Pearls Before Swine

The biggest crop of silent penultimate always blooms on Saturdays, when cartoonists think no one is looking.

Adam@Home by Brian Bassett
The Duplex by Glenn McCoy
Luann by Greg Evans
Pooch Cafe by Paul Gilligan
Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis

Pearls Before Swine with three silent penultimate panels out of six daily strips. That's a .500 average for the week.

And, really, today's is not necessary. It's a fairly funny gag, but the stuttering rhythm does not help it.


Right?

Too many bears

Three silent penultimate panels for this Friday:

Bo Nanas by John Kovaleski
Candorville by Darrin Bell
Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis

Today's Mark Trail doesn't really count, but... I just love talking about Mark Trail


I've said before that Mark Trail is at his best when there's a bear involved. I'm afraid Jack Elrod might be reading my blog and got carried away with my enthusiasm, because all of a sudden, there are just too many damn bears.

There's the angry, injured bear that Kelley keeps taunting:


There's Buck Jones' pet (and possibly more) bear:


And now there's the yet-to-be-seen bear that's been knocking over this mustachioed yokel's bee hives.


In a case of Shakespearian (or maybe Three's Companian) mistaken identity, the yokel is about to shoot the pet bear, thinking he will be getting revenge for his lost honey. It's a classic tragedy waiting to happen.

But no matter what, it's just too many bears.

Chickweed Lane

Three silent penultimate panels today--all from my newspaper, no internet searching needed.

9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney
Foxtrot by Bill Amend
Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley

The frustrating and confusing time warp of the serial comic strip:

How many weeks has there only been 71 hours left before the world ends? Let's wrap this up, McEldowney. I'm beginning to miss the stretching cat strips.

Luann

Two for Tuesday (as they used to say on the classic rock radio.) EDIT: Except that it is Wednesday. Oh my god, I need to get some sleep tonight

Luann by Greg Evans
Overboard by Chip Dunham

I don't normally read Luann. Honestly, am I missing anything?

Today's Overboard:


Really? Oh yes, movie food is expensive. RDRR.

Quick judgments

Three silent penultimate panels for this Tuesday

Garfield by PAWS, inc.
Momma by Mel Lazarus
Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis

And now to quickly pass judgment on these SPPs:

Useless


Useless


Perfect.

Language

Two silent penultimate panels today:
Adam @ Home by Brian Bassett
Cow and Boy by Mark Leiknes

Today's Non Sequitur isn't that funny. The gag is a stretch and it suffers from Mallard Fillmore syndrome--the reference-to-something-everyone-payed-attention-to-for-five-minutes-three -weeks-ago-but-have-entirely-moved-on-from-since:


You can't quite see it here, and in the newspaper it was only barely legible, but at the bottom of the Mel Gibson eye chart it says "what the !*@! are you looking at, sugar tits." As far as I know, this is the first time "sugar tits" has been seen in the daily comics. Did anyone with a paper other than the L.A. Times see a different version? I think Miller may have snuck sugar-tits in under the nose of every features editor in the country.

Funny drawing

The slow pace continues. Only two this Sunday:

Monty by Jim Medick
Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley

If the essense of comic strips is funny drawing, as Charles Schulz always said, then today's Get Fuzzy panel is a pefect example. The popular criticism of Get Fuzzy is that the parts tend to be funnier than the whole. Conley's set-ups are almost always funnier than his punchlines. But the man can draw, and he can draw funny.


And that sort of talent is a little too rare on the comics page.