Adam at Home, Big Nate, Betty, and Candorville: Have you given any thought to a New Year's resolution?

I don't really blame cartoonists for using any particular trope (unless it's an especially egregious circumstance). The sheer number of stories (short though they may be) that cartoonists have to come up with over the course of a year is pretty daunting, after all.

The problem is that it's hard to really say anything particularly new or interesting or funny when you're simply rehashing a set-up that's been used a thousand times over. And that's what's happening here. These are all solid comic strips, but they're basically just going through the motions today.

Candorville: Didn't you go to Tonga, Clyde?

I know I harp on this a lot, but if you want to write a comic strip with political content, you should under no circumstances allow your political interests to overshadow your focus on your characters. Candorville, like Doonesbury, is a good comic not because of its political slant, but because its characters are recognizable and specific and funny and human.

A humorous tonal shift from time to time doesn't hurt, either.

Candorville: I'm quitting cold-turkey. I will not use anything taxpayer-funded.

Candorville, like all comic strips that include political content, is usually at its best when eschewing the politics and focusing on character. This is an exception. To be sure, it probably helps that I find the political viewpoint agreeable. But even if you don't, you have to at least admit that it's a very well constructed joke.

Candorville: Sir, I've noticed you've replaced our political columnists with Mark Twain articles from the year 1900.

I think the point of this comic is supposed to be that replacing people like George Will and Maureen Dowd with old Mark Twain articles in newspapers would be a bad thing, akin to rerunning old comic strips when newspapers could be running new comic strips, like Candorville.

But the analogy completely falls apart when you consider that replacing people like George Will and Maureen Dowd with old Mark Twain articles would actually almost certainly be a good thing.

But then, I'm not terribly offended by Peanuts reruns, either.

Candorville: Do you know where you are, Buffy?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer definitely falls under the Vonnegut Axiom as a cultural reference that will always result in an appearance on this blog.

Candorville: A fan from Maine sent it...

I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that, despite the geographical proximity, the SUV in that photograph is not, in fact, mine.

Though I do enjoy Candorville a fair amount.

Candorville: Dunno, I have a pretty full day, Susan.

To adjust this comic so that it accurately describes my life, just replace all references to Superman and 12-year-olds with comic strips and cartoonists.

Candorville, Prickly City and Frazz: Naaaawwww...too dog-ish.

This Candorville is funny, while this Prickly City is not so funny. But the reason I'm highlighting them is that they're both homages to Peanuts. Now, Peanuts is easily one of the best comic strips ever and completely deserves all the homages it receives. But I sometimes wish cartoonists would a pay a bit more attention to other classic comics. I can't even remember ever seeing a Pogo homage, and the last time I saw a Krazy Kat homage was in a Calvin and Hobbes strip.

Speaking of which, Calvin and Hobbes is the other strip that seems to get a lot of love. Frazz, for example, is basically one big Calvin and Hobbes homage.


*Candorville from 8-21-09. Prickly City from 8-22-09.

Candorville: It was thought-provoking.

This kind of joke, where what a character says is contrasted against what the same character thinks, is a personal favorite of mine. Comic strips lend themselves well to this kind of humor, but cartoonists don't use it all that often for whatever reason.

Candorville: What?

Candorville is probably the best political strip around this side of Doonesbury. And it's because of really solid character work like this.

Of course, Doonesbury has built up an entire world, while Candorville has about three good characters to work with. But that means it has about three more good characters than do all of the other political comics combined.

Candorville: I like cheese.

Candorville is another one of those politically oriented comic strips that's at its best when it's not actually focusing on politics. Today's installment is funny because it has a well constructed joke that plays off of established character traits and relationships. While I'm not averse to cartoonists using their strip as a platform to give voice to their opinions, they really need to keep those opinions ancillary to the more narratively useful elements.

Candorville: *@$% yeah, I'm feelin' Lost.

Today's Candorville takes the old trope of men understanding each other through grunts and tics, and undermines it by having Lemont and Clyde misunderstand each other. It's clever.

Candorville, Non Sequitur and Pearls Before Swine: My stupid newspaper.

It makes a lot of sense that comics authors would want to write about the looming death of the newspaper, considering they depend on it for their livelihood and whatnot. But one of the dangers of tackling complicated issues in a form as compressed as a comic strip is that it's easy to be a little glib. Take that Candorville strip, for example. (Which, by the way, would have gotten extra points in years previous for the Watchmen homage, but doesn't anymore.) The point of the strip is that young people don't buy newspapers because they've shrunk their comics sections.

But that's a pretty silly point, not least of all because of the situation today's Non Sequitur acknowledges. While comics shrinkage might play a small part in the loss of young readership (I know I like reading the comics in newspaper form), the ability to get all the same information, including the comics, on the internet is a much bigger part of it. Non Sequitur, meanwhile, having recognized the reality of the media shift, inexplicably lashes out at young people, builds a strawman argument about how without newspapers there can be no journalism, and then ends lamely with an arrogant "You stupid kids will be sorry, you will."

Pearls Before Swine is more effective, mostly because it doesn't try to diagnose or solve or even really bitch about the problem. Instead, it just uses the problem as a platform to tell funny jokes about post-it-sized newspapers and Pig beatboxing.

*Candorville from April 30. Non Sequitur and Pearls Before Swine from today.