comic timing

It has been my experience that newspaper comic strips are sorely lacking in comedy. I have read the funny papers since I was a wee lad of eight. Each week I would dig the comic section out of the Sunday paper and eagerly dive into that colorful sea of potential comedy gold. But aside from the steady work of Gary Larson, Bill Watterson, and Berkeley Breathed, the occasionally funny Ziggy or Frank and Earnest, and the not-awful B.C., the comics stunk.

This semester I am taking a class taught by Dr. Calhoun called Christianity and Imagination. At the beginning of each class he puts a Peanuts strip on the projector. The odd thing is that he does it one frame at a time. I have noticed that going through the strip at a slower pace, dwelling for a moment on each frame, builds the drama of the comic moment. A strip I normally would have read through and thought was boring, unfunny, and altogether insignificant becomes interesting, funny, and poignant.

Comedy is all about the timing.