Power Panels 6

So in my comics reading these past few months, I've come to the rather startling discovery that I'm almost MORE interested in newspaper comics than I am in the four-color superhero books I usually babble on about. Sure, newspaper comics are just about as obsolete as fax machines, carbon paper, and the Republican party, but they're still fascinating. Mainly in the way they persist in being terrible.

It seems that most newspaper comics are boring retreads of ideas that died at the same time as their creators... thirty or forty years ago. These are your Beetles Bailey, your Cranky Winkershafts, and your Wizards of B.C. The "comedy" in these strips is safe, tired, and boring.

Even those comics that do push the envelope a bit have gotten stale *ahem*Dilbert*ahem*. And that's saying nothing about the artwork, which usually consists of simple photocopies of heads in profile with new text written in every day like some type of endless newsprint Mad Lib.

And then there's Liō...

Liō may be one of my all-time favorite newspaper comics. For one thing, it draws on some of the great old silent comics (like the original Addams Family strip) and makes the idea feel new and fresh.

And then there's the fact that cartoonist Mark Tatulli seems to be pretty dedicated to making sure his strip looks good. Take this example from the first few months of Liō's run:

The close shot of the papers in the teacher's hands obscure the punchline effectively until the fourth panel. It's a neat trick using POV - something you'd never see in a strip like Pearls Before Swine. Which, you know, is still a funny strip, but it's not as visually appealing as, you know, this one.

Even with the "crowded working conditions" of the newspaper comics page, there's still enough room to pull off some pretty fancy shots. The humor's not lessened by the cramped quarters. The cartoonist just has to learn to make do with the space he's got. And, boy, does he.