Sunday Comics Roanoke Times Survey: It's Another Great Week for Funky Winkerbean

There are 21 comic strips in the Sunday edition of "The Roanoke Times" and so far this year, even "Family Circus" (one of our least favorite comic strips) has cracked the top ten, but "For Better or Worse" never has, and that streak continues this week as well.

But, why focus on comic strips we'd like to see dumped for "Sherman's Lagoon" when the newspaper which has a circulation of about 100,000, does have some splendid comic strips as well as ones which are surprisingly good at times, "Dilbert" and "Garfield" are both good examples of comic strips which have come back from the dead, well at least that's the case with the one about a 36-year old cat.

Here is our top ten:

1) Funky Winkerbean (see top image of a "Swamp Thing" comic book): We simply love it when the strip's writer/artist Tom Batiuk designs his own versions of retro comic book characters with Starbuck Jones. In this week's strip, Starbuck Jones is seen fighting off a saber-toothed octo-shark. Yikes!

2) "Pearls Before Swine" (see middle image of Ron Cey): Perhaps the usage of former Los Angeles Dodgers great Ron Cey won't be understood by readers of Stephan Pastis' strip in Manchester, Sydney or Hong Kong, but we loved this week's strip which also features an homage to "The Godfather." Pastis never fails to surprise us.

3) "Speed Bump"

4) "Get Fuzzy"

5) "Zits" (see bottom image): This week, "Zits," a comic strip focusing on a 16-year-old boy who never ages, has Jeremy's mom using a Polaroid camera, one of our favorite Casualties of Modern Technology, which is like 'so totally' lost on him. Images/hallucinations of Fred and Wilma Flintstone add to the hilarious effect of the strip.

6) "Dilbert"

7) "Agnes"

8) "Garfield"

9) "Mutts"

10) "Doonesbury"

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