Brewster Rockit

Quick Saturday update:

Prickly City by Scott Stantis
Brewster Rockit: Space Guy! by Tim Rickard

The Brewster Rockit SPP works,

but it still counts.

Fridays

Yes, Friday has turned into a big day.

The Born Loser by Chip Sansom
Luann by Greg Evans
Peanuts (1959) by Charles Schulz
Preteena by Allison Barrows (thanks, DemetriosX)
Momma by Mell Lazarus

Charles Schulz shows that the silent-double is at least a half-century old:


I show how snappy today's Preteena could have been:



and Jack Elrod scares the crap out of all of us.

Improving the comics

It's an all bird edition of the Watch this Thursday:

Monty by Jim Medick (it's a bird puppet)
Shoe by Chris Cassatt and Gary Brookins

Today's Blondie doesn't quite make the watch, but that doesn't mean it's not awkward.


Ignore my bad photoshopping and I'll demonstrate how to improve the strip.

The human brain is actually capable of understanding two things at once. Therefore, we can combine the snotty lady's dialog with the revelation that Dagwood is one of the servers. So the awkward middle panel can just go.

Dean Young, you should hire me.

Late night blogging.

It's so late, it's already tomorrow. These are for Wednesday, December 6.

Garfield by Paws, Inc.
Heart of the City by Mark Tatulli
Monty by Jim Meddick (he's in a manatee costume)
Red and Rover by Brian Basset

Goodnight, see you in the morning.

More Christmas cards

And that will be four for Tuesday:

Garfield by Paws, Inc.
Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley
Peanuts (1959) by Charles Schulz
Sherman's Lagoon by Jim Toomey

Get Fuzzy acknowledges the silence:


Jim Arbuckle joins Sally Forth and Andy Fox in the Christmas card writing.

Still yet to get started: Cathy, Lois Flagston, and Blondie Bumstead. They will soon enough.

Christmas Cards

Four silent penultimate panels this Monday:
Adam@Home by Brian Basset
Candorville by Darrin Bell
Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley
Overboard by Chip Dunham

It was mentioned in the comments here last week, and the Daily Cartoonist reported today that Corey Pandolph has decided to end Barkeater Lake. I've said some critical things about Barkeater Lake here (enough to get a pretty rude email from Pandolph himself), but I do think this is a shame. Pandolph admits to losing interest in the strip, and it had become fairly obvious that he was not putting his full energy into it. Barkeater Lake had all the ingredients of a great comic strip--good drawing, a good mix of conflicting characters, talking dogs, etc.--but, unfortunately, at least during the last six months that I read it, a disinterested cook was in the kitchen. Making a comic strip takes a tremendous amount of dedication and work. And that amount is entirely disproportionate to the amount of money or acclaim you will most likely ever receive from it. I wish Corey Pandolph could stick with it, but if he feels he has to move on, then that is probably his best choice.

It's easy to make fun of comics, it's very hard to make them. Good luck to you, Corey. (and please don't email again.)

Meanwhile, it's the first Monday of December, that means it's time for comic strip character to write their Christmas cards. Here we go again.

Throw-away panels

Five for this Sunday:

Arlos and Janis by Jimmy Johnson
Garfield by a hired hand
Heart of the City by Mark Tatulli
Brewster Rockit: Space Guy! by Tim Rickard
Pickles by Brian Crane

Sundays tend to be big days for silent penultimate panels. Sometimes there's just no better way to fill up all that space than with an SPP. Today's Arlo and Janis will demonstrate:

Back in the old days (and to some extent still today) cartoonists had to throw in a few superfluous panels to allow for newspapers to rearrange the strips as needed. (The Peanuts reprints in the L.A. Times are always missing the second panel.) This Arlo and Janis SPP feels just like one of those literal throw-away panels.

(excerpts from) Marmaduke, 11/26 and 12/3:


Could someone please send Brad Anderson some new Dog Gone Funny ideas? In the past two weeks he's had to use submissions from 2001 and 2002. Surely someone out there has a dog that does something ridiculously useless. If your pekingese, "Honeybunch," spins in a circle and farts every time she hears Lawrence Welk, please send your story to Marmaduke, United Features Syndicate, 200 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016. You will be helping us all.