Lio by Mark Tatulli for October 03, 2010

Last one out…

–And they rode off into the sunset, leaving Lio to hold the comics-fort!

Good-bye, Cathy [today is the last official day of Cathy]!

Poor Lio, left behind to hold up the fort.

I don’t think there are enough break lights on that car.

Accckkk! who’s driving the car!!!

Calvin’s driving – he’s old enough to have his license by now, right?

Also, good move by MT throwing Huey in the car __ I still miss Boondocks.

Don”t worry,Lio and heart can hold down the fort!!!

…and just like Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Picture, on the last day of the strip, characters rode off (or walked off) into the last unfinished panel.

write if you find Calvin and Hobbes.

Cathy is GONE??? FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!YeeHawwww!!!!!!!!!

Good bye & good riddance.

Good to see Opus still has his Galaxy. Maybe there gonna drop Cathy off at Kirstie Alley’s house and they can go to a Jenny Craig meeting.

The comic is gone {it was finished years ago} but the marketing will go on forever.

Never read her! Too many monosyllabilistic words.

ACK!!!

I’ll miss Lio. It hit the quarky, creative, otherside, within us all.

I always preferred Bill the Cat’s “Ack!” to Cathy’s…

Grog, you are still too tense. now go pet one of your cats and listen to that purr; see? all that stress is leaving you!

Trouble is, a lost of these discontinued cartoons come back as reruns, or as I call them zomibes. ( For Better or For Worse )

nighthawks, cats? IF I were to own a pet, it would be a dog. Perhaps a Lab.

A

UBBM is right. I bet we will still see Cathy greeting cards and coffee mugs for the rest of our lives. AAK!

Bloom County and Boondocks, wooooo! Cathy, meh. (And I’m a woman.) But she’s a classic whether I like it or not, and good for Mark for saluting her.

Re reruns/zombies: the good ones I’m happy to still have around. The bad ones, I just ignore.

@chrismaple - Opus? Hateful? Really?

@Simon_Jester - While some older strips probably should retire, I find it odd that you single out For Better Or For Worse. I find its insights into the everyday realities of a family timeless. Of course, they’re still in the early years when the children didn’t age, yet. Soon they’ll reach the point where they age and change as families do. It was why I loved the first run strips and still love the reruns

Still to each their own. I love Lio! Isn’t it great?!

One of the characters from My Cage should have been in the car; that terrific strip is ending on 10/31.

I still remember the last strip of Citizen Dog. That was a sad day for me. I love the reruns though.

The difference is, MyCage is not leaving the comics page on its own accord. And MyCage is neither well known nor did it leave any impression on the fabric of popular culture the way those three strips did. If I had put MyCage characters in that car, it would have pleased the fanbase of that strip, but it would have left everyone else with big “?” over their heads. The characters in the car are recognizable and known for leaving the comics page in the same way CATHY did: because the artist decided it was time to go.

Saying goodbye to Opus was sad and so was my farewell to FBOFW. It is saying goodbye to old friends.

cathy’s parting shot – nice one mt.

Brilliant strip today MArk!

Excellent tribute ala “Lio”, Mark!

But did “Boondocks” really end voluntarily or was it killed by the syndicate after MacGruder showed no sign of returning from his supposed “six-month hiatus”? Sounds to me more like it died of neglect, not a decision by the cartoonist. Say, whatever became of him?

Aaron MacGruder decided not to return to the comics pages. He quit.

I never thought much of Boondocks or Cathy, but Opus always did have his moments. Mark’s use of other comics characters (in wildly different ways) is always one of my favorite parts of “Lio” (currently my absolute favorite comic strip in existence).

Love the satire of Boondocks and Opus is a big favorite. I keep hoping Breathed will return to cartooning land. It didn’t seem fair to lose the talents of Breathed and Gary Larson so close together–at least in my time line, where life spins mostly out of control 24/7.

Aack! Lio, don’t turn out the lights!

Lio is not ending. Cathy is ending. Cathy is driving away. Lio is staying.

Love today’s strip - and very glad we still have Lio. :)

You know who SHOULD have been driving… one of the Far Side cows. :)

Is it my imagination or does the rock that hit Lio look ‘Heartshaped’?

Has his own way of saying goodbye, that is for sure.

@ TheDOCTOR If it’s Heart shaped, someone has a weird way of showing love! “Sucker?”

Gosh. The comics I miss. Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Far Side - these kept me in/sane through some extremely difficult years when I felt I was more or less completely isolated, on a low island in a sea of ignorance.

Outland was all right, but it just didn’t have the same flavor as Boom County, and I loved Boondocks immediately. That it shifted over to a TV series is all right, I guess, though it would’ve been nicer if McGruder could have kept both alive.

What I wonder now is what strips will be keeping the next crop of kids in/sane on those grim, directionless days when it seems like there’s really nothing else worth holding on to. There’s so very little in syndication that hasn’t been homogenized to pure insipidity.

I suppose that’s what makes sites like XKCD, Dinosaur Comics, and Jesus and Mo so important.

Goodbye and good riddance to cathy. I don’t know the others so well.

“Opus” was good, “Bloom County” was excellent, “The Boondocks” was great, and “Cathy” sucked. Why she’s allowed to ride in the same car as the others, we may never know.

BRING BACK BREATHED AND LARSON!!!!!!