Prickly City's Puppy Cameos - Part 1

Scott Stantis' Prickly City recently used a comic situation to riff on several other comic strips -- and did so quite brilliantly. This somewhat political strip's current story arc has a Hillary Clintonesque bunny preparing to run for election. These sequences involve her choosing a potential running mate.

The first strip sets up the premise, and the remaining ones follow through, up to a point. (click on images to enlarge)

Notice how the punchline for each comments on a characteristic of the "guest star." Snoopy gets a "good grief" and an aside noting that he's a character in a zombie strip ("been out of work for longer than six months"). "I'm not that hungry" provides counterpoint for the ever-voracious Marmaduke. Poncho from Paul Gilligan's Pooch Cafe remains in character, spoiling for a fight. The canine from Scott Adams' Dilbert -- Dogbert --has his attitude being compared to another famous know-it-all.

It takes real draftsmanship to render characters drawn in another style convincingly. And Stantis is up to the task. Which is part of the reason these cameos are so effective.

After four days, the rhythm's established. Set the scene in the first panel, and bring in another comic strip dog in the second. And placing the strips together, it's easy to see the variations on the theme. But then everything changes -- as we'll see in Part 2.