10 Jan 07 Comics

I’ve found that I don’t really enjoy Non Sequitur is much as I thought I would when I originally started following it a couple of years ago.  Usually, when the Danae/Lucy arcs appear, I skip them; same goes for the tall-tale fisherman.  I think it’s the fact that I already get a far too large a dose of cynicism in real life to want to “humor” myself with it again in comic strips.  About the only reason I still follow it is because every now and then, he comes up with a good one that I can actually relate to.

And it so happens that both Strange Brew and Speed Bump frequently leave me scratching my head.  Seems like the creators of these strips are trying to mimic the sort of thing that Gary Larson accomplished.  The problem is that Larson always made me laugh; the punch lines in Strange Brew and Speed Bump are far too often too obscure for me to pick out.  Rubes does a better job – the punch lines are always pretty clear, but I don’t always find them funny.  Ultimately, these comics will always be “Far Side” knock-offs for me – nobody does bizarre humor like Larson.

Tags: comics, far-side, gary-larson, Humor, non-sequitur, rubes, speed-bump, strange-brew, whinging