Lio and the Family Circus

There's no doubt in my mind which comic strips Lio creator Mark Tartulli likes -- and which ones he hates (see Lio and the Comics Commentary). Lio has featured characters from both likes (Calvin and Hobbes) and dislikes (Peanuts) several times. Sequences about the latter always seeming to have the same subtext: why doesn't this strip just die?

Take, for example. this panel from 4/22/13 (click on image to enlarge)

Bill Keene's "Family Circus." started in 1960, and has settled into some pretty comfortable tropes over the years. One of them is the wandering path, in which one or more of the children trace a dotted path through the cartoon to wind up at the end of the journey delivering a punchline.

And the same thing's happened here. Except in this case, the characters have wandered out of their own strip and into Lio's. But the end of the journey still has a punchline -- a special sale for witches -- and Tartulli's message for over-the-hill strips. Time for these characters to go -- if only in a witches' potion.