Lio and the Family Circus 3

Lio creator Mark Tartulli is one of the newer generation of artists who seem to have a certain.. disdain for the venerable comic the Family Circus (see Lio and the Family Circus 1 and 2). And, as I've also noted, Tartulli likes to play with the fourth wall of the comic strip genre -- specifically, the outlines of the panel that generally go unnoticed by the reader (see: Lio and the Fourth Wall for other examples).

In his New Year's Eve strip for 2015, Tartulli brilliantly combined both. (click on image to enlarge)

It's what keeps me reading the funny pages.

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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.

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Mark Tartulli has a long history of playing with he unseen conventions of the comic strip in Lio (see Lio and the Fourth Wall for other examples). The strip from March 23, 2015 certainly qualifies, I think, while also referencing "The Truman Show." (click on image to enlarge)

I don't have a lot to say about this example, save "well done."

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In 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. (follow link  for other examples).

In this example, Tatulli has characters from other strips past and present threatening to break in -- and it's quite a mix of characters. (click on image to enlarge)

A brilliant way to call an invisible convention to our attention once again. And a nice overview of the depiction of the feline in the funnies over the years... (even if one character doesn't belong)

1. Hobbes, from "Calvin and Hobbes (1985-1995) by Bill Watterson
2. Mooch, from "Mutts" (1994 - ) by Patrick McDonnell
3. Bill the Cat, from "Bloom County" (1980-1989) and "Opus" (2003-2008) by Berkeley Breathed
4. Bucky Cat from "Get Fuzzy" (1999 - ) by Darby Conley
5. Krazy Kat from "Krazy Kat" (1913-1944) by George Herriman
6. Garfield from "Garfield" (1978 - ) by Jim Davis
7. Felix the Cat - an animated cartoon character created in 1919 by Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer

Love is Grimm

Mike Peters doesn't reference other comics strips in his Mother Goose and Grimm as frequently as some other creators. But when he does, it's short and sweet (see: Calvin and Grimm). The Friday and Saturday leading up to Groundhog's Day this year, Peters riffed on the event by breaking the fourth wall. Other artists might have gone a full week with this setup, but Peters just did two takes -- funny, and funnier. (click to enlarge)

Steve Pastis' Pearls Before Swine regularly brings in other characters, and his characters show up in other strips quite regularly. The punchline in Grimm's first sequence plays off that fact.

The second one goes a little deeper. The unabashed greeting-card sentimentality of Kim Casali's Love Is.. is hard for many serious comic strip readers to take. And ditto comic strip creators. Mark Tartuli's had fun with the characters in his strip Lio (see Lio's comic Cameos 3). And while Peters' humor is gentler, it still makes fun of the trite "Love Is.." formula.

I do wonder, though, what Grimm would have pulled out of the hole from the comics page a third time...

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In his comic strip Lio Mark Tartulli often incorporates the unseen conventions of the genre into his humor, breaking the fourth wall in a way. (see Lio and the Fourth Wall for other examples).

In his 10/4/14 strip, Tartulli uses the panel border in an usual way (click on image to enlarge).

Panel borders are ever-present -- and never seen. Convention dictates that they're outside of the strip's action, in the same way that a frame isn't consider part of the image it's framing. Tartulli's gag is clever -- and by making us aware of something we take for granted, it's doubly so.

Lio and the Fourth Wall 7

Most newspaper comic strip artists have tropes they can return to again and again for humor. Few do as Mark Tartulli of Lio does -- play with the very conventions of sequential art itself (see Lio and the Fourth Wall for examples).

In his 11/13/14 strip, Tartulli breaks the wall in a curious way. (click on image to enlarge)

Yes, that's Mickey Mouse as Steamboat Willie cruising under the panel borders that have morphed into a drawbridge. I originally thought that Tartulli was referencing the premier of this ground-breaking cartoon. But it was first shown on November 18, 1928. Not the right day, and not even a significant anniversary (86 years).

But still -- a clever way to make us aware of something that always disappears from view when we're reading the comics; the panel border.

Lio and the Family Circus 2

Lio creator Mark Tartulli has riffed on the vintage comic the Family Circus (see Lio and the Family Circus). He again uses one of the overused tropes of the strip -- the meandering dotted lines that creator Bill Keane (and his son Jeff, who now draws the panel) use to show the paths of the easily distracted characters.

In the September 9, 2014 strip, Tartulli uses it in combination with another of his own personal tropes -- breaking the fourth wall (see: Lio and the Fourth Wall). (click on image to enlarge)

The Family Circus children meander across Lio's strip and off into the distance, moving beyond the panel border. The main gag is the caution sign and what it means -- but the way Tartulli plays with the Family Circus trope is original and -- for me -- just as entertaining.

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Mark Tartulli's comic strip Lio often ventures outside the confines of the genre -- especially when it comes to the convention of comic strip panels (see Lio and the Fourth Wall) for other examples). In his 4/9/14 strip, Tratulli has Lio once again break the fourth wall -- this time painfully.

Tartulli's not just an imaginative cartoonist, but a gifted one, too. Consider: if you were going to draw this gag, where would you place the elements? Knowing that the eye reads left to right, Tartulli arranged them to maximize the humor.

First we see Lio -- what happened? Then we see the cannon (with the note "for outdoor use only") and then Lio's pet squid with the instruction sheet. Each element reveals another layer of what just happened, and adds to the humor.

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Mark Tartulli's humor is definitely outside the box -- literally. His innovative comic strip Lio often plays with the confines of the comic strip panels, breaking through them and other wise incorporating them into the story (see Lio and the Fourth Wall for other examples). In his 3/14/14 strip, Lio's in a perilous place. (click on image to enlarge).

What's the role of the panel border? At first glance, it looks like the edge of  the paper being shredded -- paper that the two-dimensional Lio's trapped in. But when you orient the comic vertically, it appears as if the panel border isn't just the edge of the paper, it's also a framework that Lio can wrap his hands around! So is the border two-dimensional, or three-dimensional? Like a detail in an Escher picture, it's really both. Brilliant.

One more thing -- note how all the normal details of Tartulli's strip reinforce our perception that Lio exists on the surface of the paper. The signature, date, copyright notice and web address are all tumbling down the page.

Another comic tour-de-force by Tartulli.

Lio and the Purple Crayon

It's a perfect match. Mark Tatulli often incorporates the lines of his comic strip Lio into the strip itself (see Lio and the Fourth Wall). And Crockett Johnson's classic children's book character Harold did the same thing.

In his adventures with his purple crayon, 2-dimensional lines were continually reinterpreted, driving the story forward. They sometimes came to life, and sometimes made pictures that become the objects they depicted.

Except in this sequence. (click to enlarge).

Johnson was also a comic strip creator. His innovative work Barnaby ran from 1942-1952. Which makes this a nice tribute from one comic strip artist to another.

Lio and the Fourth Wall 4

I've written about Mark Tatulli, creator of Lio, and his use of the panel borders before (Lio and the Fourth Wall). The two sequences below are good examples of his inventiveness. The first, from March 16, 2013 suggests the borders are some type of supporting framework. Cut them, and the panel falls (click on images to enlarge).

The genius of Tatulli's riff is how the function of the panel border -- which often the reader doesn't even see -- changes. In the April 4, 2013 sequence the border isn't a framework -- it's a vessel. And a fairly fragile one at that, apparently.

This is the type of metahumor that keeps me turning to the comics page first every morning!

Lio and the Fourth Wall 3

All comic artists have themes they riff on. It's almost a necessity. Faced with a daily deadline, having a core concept you revisit again and again just makes sense (I do the same thing with this blog). There are two challenges to this, though, that a lot of strips fail at.

1. The concept has to be one worth returning to. Older gag-a-day strips have their stock characters -- overbearing mother-in-laws, clumsy protagonists, dim-witted sidekicks -- who provide the source of these themes. But many of these characters are as outdated and stale as Borscht Belt stand-up routine.
2. The concept has to be reinterpreted in substantially different ways. Garfield gobbles down a pan of lasagna in a single gulp. Garfield gobbles down a cake in a single gulp. Garfield gobbles down [a comically large portion of food or drink] in a single gulp. Sure, it's riffing on a theme, but the humor quickly wears thin. Whatever food is depicted in the first panel will be gone in the last. Ha ha.

Lio's creator Mark Tatulli scores high (in my opinion) in meeting both these challenges (Lio and the Fourth Wall). As in today's example. The concept: make the comic strip's borders part of the strip itself. The interpretation: well, that depends. Sometimes the border is a wall to be broken through. Sometimes it's a rope to be cut, sometimes it's two-dimensional, other times it's three-dimensional.

This sequence from 3/2/13 is but one example of how Tatulli plays with convention.
(click on image to enlarge)

Tatulli's varied use of this integral part of the strip's visual language is inspired and often unexpected. And that unexpected twist provides the humor. Far more so than, say the Lockhorns -- at least for me.

Lio and the Fourth Wall 2

 Most people never see the panel borders when they read the daily funnies. The borders are just part of the visual language of sequential art. Like paragraph indentations, they provide visual clues as to how the material is organized, but are only processed unconsciously.

Mark Tatulli , in his strip Lio, has had some fun playing with panel borders before (Lio's Comic Cameos 2,  Lio and the Fourth Wall). It's always something of a surprise when what was intended to be part of the background suddenly comes to the fore. No need to explain this one, but there's something to think about. Based on Tatulli's depiction, what is the nature of the panel border? (click on image to enlarge)

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.

Lio and the Fourth Wall

I have to admit when I first became aware of Lio, I didn’t like it much. But Mark Tatulli‘s humor has grown on me. And I especially like the way he plays with the conventions of the daily comic strip.

Here are two recent variations on a theme, calling the reader’s attention to something that’s always there (but never seen). The panel borders provide context to a comic strip’s panel, but they usually aren’t noticed by the reader. In these cases, though, they’re the point of the humor.

In the first, Lio shreds the vertical borders with his helicopter. And note the final panel. There are no borders at all. The helicopter is alone in (apparently) a wide open space.(click on images to enlarge)

Genius.

The second breaks the horizontal border – literally. It’s an effective way to show just how limiting the real estate allotted to each individual comic can be. And have some fun with that fact.

Brilliant!