Shux, I know going in nobody will remember it, but nothing ventured…
The “strip” was really an assortment of unrelated gag panels. The two panels I remember, for no apparent reason, were these: A guy is sitting on a bench, like at a bus stop. He says to another something like “I’ve been searching for twenty years for why people like toast” The other guy says “They like their bread crispy”. The guy says: “this time I’m going to write it down”.
The other panel hearkens back to the day when department stores sold furniture as complete rooms. A salesman tells a customer something like: The walls close in, the room is flooded, and the alligators are released. It’s our Flash Gordon room, and frankly, it’s not one of our best sellers".
The strip was probably from the late 60s, early 70s. Ring any bells?
Sounds like it could be Mutt and Jeff, which goes back a long, long way, but was still around when I was in high school.
One I remember from that time: One of them (probably Mutt, the tall guy) is doing a crossword puzzle. He asks “How do you spell ‘Mississippi’?” Jeff (the short guy) answers “The river or the state?”
Black and white? Color? Sounds like you’re talking about a Sunday strip; is it?
My guess is Dan Piraro’s excellent Bizarro; it’s only been around since 1985 but the non-sequitur humor is there, and his Sunday offerings often contain more than one gag under an umbrella heading.
If you’re sure about the timeline, tho, I’d need more details about art style and where you think you saw it: newspaper, magazine, underground comic book, Playboy, etc.
ETA: Kinda reminds me of New Yorker or Playboy type humor… Gahan Wilson or George Booth or something like that maybe?
THere was a panel newspaper comic back then called Mr. Tweedy. The main character was something of a born loser type. I don’t recognize your examples, which means nothing, but does the name ring any bells?
Another possibility I suppose would be Big George by Virgil partch. Absurdist in its own way. Not just Sunday though (not sure if Mr Tweedy was daily for that matter). Again, ring any bells?
one of the great newspaper gag cartoonists of the 20th century. Max and Earnst, by Thaves. funny, insightful.
here’s one i remember:
two “bums” (a category/name that doesn’t even exists now) are sitting/laying in a pile of papers in a park, one guy apparently telling his story to the other, says, “…and then i switched to decaf.”
I know you said 60’s or 70’s but would you be able to narrow that down a bit? Late 60’s, mid 60’s, etc. Searching on ‘comics’ seems to find nothing. They may not have all the pages, the first Sunday issue of the Journal Star for 1960 says it has 68 pages but Newspapers.com only lists 52.