Rubes, Close to Home and Strange Brew: Internal logic in single-panel cartoons.

While single-panel cartoons tend to work by accentuating the absurd, it is nevertheless necessary for them to have a certain internal logic. Take Sunday's Rubes, for example. The premise of the cartoon is the old adage that a man's home is his castle. Taken to absurd literalness, it makes perfect sense within the world of the comic that homes would therefore come under siege from Hagar the Horrible like raiders. It's ridiculous, but the joke flows naturally from the premise.

Yesterday's Close to Home, on the other hand, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The premise is that it's easy to vacuum up toys. The joke is that this particular mother has a hung a sign up on her wall indicating what noises various toys make when they get vacuumed up. But it's not at all clear just why she would hang up such a sign. What use is it, after all, to know the noises various toys make when they get vacuumed up?

The logic in today's Strange Brew is even worse. The premise is the idea of keeping an eye on something. The joke is that the characters in the cartoon are eyes. But that makes no sense at all. If, after all, you were an eye, you wouldn't have an eye. So you wouldn't be able to keep your eye on anything. I suppose you could keep yourself on something, but that doesn't sound right. And so the cartoon isn't so much amusing as it is perplexing and stupid.