Once again someone is crushed by an anchor in the lagoon, seems like every couple of months that happens.

Somehow, the Sunday ones just don't seem to have the same "pizzazz" IMO. Maybe because they're one off strips and don't carry a story arc like the weekday strips do.

Thats how it always seems to be most of the time in comics. I've been going through my Bloom County books and it's the same way. During the weekly ones a character will be missing or there's a kind of story arch, but you get to the Sunday one and everythings back to normal (or as normal as it gets in the comics). Other examples I've seen in Fotrot Dilbert, Pearls Before Swine, Get Fuzzy, and Garfield (yeah, I read too many cartoon books).

I think he "phoned in" today's strip. I guess comic writers need a break now and then.

It would be tough to do day after day for years.

Yeah, that's why Berkley Breathed went from Bloom County to Outland and Bill Amend went to a Sunday only format. Also I don't care what comic strip it is, none of them hit it out of the ballpark everytime. They will always have hits and misses. Some of my favoirte ones, i.e. Dilbert would go like a week before a funny one showed up, which really didn't start happening til about 5 years ago. Of course it gets to a point where they need to retire, i.e. Jim Davis. I was always a big Garfield fan but since the late 90s you would go up to a year before a funny one showed up, if that.

I will say, Toomey makes his strip at least amusing most of the time and hilarious probably half the time IMO. Pretty good batting average.

Although this new one (10/26?) makes 2 clunkers in a row for me.

10/27 recovers nicely though creepily.

10/28 Yoga Man

Where the heck is this one gonna go???

I love the shark experimentation series.

I've been going through the Sherman Lagoon books and this isn't the first time people have been doing research on Sherman. I think Toomey revisits a lot of earlier storylines to make new jokes with old material. However, as always he mangages to do it well.

And his characters remind me of people I know.

Today's strip is the funniest one in a while IMO. Tracking seahorses by their droppings.

That is pretty funny but I believe the one where they were using Fillmore for lasso practice was pretty funny too.

This seahorse thing shows that Toomey's strip is almost devoid of cannon. In the first few years there was a supporting character who was a seahorse (Broderick, he wore glasses and a tie) and there was no indication that seahorses were either wild or domesticated but that they were like every other animal in the lagoon.

After awhile, it probably is just easier to simplify things.

F'illmore's affraid of artithmetic"

This is totally awesome. I would buy a whole book of those. Is that available somewhere?

Sherman's Lagoon has 15 collections of regular strips and a Treasury called: In Shark Years, I'm Dead.

It goes in an unusual order for the first ones in the set, two books containing the earliest strips are about 4-5 books in.

Cool. Will look into that.

I love this strip.

Today's (12/16) made me laugh. A little thinning of the herd might not be a bad thing.

That's because you're mean.

The 12/17 is also funny and gross. "You feel wet. Is that possible?"