The Old Guard Dominates the Young Guns

We spend a lot of time here at the DCR decrying the staleness and banality of many older comic strips, but today it's time to recognize why they can still keep up with the new strips out there. If you're comic strip has survived for more than a decade then you must be doing something right. Those comics that are older than most people can carry on, largely on familiarity and devotion of a fan base that may have been reading and following the characters for as long as they can remember. Ferd'nand is a pantomime strip that has been around since 1947. The writers have been able to keep it fresh for over 60 years now - even without dialog or some zany, far out concept.

Ferd'nand 4/9/09

Nothing really spectacular, it's just hilarious the way the bear is just kind of leaning on the table like "Hey you gonna eat that?" and then Ferd and his dog just watch for a safe distance.

In contrast we have comics like Todd the Dinosaur. This strip is 8 years old and I really, REALLY want to like it. The premise is a guy who just happens to have a 12-foot tall T-Rex for a friend/roommate. You would think there would be mountains of material here, but Todd seems to struggle with an identity. Sometimes the jokes relate to Todd being a dinosaur, other times we have site gags or bad play-on-words, but almost every day it feels like I am reading a joke someone else has already done, except this time it's supposed to be funny because it's coming out of a dinosaur's mouth.

Todd the Dinosaur 4/10/09

Classic case of thinking up a joke (cold feet mis-understanding, soooo funny) and then fabricating a situation in an attempt to make that joke work. We've discussed how this is a bad idea 99.9% of the time, as most cartoonists have a tentative at best relationship with reality. If a 12-foot T-Rex is standing on your feet they wont be cold, they'll be flat.

So what is the point in all this? Premise means nothing if you can't come up with your own new jokes that take advantage of your settings. If half of your jokes would be just as funny if you replaced the nutty, out of place character (T-Rex) with another boring human, then you are underutilizing the very gag that is supposed to make your comic unique.