Week 14: 21st Century Comics

The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack is a collection of the The Perry Bible Fellowship comic strip by Nicholas Gurewitch.

I found the return of the comic strip in the modern format of a web comic interesting, considering the comic strip's prime was probably nearly 70 years ago. This rethinking of the comic strip, however, differentiates it from the traditional comic strip, and is probably why it is able to succeed in the modern day.

Visually, these strips are extremely simple, with a "scribbly" feel to them, and use uncomplicated lines and flat color throughout. Just as with the traditional comic strip, the focus of these strips are more on the punch line than the illustrative quality.

Many of the punch lines, though, are visual in nature. There is little to no dialogue in the majority of these strips, instead relying on visual comedy. A lot of the jokes are pretty dark and sometimes non sequitur in nature, which I think mimics the way popular humor has shifted since the height of the comic strip's popularity. Overall, the series reminds me of a comic I read during one of our class periods, The Far Side; I can assume Gurewitch took a lot of inspiration from Larson in his interpretation of the comic strip format.

Overall, The Perry Bible Fellowship is successful as a 21st century comic thanks to its format and content. Its presentation as a web comic makes it almost universally accessible to a modern audience, and its sense of humor is very representative of humor in youth culture today.

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