Dumb punch line, awkward set-up, mediocre art. We have a winner.
Awesome on so many levels.
Runners-up: Baby Blues, Pearls Before Swine, Garfield (Elf slapping: the next Olympic sport?), Frazz
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't find very poor parenting to be funny.
The expression on Satchel's face in the last panel is priceless.
Runners-up: Zits (I liked the blort! sound effect), Doonesbury (Zonker's line "many of them profitable" is great),Candorville, Garfield, Lio, Opus, Pearls Before Swine, Agnes, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy! (this is really a one joke strip (Brewster is stupid), but it's a joke that still amuses me for some reason)
Not something I want to think about on my comics page.
Again the best part is not the punch line. Bucky's line "You are but bubble wrap unto the block that is my head," made me laugh.
Runners-up: Lio, Agnes, Pooch Cafe, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Sherman's Lagoon, For Better or For Worse (I love how Francoise calls Anthony and Liz out on their patheticness)
I worry about remaining objective about For Better or For Worse. Sometimes I think I have picked up an anti-Foob mindset from the gang at Comics Curmudgeon, and read the strip looking for things to dislike about it. But Anthony's logic strikes me as kind of manipulative. His argument boils down to if you decide to like Elizabeth, we can go see Santa, and Santa wants you to like Elizabeth. First he should have validated her feelings. A little kid with a single father could very understandably be jealous of the father's girlfriend. Then after listening and validating, he should have explained that he loves Francoise and his relationship with Liz will do nothing to change that. Problem solved without giving Francoise any neuroses about competing for daddy's attention and feeling guilty about it.
Pearls Before Swine wins in a photo finish ahead of Get Fuzzy. Things to like about this cartoon: great visuals, gadzooks is a funny word, the names of the superheros, Pig's mild acceptance of his totally lame character. I loved this strip.
Runners-up: Speed Bump, Lio, Get Fuzzy (As is common in Get Fuzzy, the punchline is not that great, but the dialogue in the set-up is awesome. Satchel's line in panel one (I don't feel butterflies...that would be creepy) made me laugh out loud. Darby Conley must put a lot of effort into his strip. He has consistently great, detailed art, and witty dialogue in almost every panel)
The set-up for this joke is terrible. I can't imagine anyone ever speaking the dialogue Hagar speaks in the first panel. And no one would ever tell their wife that they were flirting with a cute girl, except in some sort of anxious confession. I guess it fits because Hagar is supposed to be rude, but really, this joke fails on a lot of levels.
First, I enjoy the thought of a bewildered flamingo conservancy, so the baseline of humor in this strip is high. I like that Agnes fraternizes with some random drunk guy. I like Agnes' complete lack of a clue. I like Trout's complete lack of surprise at Agnes' lack of a clue.
As usual, a joke about technology falls flat. What does Tigger have to do with text messaging? What does TTFN stand for (I'm only 27, and I don't know)?
Runners-up: Frank and Ernest, Blondie (I still don't understand the joke), Baldo, Brevity, Red and Rover
Bonus Visual Runner-up:
Hagar the Horrible might be consistently the worst strip in the Post. It's become one of those strips that uses a one off joke each day. The characters have no personality to drive jokes with. The jokes are often incongruous with the setting. This strip really has no redeeming features to it right now, and it's probably time for it to be put out to stud.
Best:
Pastis does a good job explaining the human condition (although he probably just wanted to draw a rat with a napkin on her head). It's not a nice place inside any of us, and dealing with that is one of the major questions of human existence.
Runners-up: Watch Your Head (love the third panel), Candorville, Zits (I like that Connie comes out on top of this technological interaction for a change), Frazz, Big Nate (my little love huntress is a great, great pet name), Mutts
Bonus Visual Runner-up:
Today's Lio is a good example of what makes a strip work. The joke is driven by the character's personalities. The father has typical dreams of living vicariously through his son's athletic pursuits. Lio needs to deal with a monster. Another great thing about Lio is the question of fantasy or reality. Mark Tatulli, like Bill Watterson in Calvin and Hobbes, never resolves the question of what reality is. We are left to speculate whether the monster in the third panel is real, or solely in Lio's imagination.
Random Comic Note:
I work with kids, and this strip illustrates well one of the challenges of managing kids. Barry makes an inappropriate comment, but the father reacts to Curtis' reaction. Obviously, Curtis' reaction is inappropriate, but if the father had disciplined Barry for his comment, Curtis would likely be satisfied that justice had been served and could temper his reactions.
Just plain creepy.
I enjoy the idea of bewildered flamingos.
Runners-up: Zits, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!
Brevity is one of the worst strips in the paper. It seems like Guy & Rodd choose some random topic (My other car is... bumper stickers!) and do whatever it takes to come up with a joke, no matter how little sense it makes.
So is the joke that morons are likely to get stranded on desert isles, because that is the only way this makes any sense to me. Otherwise it's just the typical representation of evolution with the word morons attached. Maybe morons are funny, but probably not.
This comic wins a lot of points for the visual in the third panel, which I thought was cute. Otherwise it's the same joke Stephan Pastis has been riffing on all week, but no one else did better today really. And if you're going to use one joke all week, at least make it a good one, which Pastis usually does.
