Lio and the Fourth Wall 11

All daily cartoonists use tropes. The difference between a trope and a cliché is an important one, A cartoon I think. A cartoon cliché is a setting or situation that's run again and again without any significant change. Zombie strips are particularly susceptible to this -- especially those where nothing's allowed to change from the original creator's work.

A trope, however, provides a starting point for the humor. And a good cartoonist can return to the same situation again and again and come up with something new. Like Mark Tatulli and his fascination with the panel boarders of his comic strip Lio. Mark Tatulli often incorporates the unseen conventions of the genre into his humor, breaking the fourth wall in a way that's often unexpected. (see Lio and the Fourth Wall 1-8 for other examples).

Here's the strip that was run June 6, 2015, (click on image to enlarge)

Tatulli treats the border like a wire frame (which he's done before. Notice the attention to detail, though. Not only is the panel bent, but the  copyright notices are bent as well, as if they were attached to the border. And its such details that really bring the gag home -- at least to this reader.