The Unfunnies: Lefty Looie Has a Poor Work Ethic

This is possibly one of the least funny comics I have ever read!

 

It's not even that this is a bad joke, it's that it's not a joke at all. In fact, aside from the weird phosphorescent paint idea, and the fact that Looie didn't notice that he was lit up like Las Vegas until men with guns pointed it out to him, this could be an anecdote, or a scene from a particularly poorly-written prison drama, or a very depressing alternate ending to The Shawshank Redemption. Two dopes try and fail to escape from prison. The End.

- from Batman Comics No. 148

The Unfunnies: Cap's Hobby Center

Cap's Hobby Center/Cap's Hobby Hints was a strip that appeared in 60s DC books at least as often as, say, Chief Hot Foot or Peg. You're unlikely to see it show up here very often, though, as most instalments were more concerned with passing on tips about how to paint model airplane wings than telling terrible jokes. Every once in a while, however, whoever was writing Cap took a shot at being funny. They did not succeed.

I looked really hard for a punchline here, you guys. I checked subsequent pages just in case it was a two-parter; I reread it two or three times; I showed it to my own dog. Nothing. I am forced to conclude that this is the most terrible attempt at humour that I have ever encountered.

- from Lois Lane No. 62

BONUS LIST OF POSSIBLE MORALS TO THIS STORY

Dogs Are Wusses

The Children of Today Are Negligent Model-maniacs

Kids: If Anyone You Love Expresses Interest in Something Other Than You, Leave Immediately

The Time is Ripe to Start Marketing Models for Dogs

Engaging in Frivolous Activity Will Cost You Everything You Hold Dear

Discard Inefficient Biological Sources of Joy: THE AGE OF PLASTICS IS AT HAND

A Dog Holding a Bindle is Not as Funny as You Might Think it is.

The Unfunnies: Homer and the Terrors of the Deep

This one is pretty terrible.

That's right Homer: pave the ocean so you don't have to deal with the inconvenience of irregular topography! Dynamite the reefs to save you the indignity of potentially cutting yourself on a coral protrusion! Drug the fish, for they might someday bite you! You jerk.

Homer, by the way, is one of DC's "everyman" characters - along with Ollie, Lucky and Stan - who skipped from job to job as the thematic gag strips demanded it, and since they were the chumps who usually showed up in Aquaman's comics, they all got to be skin divers. Horrible, lazy skin divers.

- this one's from Aquaman No. 34

The Unfunnies: Honey in Hollywood

"Honey in Hollywood" is a strip about a would-be starlet trying to achieve her filmic dreams. It's as innocent as any of these comics, but I'm afraid that decades of layered cliches have irreversibly sullied my mind. I can't read a "Honey" without mentally inserting sleazy casting couches and coke parties and similar debauchery just off-screen.

I will leave my thoughts on the potential subtext of this installment unsaid.

From the Adventures of Alan Ladd No. 5

The Unfunnies: Tiny

So I still have a puppy, as per the last installment of the Unfunnies, and I must say that they are a lot more work than I remember from my youth. It's almost like I had some sort of help, someone to clean up the poops and endure the early-morning urination excursions.

In honour of young Branston Pickle, who is a delightful dog despite the amount of matter he ejects over the course of each day, here is another dog comic:

Not shown: Tiny dodging an enormous cleaver.

- From Action Comics No. 27

The Unfunnies: This Doggone Life

 In honour of the fact that I got a new dog yesterday, I give you this here strip from Adventure Comics No. 42:

 

Don't be fooled, though: I might have posted a comic about a dog so ugly that he can't win a contest that he is the only entrant in, but that implies nothing about my dog. My dog, in fact,

My dog will win all of the prizes.