Lio and Marmaduke

I've never been a big fan of Brad Anderson's comic Marmaduke. The single-panel strip's been running since the late 1950's, and even as a kid I never found the Great Dane's antics amusing. So I enjoyed a recent installment of Mark Tartulli's Lio quite a bit. (click on image to enlarge)

I'm always appreciative of a comic strip that shows its self-awareness in a clever fashion. I think lobbing a hand grenade from one comic to another on the page qualifies. And for the non-fans of Marmaduke, the image that suggested the strip might go out with a bang simply added to the fun.

 What would have made the gag even better, though, would have been a coordination between the artists of both strips -- similar to what Stephen Pastis and Jeff Keane did with their  Pearls Before Swine/Family Circus crossover gag (Breaking the Fourth Wall of Comics).

But how would Anderson resolve the joke started in Lio with Marmaduke? I don't know, but it's something to think about.