Saturday, November 25, 2006

Six for Saturday

A big six for my last day filling in.


FoxTrot by Bill Amend
Piranha by Bud Grace
Candorville by Darrin Bell
Classic Peanuts by Charles M Schulz
Sally Forth by Craig Macintosh & Francesco Marciuliano
Red and Rover by Brian Basset

And yesterday I promised to explain some near-misses.


In FoxTrot, the silence is the response to the question, and therefore the "joke" rests on that silence. Not very funny, but not at all superfluous.


In On the FastTrack, the third panel reveals the result of the action in the second panel. The rhythm wouldn't have worked quite as well if the last panel's dialogue was included along with that "reveal".


And Get Fuzzy is the more obvious one, Bucky's not just "staring" he's attempting some sort of evil eye... it's pretty much the most important part of the gag.

Well, once again my time is up, Matt returns tomorrow. Have a good weekend all!

Friday, November 24, 2006

Quickie

Quick entry this time, I've had a weird day and I'm way behind schedule.


Cathy by Cathy Guisewite
Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott
The Duplex by Glenn McCoy
Candorville by Darrin Bell
Bo Nanas by John Kovaleski

FoxTrot, Get Fuzzy and On the FastTrack all dodged the watch today with narrow misses, for reasons which I will discuss tomorrow.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Big Turkey Day

I suppose I should give thanks for this bounty of SPPs (8 total!), but I'm Canadian, my Thanksgiving was last month.


Pooch Café by Paul Gilligan
Drabble by Kevin Fagan
Overboard by Chip Dunham
Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis
Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott
Sally Forth by Craig Macintosh & Francesco Marciuliano
The Meaning of Lila by John Forgetta & L.A. Rose
Monty by Jim Meddick

Technically, Drabble shouldn't count, since the silent panel revealed new "information", but there's two important things to consider.

First, the information revealed is superfluous and not entirely necessary for the "gag". Second, the panel border is completely unnecessary. The strip would have worked much better if the last two panels were combined into a single, longer panel.

If this was a Sunday strip, Fagan would have an excuse, since newspapers impose arbitrary panel borders for Sunday strips, to give them the freedom to rearrange them as they see fit. But this is Thursday, there's no excuse.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

You learn something new every day.



Garfield by Paws Inc.
Zits by Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman
Frazz by Jef Mallett
On the FastTrack by Bill Holbrook
Over the Hedge by Michael Fry and T Lewis

Wikipedia tells me this: "At the time of its debut, [Zits] had the widest newspaper release of any comic strip in America (the previous record was set by the Muppet Babies comic strip in 1985)." I only vaguely remember a Muppet Babies comic strip... heck, I only vaguely remember the cartoon show, so it comes as somewhat of a surprise that a spin-off comic strip held such a record.

And thanks to Mike P for pointing me to Over the Hedge, which had SPPs both today and yesterday.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Another form of comic timing?

Andy Capp by Roger Mahoney and Roger Kettle
Bo Nanas by John Kovaleski
Barkeater Lake by Corey Pandolph
Monty by Jim Meddick

Not only is Barkeater Lake two-for-two (is there another eponymous Barkeater on the horizon?), but it's another double.
There's no question of whether or not the SPP counts today, and Brent made a good argument that yesterday's counted after all.

FoxTrot, on the other hand, doesn't count, since the silence is essential to the gag.
Interesting note on this, I only found out yesterday that Penn Jillette has a podcast. If I hadn't, it's quite possible I wouldn't have understood the punchline of this strip. As they say, in comedy, timing is everything (I'm just not sure if that's supposed to apply to the audience).

Monday, November 20, 2006

Barkeater Lake

Three for Monday:








Garfield by Paws Inc.
Rose is Rose by Don Wimmer
Barkeater Lake by Corey Pandolph

I'm not entirely certain that Barkeater Lake counts.







Even though there are two silent panels, only the first of the two is idle, while the penultimate panel shows the "action" of the dog returning. On the other hand, the "joke" of the strip is so lame that the panel in question is fairly useless, so I'd say the final word on this one is "close enough".

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Sunday daily

Yes, that's right, your friendly neighbourhood Ugliness Man is back, filling in once again for Matt as he takes some well-deserved time off. For those of you who weren't around last time I took over, keep in mind that I'm Canadian, so don't be confused by the occasional extra "u" during this period. An average Sunday for my first day back.











Overboard by Chip Dunham
Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller
Brewster Rockit: Space Guy by Tim Rickard
Momma by Mell Lazarus
Frazz by Jef Mallett

Not only does today's Overboard have the SPP, but it's yet another 4-panel cop-out. As we've discussed before, sometimes comic strip artists completely waste all the extra space given to them on Sunday by drawing what basically amounts to an enlarged daily strip, and Chip Dunham seems to do that way more than the others.