Barney & Clyde - Meta Flashback

As long-time readers of this blog know, I appreciate comic strips with meta-sensibilities. That is, those strips that acknowledge that they are indeed two-dimensional creations bounded by the conventions of the genre. Take the May 30, 2015 sequence in Barney & Clyde (click on image to enlarge)

The cliche of having your life pass before your eyes is an old one -- but it gets an interesting twist in the hands of writers Gene and Dan Weingarten and artist David Clark. Of course a cartoon character's going to see old comic strips. That's the sole documentation of his life. But there's something else -- the actual gag is the amount of time that flashback took. Because that's the time it takes the average reader to scan the entire sequence. Meta, indeed!