Comic Strip Collections for Kids

July 19, 2021 12:38 PM

My kids, aged 7 and 9, spend a lot of time reading comic strip collections. We already have Peanuts, Moomin, and The Far Side. Calvin and Hobbes is on the list. What else would you recommend?

If my kids have a free moment more often than not they're on the sofa reading Peanuts (we've got the first 6 volumes of the complete collection). They have books and comics/graphic novels they read too but those require a bit more time while they can open up the comic strip books to pretty much a random page and go from there so what else is good?

posted by any portmanteau in a storm to Media & Arts (37 answers total)

My kid was really into Foxtrot at that age. It's especially good if your kids are kind of geeky. Be warned though, there are only like four different jokes used. Dad is bad at grilling, Peter can't get a date, Paige likes to shop, and Jason is a nerd. It's good wholesome fun though.
posted by bondcliff at 12:46 PM on July 19, 2021 [7 favorites]

The Complete Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed. A lot of it will almost certainly go over their heads but it went over my head as a kid (so did a lot of the humor in The Far Side) and I still loved it so much. The art alone is so wonderful.

A Right to Be Hostile: The Boondocks Treasury by Aaron McGruder is also excellent and very funny. Great art as well.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 12:51 PM on July 19, 2021 [7 favorites]

Pogo. Some of the political references might be a bit outdated (although, at this point, the same could probably be said for Bloom County. God I'm old), but the art and the jokes are still wonderful.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:55 PM on July 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

My elementary kid currently loves "Garfield" and has checked out every book the library carries.
posted by belladonna at 12:59 PM on July 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

Charles Addams' cartoons are great (and inspired The Addams Family, among other things, although those were only a small part of his work). Single-panel and not very wordy, like The Far Side.
posted by trig at 1:06 PM on July 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

Maybe the Ziggy comics? I picked up a tiny Ziggy collection at a thrift store a few years back and it's really cute and age appropriate.
posted by jabes at 1:18 PM on July 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

I read comics collections ALL THE TIME as a kid. In addition to the ones you’ve mentioned, some of my favorites were Baby Blues (about a family with young kids) and Zits (about a family with a teenager).

Calvin and Hobbes is an all-time masterpiece.
posted by mekily at 1:18 PM on July 19, 2021

Zits
Stone Soup
Awkward Yeti/Heart and Brain
Fowl Language
Strange Planet
Scott Metzger
posted by Melismata at 1:28 PM on July 19, 2021

I loved a book of collected Rube Goldberg cartoons when I was around that age. (Some of them are violent and or racist.)
posted by eotvos at 1:37 PM on July 19, 2021

Non Sequitur by Wiley. It alternates between one-panel gag strips and multi panel strips about a family in Maine. The latter (and especially the character Danae) I think would be more appealing to kids.
posted by mark k at 1:38 PM on July 19, 2021

At that age I enjoyed, but did not fully understand (and still don't) the work of B Kliban and still try to live by the advice Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head. It's like a slightly more challenging and grown-up Far Side.
posted by phoenixy at 1:41 PM on July 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

"Lio" and "Heart of the City" (both by Mark Tatulli originally) were/are delightful. Lio notably does not use dialogue at all, so it's sometimes easier for younger readers.

Tatulli still does Lio but handed over Heart of the City to Christina "Steenz" Stewart in 2020 and she aged up the characters to middle school at that time. Pre-2020 the characters are firmly elementary aged.
posted by castlebravo at 1:43 PM on July 19, 2021

If you're a cat family, Georgia Dunn's Breaking Cat News is delightful, and there are several collections aimed at middle-grade readers.

If you're a unicorn family (wait, what?), try Phoebe and Her Unicorn.
posted by lhauser at 1:56 PM on July 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

xkcd?
posted by aniola at 2:00 PM on July 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Wallace the Brave is a more recent strip that has a few collections out. We had the creator do a visit with our library and he was great!
posted by wsquared at 2:18 PM on July 19, 2021

My 9yo loves Bunny vs Monkey. It's one of the strips in the Phoenix magazine that he gets weekly and always tears into as soon as it arrives.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:21 PM on July 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

Cul de Sac
posted by drezdn at 2:21 PM on July 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

Mega Robo Bros is another strip my kid first saw in Phoenix - it's more action orientated but has some great comedy and the older kid will probably get a kick out of the older Robo Bro being annoyed by the (annoying) younger Robo Bro. It also has some surprisingly deep introspection about personal identity as the older Bro starts to wonder why he's supposed to be a "boy" even though he's a robot with no gender.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:30 PM on July 19, 2021

George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Ignatz - these are from 1915-1925 but they are surprisingly timeless.
posted by Kafkaesque at 2:37 PM on July 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

I don't know your 7 and 9 year-olds but just as an FYI, the Kliban books have nude figures in them.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:47 PM on July 19, 2021

You might check your local library; they often have a surprising amount of comic collections.
posted by The otter lady at 2:53 PM on July 19, 2021

Definitely Foxtrot and I’d add Pearls Before Swine as they start to appreciate puns.

Seconding Garfield - it’s hard to remember now because of what it’s become, but in the early years it was a really funny strip.
posted by Mchelly at 2:54 PM on July 19, 2021

Little Lulu. Created 1935. Republished by Dark Horse and a hit at our house.

For when your kids want a bigger story arc but still need plenty of punchlines. (Short graphic novels and extended comics). All should be available through your friendly neighborhood comic book dealer.
- The Way of the Hive. Originally published as Clan Apis. Jokes, bees and Science!
- What's Michael. Silly cat manga.
- Amelia Rules. Coming of age with 9 year old Amelia and friends. Series follows them to 8th grade.
posted by heidiola at 3:28 PM on July 19, 2021

Bone by Jeff Smith
posted by Rash at 4:03 PM on July 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

Seconding Wallace the Brave. Great strip for all ages including adults.
posted by Hey, Zeus! at 4:09 PM on July 19, 2021

Asterix and Obelix, Cul de Sac
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 4:14 PM on July 19, 2021

Response by poster: I've now got 20 holds at the library for all of these suggestions!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:20 PM on July 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Mutts
Get Fuzzy
Hilda (graphic novels)

Tintin and Asterix & Obelix were what I read, but they have dated in some weird ways. I also read allll of my mother's Doonesbury going back to when it started, and that's how I know anything about the Nixon era in the US (did not grow up in the US).
posted by Lawn Beaver at 4:27 PM on July 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is maybe not a recommendation per se, but I had a bunch of Dykes To Watch Out For collections on my bookcase, and my heterosexual white male preteen/tween sneaked them off to his room "in secret." And I gotta say, now that he's a grown man I definitely think there were far worse sources of "adult" imagery he could have had as his first exposure to that.
posted by shadygrove at 5:12 PM on July 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

getfuzzy about a cat and a dog and their human
bizarro it's in the name
frazz about a quirky janitor at an elementary school
nonsequitur strange, several story lines and an occasional coloring page
pot-shots these are old school. they used to be postcards
zits teenage stuff

I look at these every day
posted by Grok Lobster at 5:35 PM on July 19, 2021

Skippy inspired peanuts (the peanut butter logo is hotly contested by the creators estate)
posted by brujita at 7:46 PM on July 19, 2021

As a child (in the '80s), I loved Garfield and Hagar the Horrible as well as Peanuts. (Also Asterix and Tintin, but they definitely fall under the "read through from the beginning of the book" category, not the "open to any random page and start laughing" one.)
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 2:34 AM on July 20, 2021

Winsor McKay's "Little Nemo in Slumberland"
posted by lathrop at 6:10 AM on July 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Just a caveat about Little Nemo- I love Windsor McKay's work, but it is very much an artifact of its time, in that there are some pretty racist aspects to it.

There might be value in having a conversation with your children about these things, but just be aware that it's there.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:37 AM on July 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Nthing Peanuts, Far Side, Garfield, of course Calvin & Hobbes. Bloom County apparently felt a bit too grown-up for the kids at that age (they’re incipient teenagers now: may try them on it again soon).

Foxtrot was a big big hit with everyone though — a surprise to me since I’d never considered it too much more than good for a quick chuckle when I encounter it in the paper. I hadn’t realized how much of a tech nerd Bill Amend is and how on point some of his technology jokes are. Bonus is of course that the technology evolves over the 30(!) years of the strip even as the characters remain their constant ages.

Big Nate (by Lincoln Peirce I think) was one I hadn’t seen before but the collections were also very popular a few years back (it’s set in middle school but the social situations and the humor work fine for elementary schoolers — my kids were most into it in 3rd/4th grade). There are traditional four-panel collections but also some graphic-ish novels (a la Diary of a Wimpy Kid — another decent option) which can help the transition into longer form reading.

As does just about any other graphic novel / series, but that’s another question (one answered on here many times I believe).
posted by sesquipedalia at 9:23 AM on July 20, 2021

My kids all love The Phoenix (English weekly comic; they ship internationally.) It's also very contemporary, progressive, and diverse in a way that Peanuts, C&H, Far Side aren't (though those strips are also awesome). Highly recommended.

I learned about Watergate in the 90s from Doonesbury. Your kids can too! Well, not in the 90s, that ship has sailed.
posted by sy at 12:59 PM on July 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

For comics strips close to Calvin and Hobbes, you can try Mafalda.
posted by anzen-dai-ichi at 2:13 PM on July 22, 2021