Nice beard.

It's been awhile since I did a post about strips referencing other titles, and today's Pearls Before Swine is the perfect opportunity.



Two things I want to comment on:

First, most of the time when a strip has a character from another title appear, it's an unexpected punchline. A large part of the reason that the humour is effective in some of these strips is that "wtf?" mild shock factor. In this strip, however, we're practically told what the punchline is going to involve from the second panel. It's still fairly effective, but almost too blatant.

Second, Family Circus seems to be a favourite "mutation" target of comic strip artists. FC is the epitome of tame, lame, clean-cut, "safe" comic strips, so artists experience an undeniable delight in perverting the ethos. It's often hard to tell if it's good-natured satire, or outright mockery. Either way, it's fun as hell.