Frazz Explains

In the October 7, 2015 sequence of Frazz, creator Jef Mallett explains it all. (click on image to enlarge).

Not only does he call attention to all the common conventions of comic strips (especially single-panel cartoons), but he does so in a way that makes the final observation the punchline. The entire structure of the daily humor strip laid bare in 2-4 panels.

Brilliantly meta.

Parallel Frazz

The nice thing about the Sunday comics is that artists have a bigger space to play with (well, relatively bigger). Jef Mallet used the allotted area quite creatively in the March 15, 2015 sequence of his strip Frazz.

Here's the strip as it appeared. (click on image to enlarge)

Notice what Mallet did? Normally a Sunday section will have two rows of 3 or 4 panels that are read sequentially; top row left to right, then bottom row left to right. In this case, the top and bottom rows are united, showing two events that are occurring simultaneously in to specific locations; Mrs. Olsen's desk and Caulfield's desk.

In essence, the strip should be read like this:

Notice that the final panel uses the full space to unite the two threads into a conclusion with the punch line.

Frazz nods to Big Nate

Most of the newspaper comic strip citations I've done in this blog call out cameos appearances. That is, where a character from one strip appears in another (either with or without the cooperation of the first strip's creator). The January 24, 2015 of Frazz is a little different, though. (click on image to enlarge)

What makes this different? When one character appears in a second's strip, there's an implication that the two strips share the same universe (or at least part of it). So, for example, because Dilbert is shown in Blondie's shop, that it's located in the same unnamed city as Dilbert's unnamed company. Or that because Walt Wallet dropped in to visit Dick Tracy, that the events in Gasoline Alley occur in the same universe as those in Dick Tracy. (See: Blondie Cameo and The Alley Comes to Tracy)

The point is, when one character appears in another strip, then both share the same reality. Jef Mallet chose to do something different in Frazz. Caulfield says he's reading a "Big Nate" collection. So in Frazz's world, Lincoln Peirce's character isn't a real person -- he's a fictional comic strip character (just as he is in real life -- if you really think about it). 

And just for the record, here's what was happening in the fictional world of Big Nate that same day. 

Pearls Before Frazz

This is the week for comic strip cross-overs and cameos. To start, Frazz by Jef Mallett featured an appearance by the cartoon Stephan Pastis. Pastis, the creator of Pearls Before Swine, not only shows up as a character in his own strip, but occasionally pops up in others (Pearls Before Dennis). (click on the image to enlarge)

This sequence is a nice gag by itself, but if you're familiar with the identity of the driver in the third panel -- well, then it's even better.

 As I said, there's a lot of cross-pollination going on. I'll be sorting some of it out as the week progresses.