Devil in the Details Edition (May 4)

Worst:
Toilet water could more accurately be described as swirled rather than shaken or stirred. What really bothered me was Ralph's water bowl. The water appears to be a dome in the middle of the bowl. Is there any physical way that could happen, at least to that extent? Sometimes we all get caught up in the details I guess.

Runners-up: Blondie, Dennis the Menace, Family Circus, For Better or For Worse, Frank and Ernest, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible

Best:
The snake's expressions sealed this one.

Runners-up: Frazz, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, Pooch Cafe, Watch Your Head, Zits

Mr. Bojangles Edition (May 2)

Worst:
Inserting technology into an anachronistic situation is not inherently funny, as this joke proves.

Runners-up: Blondie, Curtis, Family Circus, Frank and Ernest, Garfield, Non Sequiter, On the Fastrack, Speed Bump

Best:
As always, great details in the art. Hiding a rhino under a lamp shade is brilliant.

Runners-up: Agnes, Pearls Before Swine, Watch Your Head

Nuclear Edition (Mar. 20)

Worst:
In addition to the bad joke, we have a silent penultimate panel. Matt Gill used to document these at the Silent Penultimate Panel Watch, and he points out the flaws better than I ever will. If you're really interested in comic strips, you should read through his archives. The SPP here adds nothing to the strip and ruins the what timing the joke had.

Runners-up: Blondie, Close to Home, Family Circus, For Better or For Worse, Hagar the Horrible, On the Fastrack, Red and Rover

Best:

Runners-up: Candorville, Dennis the Menace, Frazz, Get Fuzzy, Non Sequiter, Pearls Before Swine, Pooch Cafe, Sally Forth

Sigh Edition (Mar. 12)

Worst:
Another bad pun.

Runners-up: Baby Blues, Beetle Bailey, Curtis, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Mother Goose and Grimm

Best:
Lio's dad must be the most put-upon dad in the comics.

Runners-up: Agnes, Dilbert, Doonesbury, Get Fuzzy, Pooch Cafe, Prickly City,

Free Food Edition (Mar. 11)

Worst:
This is just a bad visual joke.

Runners-up: Baldo, Close to Home, Hagar the Horrible, Mother Goose and Grimm

Best:
Lio has all the coolest toys.

Runners-up: Baby Blues, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Pooch Cafe, Speed Bump, Zits

Absurdity Edition (Mar. 10)

Worst:
Rhymes with Orange consistently makes jokes that are meant to be clever, but they rarely are. The joke here is that skunks are black and white. Of course a skunk has no need for a passport, so the premise is absurd. Absurdity can be funny (as Stephan Pastis proves well), but it's hard to cross absurdity with reality and not lose something.

Runners-up: Baldo, Blondie, Brevity, Curtis, Family Circus, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Mother Goose and Grimm, Red and Rover


Best:
Lio is probably the best example of how absurdity can be funny. Of course everything in Lio is absurd, which helps make it work. We do not get distracted by the fact that Death is hitching a ride because it's Lio, and we're used to anything happening.

Runners-up: Dilbert, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, Watch Your Head

Comics of the Day

Worst: A wonderfully enlightened comic strip. I guess they could be laughing at Mr. Mitchell's choice of apron, but still.

Runners-up: Family Circus, Hagar the Horrible, Mother Goose and Grimm, Rhymes with Orange

Best: Cats with guns are awesome.

Runners-up: Beetle Bailey, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Dilbert, Pooch Cafe, Zits

Comics of the Day

Worst: A dumb joke with an awkward set-up.

Runners-up: Family Circus, Garfield, Prickly City, Red and Rover

Best:

Quality artwork.

Runners-up: Baldo, Big Nate, Candorville, Get Fuzzy, Non Sequiter, Pearls Before Swine, Sherman's Lagoon, Watch Your Head, Zits

Comics of the Day

Worst: Probes, in this context, are not something I want to think about. Also, when you need to explain what is going on in the first panel, you're doing something wrong.

Runners-up: Blondie, Close to Home, Frank and Ernest, Hagar the Horrible, Mother Goose and Grimm, Pooch Cafe, Prickly City, Speed Bump

Best:

The Garfield strip needs to compensate for poor drawing with an awkward exposition in the first panel. Lio, of course, suffers no such problem. Most comic strip artists could learn from Mark Tatulli's ability to express things without words.

Runners-up: Agnes, Beetle Bailey, Candorville, Frazz, Non Sequiter (I like this strip based on the conflicts inherent in the characters' personalities. When it does not feature that, it often falls flat.), Pearls Before Swine

Comics of the Day

Worst: If you're going to attack a public figure, be clever about it.

Runners-up: Beetle Bailey, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Close to Home, Family Circus, For Better or For Worse, Hagar the Horrible, Red and Rover, Rhymes with Orange, Sally Forth, Speed Bump

Best:

Is Ninja Kitten a one time joke, or will he return to entertain us again?

Runners-up: Agnes, Doonesbury, Single and Looking

Comics of the Day

Worst: This generally works better when Stephen Pastis does it, because he's funny. Introducing a character for a joke or two is difficult, because if it's not a good joke, the character serves no purpose.

Runners-up: Tank McNamara, Rhymes with Orange, Close to Home, Hagar the Horrible, Family Circus

Best:
Just a great strip.

Runners-up: Watch Your Head

Comics of the Day

Worst:Because nothing is funnier than a recycled joke.

Runners-up: Mother Goose and Grimm (another recycled joke), Rhymes with Orange, Speed Bump (jokes about the latest trend are rarely funny, especially if the trend is five years old)

Best:

Typical Lio. Clever idea, nice drawing.

Runners-up: Agnes, Pooch Cafe, Pickles, Sherman's Lagoon, Mutts

Comics of the Day

Worst: Dumb punch line, awkward set-up, mediocre art. We have a winner.

Runners-up: Speed Bump, Red and Rover (fart jokes are the last refuge of the unfunny), Hagar the Horrible, Blondie

Best:

Awesome on so many levels.

Runners-up: Baby Blues, Pearls Before Swine, Garfield (Elf slapping: the next Olympic sport?), Frazz

Comics of the Day Catch-up Post

So between Christmas decorating and work, I'm a little behind on my comics of the day. I'm going to try to catch up today.

Worst:

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.

Comics of the Day (belated Saturday edition)

Worst:
The Spice Girls were popular when I was in high school. Elmo is five. The odds of him knowing who the Spice Girls are, or who David Beckham is must be non-existent. So it's a dumb joke, and it's awkwardly set up.

Runners-up: Red and Rover, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Speed Bump

Best:

I was actually a little moved by this strip. Stephan Pastis often includes short term characters who appear for a few jokes. Most disappear within a week, some stick around like effeminate vikings and the Crocs. Andy is my favorite new character in a while. He actually has personality; this isn't a joke, it's a character sketch. I just love Andy's unrelenting hope and I love the pathos Pastis imbues Andy with.

Bonus Visual Runner-up:
It took some serious deliberation to decide whether I liked Lio or Pearls Before Swine better today. I love the drawing of Lio laughing in the third panel. And the joke is better than the jokes in most of the one off joke strips.

Runners-up: Agnes, Lio