[Choose Ye This Day]

As far as discontinuing the "Achewood bashing," I already have. I don't like it, as I have said, for the very reasons I have stated. But when you say:

I don’t think Turbopilot’s trying to be like the elitist artists, trying to convince you that the reason you don’t “see that the single blue brushstroke represents man’s inhumanity to man” is because you’re not intellectual or sensitive enough.

You obviously haven't read the kid's posts. He calls us "anti-intellectual." He tells me to "crawl back in [my] shell" if I'm not willing to "open up" my mind to a friggin' comic. He states that he knows "with a high degree of probability" that he is smarter than me.

If that isn't pseudo-intellectual snobbery, what is?

[Scoutmaster]

You are correct.

I should have said "I don't think that when Turbopilot first said that we should look at a couple of month's worth of comic strips that he was using the elitist artist ploy. He was cluing us in to the fact that a significant part of the humor, if you find the strip funny at all, comes from knowing the characters and from repeat taglines."

The rest of the discussion got out of hand (in some cases, on both sides).

My contribution, which may not have any value, was my realization that a degree of the humor in a favorite comic strip comes from a recurrent situation or theme. Part of a Lucy/Charlie Brown/football strip's humor came from the fact that you KNEW she was going to pull the ball away. Having seen 50 similar strips made the 51st funnier to you than a person who saw the 51st strip having never heard of Charlie Brown.

Watterson was brilliant with Calvin & Hobbs because he placed the characters in familiar (i.e., repetitive) situations without making the punchlines repetitive or predictable.