequitur got 2s. I don’t remember either of their strips today. I usually like them more than the other pieces of crap.
(Neither section’s score changed much when each strip’s amount of page space was taken into account.)
So, if you’re fighting with your little sister over the Comics sections, choose II. Maybe it won’t bore you until you rip both your eyes out. You need one to see, after all.
I wish the LA Times would cut the worst 14 strips and put some webcomics in Comics II. My choices? Since you asked:
dudley’s dungeon (awesome), toothpaste for dinner (amusing), white ninja comics (silly), exploding dog (required), pokey the penguin (required), and max (no friend-nepotism here, nope!).
comments (2)
what about boondocks??
– lizzy on 10/29/2004 08:52:03
my mom explained this to me the other day. comics i is kid-friendly strips, comics ii is for slightly more mature audiences. ohhhh.
– britta on 7/5/2005 23:38:30
comments are off. for new comments, my email address is brittag@gmail.com.
