Mitch4 sends this one in: “The “fourth wall” aspect is that only we, seeing his shout spelled out, can really tell which homophone he is using, though the other character claims to know.”
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Variant: I’m the viper! I’m here to vipe your vindows.
This can be fitted into a longer-form story-joke, someone receiving messages like “the viper is coming for you!” and “The viper will come for you this Thursday”.
Mitch4: That’s where my mind was going. Along with, “Where do you want these blinds, lady?”
Mitch4: That’s pretty much how I heard it, 70 years ago.
A famous blind man version: Vicar of Dibley
An old comic strip, might have been “Sally Bananas” had one. Goes something like:
Character meets another who is wearing a costume, including a large duck bill.
“Who are you supposed to be?”
“Duck Man.”
“That’s stupid!”
Brick flies in and hits him in the head.
“Tried to warn you.”
The blind man joke makes me think of another one about a woman how was living with her dog Seymour. She was toweling off after a bath when there came a knock on the door. She answered it wearing just the towel. It was a door-to-door salesman. Well, the naughty dog Seymour grabbed her towel and ran off with it. “Seymour! Seymour!” she hollered. Said the salesman, “Lady, that’s OK, I’ve seen enough.”
Mark, that’s one I’ve never heard! Surprising, since the “blind man” one is so common.
I think I remember someone posting a comic here that was mostly strip shenanigans. It involved a boy/superhero that solved problems by interacting between the panels (like plucking a stuck kitten from a tree). I can’t remember what the name of that strip was.
Darren, I think you’re thinking of the French comic Mr. Invincible.
Yes, exactly correct. And it was in fact in a previous “4th wall” post that I saw it.
These aren’t so much “fourth-wall” (interacting with the audience) as they are “meta-reference” (comics that know they’re comics).
I give up. Nancy is a cidu for me
Lola, I can’t entirely explain the Nancy strip in this collection, but at least it’s pretty clear it fits with the idea of using the methods/conventions of cartooning otherwise than for their usual purpose — as when some character can read another’s thought balloon. Here it’s something to do with Nancy’s speech balloon, which between the 1st and 2nd panels has rigidly moved upward so that only a portion of the last line of text is still visible. Then between the 2nd and 3rd panel, it rises further as she stands up, hiding all of the text. Then somehow it seems to have been burst open, and the result in the 4th panel is that the “o” letters have spilled out and are available to the girls to roll them around.
I see on further look that even that level of detail is missing some of the action. It’s not actually that she’s sitting in panel 2 and stands up in panel 3. Rather, she is all along (in 1, 2, 3) standing in the water with her upper body out in the air; then for panel 3 the frame shifts, and the other two girls go all the way underwater. Because of the sifted frame, Nancy’s speech bubble is mostly not visible in-frame. Then in the last panel, all three girls are submerged, and the letters “o” have perhaps become bubbles of air under the water.
I’m not entirely sure what the aquatic robot has to do with it, other than they are in a pool. Looking back on GoComics, this was part of a very long arc. They robot was for a competition against another school.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Variant: I’m the viper! I’m here to vipe your vindows.
This can be fitted into a longer-form story-joke, someone receiving messages like “the viper is coming for you!” and “The viper will come for you this Thursday”.
Mitch4: That’s where my mind was going. Along with, “Where do you want these blinds, lady?”
Mitch4: That’s pretty much how I heard it, 70 years ago.
A famous blind man version: Vicar of Dibley
An old comic strip, might have been “Sally Bananas” had one. Goes something like:
Character meets another who is wearing a costume, including a large duck bill.
“Who are you supposed to be?”
“Duck Man.”
“That’s stupid!”
Brick flies in and hits him in the head.
“Tried to warn you.”
The blind man joke makes me think of another one about a woman how was living with her dog Seymour. She was toweling off after a bath when there came a knock on the door. She answered it wearing just the towel. It was a door-to-door salesman. Well, the naughty dog Seymour grabbed her towel and ran off with it. “Seymour! Seymour!” she hollered. Said the salesman, “Lady, that’s OK, I’ve seen enough.”
Mark, that’s one I’ve never heard! Surprising, since the “blind man” one is so common.
“Back in the Day” often does 4th wall strips. https://www.gocomics.com/backintheday/2024/10/08 is an example.
I think I remember someone posting a comic here that was mostly strip shenanigans. It involved a boy/superhero that solved problems by interacting between the panels (like plucking a stuck kitten from a tree). I can’t remember what the name of that strip was.
Darren, I think you’re thinking of the French comic Mr. Invincible.
Yes, exactly correct. And it was in fact in a previous “4th wall” post that I saw it.
Thank you for remembering that!
These aren’t so much “fourth-wall” (interacting with the audience) as they are “meta-reference” (comics that know they’re comics).
I give up. Nancy is a cidu for me
Lola, I can’t entirely explain the Nancy strip in this collection, but at least it’s pretty clear it fits with the idea of using the methods/conventions of cartooning otherwise than for their usual purpose — as when some character can read another’s thought balloon. Here it’s something to do with Nancy’s speech balloon, which between the 1st and 2nd panels has rigidly moved upward so that only a portion of the last line of text is still visible. Then between the 2nd and 3rd panel, it rises further as she stands up, hiding all of the text. Then somehow it seems to have been burst open, and the result in the 4th panel is that the “o” letters have spilled out and are available to the girls to roll them around.
I see on further look that even that level of detail is missing some of the action. It’s not actually that she’s sitting in panel 2 and stands up in panel 3. Rather, she is all along (in 1, 2, 3) standing in the water with her upper body out in the air; then for panel 3 the frame shifts, and the other two girls go all the way underwater. Because of the sifted frame, Nancy’s speech bubble is mostly not visible in-frame. Then in the last panel, all three girls are submerged, and the letters “o” have perhaps become bubbles of air under the water.
I’m not entirely sure what the aquatic robot has to do with it, other than they are in a pool. Looking back on GoComics, this was part of a very long arc. They robot was for a competition against another school.