Quick Saturday

Quick Saturday night update with only one silent penultimate panel today.

Pooch Cafe by Paul Gilligan

Sally Forth today uses a cousin of the SPP, the LPS.

We've started watching this trend this week. I have a feeling it might be appearing here a lot for the next couple of weeks.

Para-penultimate

Three for this Friday:
Baldo by Hector D. Cantu and Carlos Castellanos (I believe this is a debut)
Cow and Boy by Mark Leiknes
On the Fast Track by Bil Holbrook

Instead of a silent penultimate panel, both Pooch Cafe and Overboard give us a silent, um, para-penultimate panel. (Overboard just can't stay away from the watch.)




And following up on yesterday's baserunner/catcher collision cliffhangers: Charlie Brown is safe and Jimmie Hughes is


(That umpire looks like he stepped out of a Conan the Barbarian comic book.)

Doubled themes.

Only two silent penultimate panels today:

Overboard by Chip Dunham
Rose is Rose by Don Wimmer

Overboard is right back on track after only a single day off.

In the double-up department, both Gil Thorp and the 1993 Peanuts reprint have the exact same action and cliff-hanger.




I had never noticed this before recently, but at this point in Charles Schulz's career, he had started going crazy with the zip-a-tone. It doesn't show up well in the scan here, but all the dust and motion lines are intricately cut zip-a-tone strips. Insane.

The LPS

Only two silent penultimate panels today, but look who's back.

Luann by Greg Evans
Overboard by Chip Dunham

Garfield doesn't quite count today but he does represent a new trend that is even lamer--the long, pointless set-up (LPS.)


Hey, have you heard about this crazy new thing called "eBay?" It's like a flea-market, only it's "on-line," as they say, on the "World Wide Web." It looks fun but there's a dark side. There are people who say they have become addicted to it. Beware.

Get Fuzzy

Three silent penultimate panels today:

Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley
Monty by Jim Meddick
Pickles by Brian Crane

Does Overboard break the record today?


My pal and fellow blogger Billy Black took time away from his doctoral thesis-like reviews of super hero comic books to explain why today's Get Fuzzy is the greatest use of an SPP since the invention of black ink. It's in the comments for yesterday's post here.


I guess it is pretty funny.

It's a barkeater

That's it, it's a record-tying day at the watch:

Cow and Boy by Mark Leiknes
Monty by Jim Meddick
Overboard by Chip Dunham

That's right, that's five dailies in a row for Overboard, Dunham has completed a barkeater. If he continues tomorrow, he will be setting the record for consecutive silent penultimate panels.

Or maybe not...

Because it's not quite a classic silent penultimate panel. Am I ignoring my own rules and being unfair just for the sake of my own blog?

And, because of the different and longer format, we count Sundays and dailies, separately. But Overboard continualy uses a four-panel Sunday, (a sin in its own right.) So should yesterday's SPP-free strip count as breaking the streak?

Well, I say it counts. Today's penultimate panel isn't necessary and it creates an awkward rhythm. And Sundays just don't count. We need to be consistant here. After all, this is serious work I'm doing.

Bo Nanas

Per the usual, this Sunday is a big day for silent penultimate panels:

9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney
Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau
Momma by Mel Lazarus
Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis
Opus by Berkeley Breathed
Sherman's Lagoon by Jim Toomey

Take a look at today's Bo Nanas and its effective penultimate panel. It manages to fit dialog and a comic pause together. It creates just enough pause to set up the joke, but doesn't use an entire panel of silent dullness. Good use of space, Mr. Kovaleski.



I had a busy Friday and Saturday and got behind on my internet reading, and, damn, if I didn't miss some great Mark Trail moments. The Trail is always at his best when there is a bear involved--and when you add a jealous woman in lingerie, well... this is going to be awesome.

I guarantee Mark will be saving this girl from a crazed, injured bear very soon. (And in serial comics time, very soon means sometime around November.)