The 1990s marked a transitional period for comic strips. The orange cat lost his commercial grip and became the nostalgic figure we still celebrate today, and three of the greatest comic strips, including The Far Side, ended their run. The ’90s also saw the rise of many favorites, some of which are still running today.
Since comedy is subjective, picking the best strips of the decade required some personal bias. I not only picked hilarious strips, but also thought about how relevant they were during the time period they were released in. I came up with a definitive list that’s sure to spark some comment-section debate over what could have made the cut instead. Regardless, these 10 strips are ’90s standouts worth revisiting, in no particular order.
Why You Should Trust Me: I’m a long-time reader of comic strips, and I began actively seeking out strips from the 1990s on my own rather than reading whatever was left on the kitchen table. I still keep collections from this specific era close at hand, and revisit them often. Curating lists like this one has become one of my regular beats as a writer at MovieWeb.
‘The Far Side’ (1980-1995)
Five Years Before a Final Farewell
The Far Side remains one of the most beloved comic strips of all time and was an easy pick for the best of the ’80s. Despite its limited run, I had to include it as one of the best ’90s picks, too. Saying goodbye to Gary Larson was bittersweet, and I admire him for going out on top of his game.
Admittedly, I prefer Larson’s ’80s outings, as plenty of classic strips land perfectly. However, the more time I spend with The Far Side as I write these lists, the more I appreciate the five years during the ’90s that Larson’s strips were published. While the ’90s includes some of his least impactful work, it also has some of the best of his career. It was a no-brainer addition, as nothing else from the decade matched its density of genuinely strange ideas per panel.
‘Zits’ (1997-2026)
Teenage Angst and Awkwardness
A face locked in permanent teenage despair, towering hairstyles, and feet several sizes too big – that was how Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman introduced Jeremy Duncan to newspaper readers in 1997. Anyone who had an awkward teenage transition (or everyone) can relate to a lot in this comic.
Zits arrived at the perfect time, coinciding with the ’90s teen comedy boom on TV and in movies. Exaggerated nonsense was a trend, and while the situations could be cringeworthy, these stories accepted and celebrated teenagehood without ever actually mocking it. Charles Schulz reportedly joked that Zits was the worst name for a strip since Peanuts, which is the kind of backhanded compliment that only makes sense once you have read a few of these comics. Scott and Borgman announced that Zits is ending in 2026, closing out a run that started in the ’90s and outlived the decade by almost 30 years.
‘Get Fuzzy’ (1999-2019)
A Late ’90s Arrival Worth Mentioning
The ’90s comic strip Get Fuzzy only ran for four months before Darby Conley’s debut crossed over into a new decade. However, it would have been impossible for me to leave it off a list like this. Admittedly, it’s in my personal top 10 of all time. Ad executive Rob Wilco shares an apartment with Satchel Pooch, an anxious and sweet-natured dog, and Bucky Katt, a cat whose contempt for everyone around him never runs dry.
For pet owners, Get Fuzzy was an immediately relatable and uproarious vision of life with cats and dogs. Bucky Katt is the strip’s ideal centerpiece for navigating the world of pets, and the first strip was popular, proving that it would become a future favorite. Ultimately, this is why I included it on this list: some strips took years to find their footing, but Get Fuzzy‘s first strip was high quality.
‘The Boondocks’ (1999-2006)
The Decade’s Most Groundbreaking Strip
Few strips arrived with sharper political teeth than The Boondocks, as reflected in the three years it took for Aaron McGruder to get it into national syndication in April 1999. The strip centered around Huey Freeman, a young Black radical intellectual, and his brother Riley, who embraces thug-life posturing from the safety of the mostly white suburb of Woodcrest. It eventually led to the cult 2000s TV series of the same name.
Six other syndicates reportedly passed on The Boondocks for being too edgy before Universal Press picked it up. The Washington Post notoriously pulled an entire week of strips over a storyline mocking Condoleezza Rice. Editors regularly bumped it to the op-ed page instead of the comics section, which only helped solidify its infamy and helped it enter pop culture history.
‘Doonesbury’ (1970-present)
Proving the Funny Pages Could Handle Real Politics
Garry Trudeau created Doonesbury after Bull Tales, the strip he drew for the Yale Daily News, before it launched nationally on Oct. 26, 1970. The ensemble strip follows Michael Doonesbury, Zonker Harris, B.D., and a rotating cast of friends and family who aged in something close to real time. The strip became the go-to for political satire, often using real figures. Later in his career, Trudeau mocked Donald Trump.
Doonesbury had already been running for two decades by the time the ’90s began, but the decade was rife with political issues and corporate greed. After all, the decade that included the Clinton Scandal and Enron. I would argue that the ’90s was the best decade for the strip, which is high praise given its solid run for over five decades. Critically, Trudeau won the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award in 1995, which is the industry’s top honor.
‘Outland’ (1989-1995)
Bloom County’s Best, Freed From the Daily Grind
Opus the Penguin and Bill the Cat didn’t stay gone for long. Berkeley Breathed launched Outland as a Sunday-only strip in September 1989 with a fresh cast. Then his Bloom County regulars wandered back in and took over completely. Under Outland, however, Breathed was freed from a daily deadline, allowing his absurdist political satire to breathe and letting some of his hardest-hitting comics from this era surface.
Outland proved Breathed’s characters were bigger than the strip that introduced them, with Opus and Bill the Cat reinventing themselves while paying homage to Bloom County. The final strip that was published in March 1995 featured Steve Dallas coming out and eloping with a character from Doonesbury, a bold crossover ending for the era. While Breathed brought the cast back again years later under yet another title, Outland remains a true stand-out.
‘Baby Blues’ (1990-2026)
An Honest Exploration of Parenthood
Nothing about early parenthood got the aspirational treatment in Baby Blues. Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott built the strip in January 1990 directly from their own experience raising kids. It followed the MacPherson family through every sleep-deprived and worrisome stage of raising kids, delivering wholesome comedic beats around life’s lessons and chaos.
It took me some time to warm up to Baby Blues. However, its earnest exploration of how hard early parenthood is offers a lot of insight. Strips around family dynamics often carry a “feel-good” vibe, even in honest portrayals of challenges, and there was no shortage of them in the ’90s. However, among titles like Family Circus and For Better or Worse, Baby Blues feels more quintessentially ’90s and helped kick off the decade.
‘Mutts’ (1994-present)
For the Dog Lovers
Earl was a real dog before he became a comic strip character. Patrick McDonnell based Mutts on his Jack Russell terrier when he launched the strip in September 1994. He paired him with Mooch, a cat with a speech tic and a tendency to philosophize about the world.
It’s minimalistic but utterly adorable and deep. It also earned Charles Schulz’s praise, who heralded it as one of the best comic strips of all time. Comic strips around pets have always been a favorite – I have a Jack Russell terrier – and any pet parent could find a lot to relate to here. Mutts distinguished itself by using humor to advocate for greater animal welfare. While the series almost had a film adaptation, it was canceled when Blue Sky Studios closed, which was a real tragedy. Mutts is still running today, bringing laughs and smiles.
‘Dilbert’ (1989-2023)
The Dominant Cubicle Satire
Scott Adams was still working a day job at Pacific Bell when Dilbert launched in April 1989. Still, it was the corporate downsizing and cubicle culture of the ’90s that turned the strip into a phenomenon. Dilbert, an engineer perpetually undone by his own incompetent management, became a stand-in for office workers experiencing the daily 9-to-5 grind.
Dilbert‘s ’90s run captured a specific moment in American office life when downsizing, meaningless jargon, and middle-management absurdity dominated comedy and reality. Dilbert was everywhere. It’s hard not to address the elephant in the room: Adams’s strip was dropped from syndication in 2023 after he made racially inflammatory remarks that led hundreds of newspapers to cut ties.
‘Calvin and Hobbes’ (1985-1995)
Bowing Out at its Peak
Bill Watterson experienced five years of rejection before Universal Press picked up Calvin and Hobbes in 1985, and by the 1990s, the strip about a six-year-old and his stuffed tiger, alive or imagined depending on who you ask, became the gold standard. Watterson used his hard-won creative control (including an unusually large, unbroken Sunday page) to push watercolor artwork and visual ambition further than the format typically allowed.
Watterson walked away from Calvin and Hobbes on Dec. 31, 1995, at the absolute height of its popularity. He was among three big comic creators who stepped away, alongside Breathed from Bloom County and Gary Larson from The Far Side. Calvin and Hobbes is the quintessential ’90s comic strip, despite only running for half a decade. Much like Larson ending The Far Side in the same period, Watterson delivered his most memorable strips in the ’90s.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
