"Well I think I'm losing my mind, this time
This time I'm losing my mind, that's right
Said I think I'm losing my mind, this time
This time, I'm losing my mind"
Beastie Boys - So What'cha Want
I don't bother much with gag-a-day comics. Absent the enforced coherence of a larger narrative, authors tend to default to their own life experience, and few people are observant enough to poke holes in our daily tapestry instead of merely tracing its all too mundane seams like an overstretched metaphor. For several years, Edmund Finney managed it quite adeptly, until getting bogged down in a failed attempt at a lenghy Clue parody plot and gradually winding down to abandonment.
While many a serial has strangled itself with some overgrown plot thread, this one makes an interesting case study. Edmund Finney largely banked on doubling down on otherwise obvious punchlines. When you can laugh and move on, it worked great. In a longer story, this resulted in continually doubling down on the same punchline, until the repetition itself took liminal conscious attention instead of the joke.
Given humor depends heavily on transgressing expectations, overusing any comedic device is risky... but doubly so when that device is overuse itself.
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