By one definition, “4th wall comic refers to a comic book where characters become aware of their own fictional existence and address the audience directly. This concept, known as the Fourth Wall, separates the characters from the readers, allowing them to comment on the narrative and its limitations.” By that definition, not all of these fit. In some of these, it’s that the cartoonist lets us acknowledge the cartoonist’s existence, while the characters remain unaware. Is there a separate term that should be used for that?
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.”
??? Is there a joke either in the two panel version or the one panel version? Why does the comic only fill up the middle of the space? Why is there a dotted background, which doesn’t occur in this strip generally? What’s Jaimes trying to say here?
“They say it’s probably safe to keep orbiting for a while, but if it stays on or starts flashing we might have to call someone.”
Boise Ed sends this in: “I can’t recall ever seeing so clever a use of the fourth wall.”
JMcAndrew sends this in: “I’m assuming Curtis is watching the 1977 schlock horror film “The Incredible Melting Man” which might be the most obscure geezer movie I’ve ever seen referenced in a newspaper comic strip.”
Perhaps some relative of cartoonist Ray Billingsley was in this movie. Billingsley was born in 1957, so he would have been 20 when this was made.
Boise Ed submitted the French comic “Imbattable” (literally: “unbeatable”), which was suggested to him by a friend, adding: “My French isn’t totally up to this, but … Pascal Jousselin … does some great work with fourth-wall shattering“. Ed intended this strip as a CIHS, but I was astonished to discover that a translated version of “Mister Invincible” had already appeared at CIDU back in August 2021.
March 20th is French Language Day, which seemed an appropriate occasion for these strips to appear in the original version.
The second example is just the first of ten “unbeatable” pages that appeared in an April 2017 review of the first album collection “Justice et légumes frais” (literally: “Justice and Fresh Vegetables”).
… P.S. Try the link if you want to read the other nine pages in the review.
Boise Ed called our attention to an entire story arc from “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee“, commenting: “This takes the Fourth Wall idea to a new level. Starting with Monday, June 24, John Hambrock had a private equity firm take over the strip, first replacing the furniture and then the characters themselves, to scrape expenses. The daily jokes were (intentionally) pathetic…. Basically, it was a two-week screed against the evils of soulless private equity firms….”
It seems a bitter coincidence that LeeEnterprises has been gutting the comic pages (and publication frequency) for a very large number of newspapers. However, this arc appeared before Lee Enterprises announced a mandatory wholesale switch to King Features (the syndicate that publishes Edison Lee).
Here is a selection of strips, including links to the first and last strip of the arc. Because of the way the Comics Kingdom website works, the best way to read the entire story is to open the last strip, then load additional strips until you get back to the first strip, and then read upwards in the window from the first strip to the last.
P.S. Don’t forget to close that annoying popup frame with the lame Popeye cartoon!
… At the end, Boise Ed also asked: “I wonder if [we] will see the old characters comment on that, or if the strip will just resume its version of normalcy.”
P.P.S. The arc was in fact self-contained, without any internal reflection after it was over.
Boise Ed submitted this one last year, commenting “Every now and then, Pardon My Planet comes up with a real zinger.” I think I’ve seen it before, but I can’t find it in a CIDU post, and in any case it’s worth repeating:
The not-quite-complete “Arlo” moment in this “Zits” came as a big surprise. Perhaps King Features relaxed their censorship standards when they relaunched the Comics Kingdom website?
… P.S. And what if Jeremy’s mom had not left it out? What then?
Two half Arlos published on exactly the same day do not count as a whole synchronicity, but this Luann was pretty good, too:
… P.S. Note the annoying, but otherwise irrelevant color error in the second panel.
Boise Ed said about this Argyle Sweater: “Perhaps this is the fifth wall, since he’s erasing four“:
Another meta Macanudo:
… P.S. The title panel bears a fair resemblance to “In the Court of the Crimson King“, but it’s unlikely that it was intentional:
Danny Boy sends this in as a CIDU, but rather than post it long after Halloween we’re putting it here. “What, what? “I was making rather scary yesterday.” Is that something like “making merry”? I.e. celebrating and now hungover (and just getting into the office at a quarter to five)?
No, I don’t think I’ve answered my own question. “Making rather scary” is still pretty opaque.”
Or, trying to scare the street urchins?
Danny Boy hopes “that mechanism isn’t set up to treat the TP as reusable!”
Okay, do you agree this belongs in the LOLs? Or would you put it in OY, because the patient’s mishearing error depended on a near-miss similarity of sound between urine and hearing?
Thanks to Chak for this LOL from the Chuckle Bros:
When the New Yorker website has an outage, you see this message.
Hey, just a minute there! Are you saying there’s something wrong with that? It strikes me as an eminently reasonable basis for a preference.
Here is a sampler from recent episodes of an Australian strip that is new on our radar, Insanity Streak by Tony Lopes.
Comics I Don't Understand 