Week wrap-up

We wrap up the daily week with three silent penultimate panels:

Adam@Home by Brian Basset
Prickly City by Scott Stantis
Sherman's Lagoon by Jim Toomey

With today's appearance, Sherman's Lagoon becomes the only strip with multiple entries this week. So there is no single gross SPP abuser this time. Good job, comic strips.

Ka-Zaam

Two more for this Friday:

Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley
Sherman's Lagoon by Jim Toomey

Wait, Sherman's Lagoon? The one with the fish? What th-?

I've shared my whole thing about anthropomorphic fish before. The whole conceit can be very limiting to a cartoon. And when the cartoon world you've created no longer lets you address the things you want to, you can do like Johnny Hart and simply ignore it and just go ahead and have your Before-Christ cavemen talk about Jesus. Or, you can magically transform your characters.




I mean, really, bring in a magical character and have him transform your characters.

So the little nerdy fish and the milquetoast shark are now just a nerd and a milquetoast. They've become what they formerly only represented. It would be like Charles Schulz suddenly drawing Charlie Brown as an actual lonely and loveless middle-aged man.

Quick update

Quick, late update. Three today:

Bob the Squirrel by Frank Page
Bo-Nanas by John Kovaleski
9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney

It's been a while for Brooke. Welcome back, we've missed you.

A tangent

We're seeing the same flood/trickle pattern as last week. Strange.

The Duplex by Glenn McCoy

Speaking of anachronisms:

How long until every one has forgotten what a record store (and it's obnoxious clerk) is? I still by CDs, but only because I am DRM-phobic. (It comes with the territory as a Linux user.) That's just me. For most of the world, little discs with music on them are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Oh, and about the punchline, (let me get my snotty-music-afficianado hat on,) I wouldn't call Kevin Federline difficult listening; difficult listening would be something like Shostakovich. For me, K-Fed and Kenny G are in the same category: non-listening music. They just sort of take up aural space and don't do anything--perfect for people who love carrying around an iPod but don't really care for music. ...Ahem. I'm sorry. I'll get off this tangent. I'll just shut up and go listen to some krautrock now.

The All-purpose prefix solution

Another big day, another full week of silent penultimate panels:

The Duplex by Glenn McCoy
The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee by John Hambrock
Hagar the Horrible by Chris Browne
Momma by Mel Lazarus
Monty by Jim Medick (technically, it's not silent--there's music playing--but it still counts.)


Vikings of the New Deal.

Chris Browne, Johnny Hart, Gary Brookins, listen up. It is actually very easy to create parallels to our current world that work believably in your imaginary past and/or animal world. It's called the Hanna-Barbarra All-Purpose Prefix solution.
Here is how the punchline would go in the Flintstones: "Hopefully, Social Rock-curity payments!"

So simple, huh? Please work on it.

Dear Mr. Trail

We start the week with two silent penultimate panels:

Cow and Boy by Mark Leiknes
Luann by Greg Evans

Cow and Boy again uses the silent double.

And the power of the pause is further diluted.



Yes, I know, Mark, it has been some time. I was worried you might not want to hear from me after so long. I'm so glad that's not the case.

Special note: In four weeks, we celebrate the one year anniversary of the Silent Penultimate Panel Watch. And we will honor that by cutting back to only weekly updates. We here at Watch HQ are busy preparing a new daily blog that will totally amaze you. Stay tuned.

Superbowl Sunday

I only found two today, very spare for a Sunday:

Bo Nanas by John Kovaleski
Herman (reprint) by Jim Unger

Mallard Fillmore might count, but I just can't tell.


Are those panels sequential? Where do those bespectacled, paper-holding people belong in the Mallard universe? The duck has stumped me.