Weekly champion.

Another quick update for the weekend.
Three silent penultimate panels on this Saturday:

Adam@Home by Brian Basset
Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis
Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott

That's two in a row for Adam@Home. And that makes Brian Basset this week's champ with three SPPs between Adam@Home and Rex and Rover.

Reader Dan also pointed out today's edition of Ctrl-Alt-Del. Thanks, Dan.

Just how many of these game-themed web comics are there?

Quick Friday update

Late Friday night, all I got for you is the picture.

Two silent penultimate panels today:

Adam@Home by Brian Basset
Monty by Jim Meddick

These two are real constants here--one has become one of my favorites, and one I think is sort of lame.

Holsing wins lotto!

Just one silent penultimate panel today, and I think I might be pushing it on this one:

Heart of the City by Mark Tatulli

So far, I've enjoyed the new strip Lio. So, I've started to read Tatulli's first strip, Heart of the City. I haven't followed it long enough to get a good sense of it, but I don't understand how a cartoonist could possibly do two simultaneous strips. It must be either with assistants or without sleep--or both.

So Rex Morgan is shocked to learn there is a homicide ...at the Walcot Hotel.


But he totally ignores the fact that Holsing won the lotto.


Sure, Sarah has Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, and the man you pointed a gun at a month ago might be dead, but... Holsing won the Lotto! Stop and smell the roses, Rex

I simply can't sleep tonight--I just gotta know which one of these fine characters is dead.

It's all in the rhythm

It's a relatively quiet day today considering one the three is almost fifty years old.

Agnes by Tony Cochran
Peanuts (1959 reprint) by Charles Schulz
Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

Does Agnes count?



I think so. Some time does need to pass for the joke to work, but regardless, the strip follows the same dull rhythm of a classic SPP.

Sally Forth, I'm not sure about. It goes silent-silent-punchline. But is the middle panel a useless space holder? I don't think so. Now I'm not saying this is brilliantly funny or anything, I'm just saying it's off the watch. Maybe

The sound of a herd of stampeding wild hamsters.

We haven't had a day like this in a while--five silent penultimate panels. Let me take a breath and list them all.

Monty by Jim Meddick
Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis
Prickly City by Scott Stantis (two days running)
Red and Rover by Brian Basset
Sherman's Lagoon by Jim Toomey

Yesterday, I wondered if some cartoonists were over-explaining their jokes with unnecessary captions. Today's Red and Rover seems to be an example of the opposite problem. Sometimes the joke in the cartoonist's head is just so obtuse, it's impossible to follow the logic that leads to the punchline. In other words, they just don't make no sense.


Say what?

One caption too many

Just two:

Cow and Boy by Mark Leiknes
Prickly City by Scott Stantis

And don't these two look particularly boring?

One thing I've always found with single-panel gag-a-day strips is the overuse of captions. Am I wrong, or would both of these work better without the caption? It's as if gag cartoonists don't trust the reader to get the joke with out an extra caption pointing out the punchlne. The captions here both provide extra exposition information, but is it really necessary? Maybe it's just me. But, if you're doing one of these cartoons, can you do me a favor once and try leaving out any caption? I want to see if it works.

Legacy strips

It looks like we have five silent penultimate panels for this Sunday:

Andy Capp by Roger Mahoney and Roger Kettle
Frazz by Jef Mallett
Hi and Lois by Brian and Greg Walker
Luann by Greg Evans
Peanuts (1959 reprint) by Charles Schulz

Most of today's are from legacy strips--either reprints or strips continued by their syndicates without the original creator. Unlike most, I really don't have a problem with that practice--in theory. It's fairly common in the comics world (when was the last time a Batman comic book was written by Bob Kane?) As long as it's good and funny, why not? Of course, good and funny in today's cases really only applies to the Peanuts reprint. I certainly could do without any more Hi and Loises in my life.