Guess who’s coming to breakfast? Meet the new comics

Some new pals are showing up for breakfast. And, just like any good guests, they want a chance to introduce themselves.

You’ve probably seen Mother Goose & Grimm, replacing Agnes, around. Grimm and his cohorts have been confounding the lady of the house since the mid-1980s.

Bizarro, replacing Ballard Street, is that friend that helps you see our wacky world in a slightly different light.

The Stones from Stone Soup, replacing Get Fuzzy, are those lean-across-the-fence neighbors who you share your dramas and silly life adventures that we in the Pacific Northwest are known for.

That kid down the street with a band, yes, that is Jeremy Duncan from Zits, replacing For Better or For Worse. He’s a good kid, even though his friends are kind of strange. Plus his folks are super friendly.

We welcome your comments and feedback. Leave us a message at 360-735-4448, send an email to comics@columbian.com or comment on the “New comics lineup revealed” article at columbian.com, which will be posted on the Columbian’s homepage under “Editor’s choice” for the upcoming week.

Learn more about the process of choosing the new strips.

Blondie and Dagwood from Blondie, replacing Marmaduke, they have been regular visitors for years — but now they are coming by on Sundays, too.

Finally, the Fox family from FoxTrot, replacing Chuckle Bros., are the family in the know: They seem to have a finger on the pulse of what is hip and now. Stick with them, and you might be able to have a conversation with that Jeremy Duncan.

All of these characters are thrilled to start your day with you, sharing some drama and worldly insight, but especially some laughs. Don’t worry about the extra dishes, Grimmy has volunteered to lick the plates clean.

Bizarro

Welcome to the world of Bizarro, where everyday life gets just a little tweak into the weird. This single panel strip is known for being eccentric and exaggerated but also somewhat plausible in “normal life.”

The Characters: Bizarro sometimes features celebrity cameos, but the real fun is the hidden symbols. Each panel has a list of regular symbols including a flying saucer, slice of pie, a lost loafer, firecracker, eyeball, bird, an arrow, bunny, and a k2 that regular readers will learn to hunt for. The number of hidden symbols is listed next to the author’s signature.

The Author: Dan Piraro has traveled the world extensively, which has helped shape his perception of the weird things out there. He often writes about topics close to his heart, such as animal welfare, veganism and environmental awareness. Piraro won the Best Cartoon Panel of the Year from the National Cartoonists Society for three years running from 2000-02.

Blondie

Daily Columbian comics readers are already familiar with Blondie, Dagwood and the gang, but now you can spend time with them seven days a week, as we are adding Blondie to our Sunday lineup. Around since 1930, Blondie follows the lives of the Bumstead family and even though some modernization has happened in their household, the running gags, such as Dagwood running late for work and impossibly tall sandwiches, endure.

The Characters:

• When the strip started, Blondie Boodadoop was portrayed as a flighty, jazz-loving party girl. After her marriage to Dagwood Bumstead and his parents disinherited him, Blondie became the more level-headed of the pair.

• Many of the strip’s standing jokes revolve around Dagwood and his sometimes bumbling, naive ways. He is often being reprimanded by his tyrannical boss, Mr. Dither, or running down the mailman, Mr. Beasley.

• The Bumstead children, Alexander and Cookie, the family dog, Daisy, and neighbors and best friends, Herb and Tootsie, round out the primary players in the Blondie world.

The Author: Chic Young drew Blondie until 1972, when he died and his son Don Young took over. Through the years, Don Young has collaborated with many artists, including illustrator John Marshall since 2007. To celebrate Blondie’s 75th anniversary in 2005, story plots expanded to include other popular comics characters, including Garfield, Beetle Bailey and Hagar the Horrible.

FoxTrot

The Foxes seem like a typical suburban family: Mom, Dad, three kids and a “perpetually hungry” pet iguana. But wait until you get to know them and see all of the chaos in their lives as they delve into pop culture, fandom and some pretty geeky topics.

The Characters:

• Parents Roger, 45, and Andrea (Andy), 42, both work. Roger is in a white-collar office; Andy is a freelance writer but is mostly portrayed as a stay-at-home mom. Roger is a bit of bumbler and, despite his enthusiasm, isn’t particularly talented at anything, especially his hobbies — golf, camping and chess — and technology often baffles him. Andy is the family wet blanket, pushing her preferences and beliefs on her husband and kids. She can be cheap, keeping the thermostat so low in winter that beverages freeze, and she forces her family to be healthy by cooking dinners no one wants to eat.

• Oldest son Peter, 16, is a high school junior and a benchwarmer on the school’s basketball team. Like most teenage boys, he likes driving and girls, but he isn’t very successful handling either.

• Daughter Paige, 14, a freshman, has the typical interests of girls her age — boys, pop music and fashion. She longs to have a boyfriend but spurs the advances of nerd Morton Goldthwait.

• Youngest son Jason, 10, is the owner of the iguana Quincy and the strip’s protagonist. He is smart and nerdy but likes causing mayhem, often using Quincy as the means, such as training him to eat Paige’s stuff and then vomit it up in her bed.

The Author: Bill Amend has been drawing and writing comics since grade school, but Jason inherited his nerdy streak. Amend has a bachelor’s degree in physics from Amherst College in Massachusetts but decided to try to make a living cartooning. FoxTrot was first published in 1988. In 2006, Amend announced the strip would change to Sunday only to give him time to work at a more leisurely pace. He lives in Kansas City, Mo., with his wife, two kids and a “perpetually hungry” German shepherd.

Mother Goose & Grimm

Created by editorial cartoonist Mike Peters, Mother Goose & Grimm follows the antics of a rough and tumble bull terrier Grimm and his owner.

“With an insatiable appetite for trash can cuisine, Grimmy has never met a cat he won’t torment or crossed a fire hydrant he hasn’t sniffed,” syndicator King Features writes of the strip.

The Characters:

• Grimm is the star of the show. He is a bundle of energy and gives full sway to every indulgence in his path.

• For being a cat, Attila is a not very catlike, in that he is never laid-back and is somewhat neurotic. Grimm finds particular pleasure in tormenting him.

• Ralph, an absent-minded Boston terrier, is Grimm’s best pal. He is big on charm but short on common sense.

• The matron of the house, Mother Goose, is lovable but never seems to know what is going on.

The Author: Peters is also Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist. He was the staff artist for the Chicago Daily News and Dayton Daily News in Dayton, Ohio. Peters was also drafted into the Army, where he spent two years of service as an artist for the Seventh Psychological Operations Group in Okinawa. Mother Goose & Grimm began syndication in 1984 and appears in more than 500 daily newspapers worldwide.

Stone Soup

Northwest sensibility brings flavor to Stone Soup, the creation of Eugene, Ore., artist Jan Eliot. Based on the folk tale that good things can be created with small contributions from many sources, this comic revolves around two sisters who live next door to each other and their families, careers and life’s twists and turns.

The Characters:

• Val Stone is a widowed mother of two daughters, Holly, 13, and Alix, 10. Much of the strip involves Val’s reaction to challenges presented by her family and, occasionally, co-workers.

• “Gramma” Evie Stone is Val’s mother, who until recently lived with Val and her daughters. She comes across as stern but gets wild at times, especially lately where it was revealed she got a tattoo in Uganda.

• Joan Stone is Val’s younger sister. She is recently married to Wally, who loves being a stepdad to Joan’s son, Max, 3. Wally’s 16-year-old nephew, Andy, also lives with them.

The Author:

Jan Eliot didn’t figure out she wanted to be cartoonist until after she turned 30, when a friend encouraged her to put her “doodling” skills to use. The strip was syndicated by Universal Press in 1995.

Zits

Delve into life with a teenager. Appealing to both older readers who remember when and those who are the same age as Jeremy and his friends, Zits is an honest and humorous reflection of what it is really like to be a teenager, waiting for life to really start and whose parents just don’t get it.

The Characters:

• Jeremy Duncan is a 16-year-old sophomore in high school who thinks his life and town are the most boring ever. He hangs out with his best friends Hector and Sara (who is NOT his girlfriend, because no one owns her) and is in a band with his other good friend Pierce, a drummer who is very pierced.

• Walt Duncan is Jeremy’s dad. As an orthodontist, Walt spends a lot of time with teenagers and thinks he is hip with the kids — all of the kids except Jeremy.

• Now that Jeremy is in high school, his mom, Connie, has time to pursue her own interests. That is if she wasn’t driving Jeremy and his friends to places they could easily walk to.

The Authors: Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman got to know each other in 1995 at an Atlanta airport waiting for the plane’s tire to be changed and agreed to team up to create Zits. Scott is also the author of the popular strip Baby Blues and is one of four cartoonists in the world to have two strips running in more than 1,000 newspapers. Borgman is an internationally honored editorial cartoonist, including winning the National Cartoonists Society’s Best Editorial Cartoonist five times and a Pulitzer Prize in 1991.