Hypocritical Humor / Comic Strips

Newspaper comics with their own pages

• Calvin and Hobbes

Other examples:

• Arkas has one of his characters, Rita, mock another guy for not having arms or legs. Ironically, she is a snake.
• In one strip of Baby Blues Hammie meets a kid at the playground who looks just like him except with long hair, both think to themselves "What a weird looking kid!"
• Beetle Bailey:
  • More than once: A group of officers gathered to judge a breach of the dress code criticise it while wearing an array of pretty random clothes themselves. Also other similar cases. Perhaps more often, it's done the other way around, with three parties, not getting as far as the trope: A tries to complain about B's behaviour X to B's superior C, but it turns out C is doing X himself.
  • Another one used in several variants: A criticises B for their hobby or obsession or habit, but A returns to his own room/bunk, where he has a similar collection of things/arrangement going on set around another theme. For example, Corporal Yo notes Sergeant Snorkel's huge collection of food-related electronics before returning to his own room full of different electronics. Or Sarge says it's weird of Beetle to collect comics, and then someone else points out his own shelf full of beer cans.
  • General Halftrack's "Have you gone mad! I'm an airplane!" (He'd been hypnotised.)
• Blondie (1930):
  • One strip had the family going to a restaurant where the chef juggles the food onto the plates, everyone claps except Dagwood, later Alexander asks him "You didn't like it dad?" and Dagwood replies "Oh pu-leeez, what a show-off!", then when they get home he says "Who wants dessert?" while making sundaes and juggling the ingredients.
  • Another had Blondie and Dagwood watching a movie at the theater, behind them is a man who is coughing very loudly to the point where it disrupts some people, Dagwood then lets out a small sneeze, the coughing man then tells him "Hey keep it down! Some of us are trying to enjoy a movie!"
• Dilbert:
  • In an old comic:
    Pointy-Haired Boss: (handing back a paper to Alice) Thanks, hun.
    Alice: Hon!? YOU SEXIST # @$! I SHALL BURN DOWN YOUR VILLAGE AND MAKE SLAVES OF YOUR CHILDREN!
    PHB: It's short for 'Attila the Hun'. Everyone calls you that.
    Alice: That seems a bit harsh.
  • Also, in yet another Dilbert strip, PHB is reading the newspaper comics section and remarks, "Hee hee! Look at the hair on that guy!" For bonus points, it's implied that he's reading Dilbert itself.
• The Family Circus had one strip with the mum admonishing Billy, "I've told you a million times not to exaggerate."
• About two-thirds of the punchlines in For Better or for Worse use this, by way of demonstrating how (theoretically) adorably flawed the characters are. Happens a lot to Cathy, too.
• Garfield:
  • When Garfield watches TV: "Only an idiot would watch a show this bad. (switches channel) It was a rerun anyway."
  • A similar 1979 strip has Garfield slapping Jon — hard — to force him to change the channel because Garfield doesn't like violence on TV.
  • In another strip, Garfield kicks Jon. Jon attempts to get his own back by spraying Garfield with a hose, but Garfield appreciated it because it was a hot day. Jon then kicks Garfield back.. so Garfield ties Jon up violently with the hose.
  • One strip has Jon getting into an argument with his failed date and she tells him how immature he's acting. Jon yells back, "I am not immature!"; once she leaves he proceeds to sit back and suck his thumb.
  • The January 1, 1998 strip has Jon resolve to be less geeky and more sophisticated in the new year. Garfield snarks that his owner is saying this as he's blowing chocolate milk bubbles in his Binky the Clown mug.
  • In the January 27, 2001 strip, Garfield points at Jon while telling him that it is not polite to point.
  • The April 24, 2002 strip has Garfield laugh at a comic strip about a fat and lazy human, obesity and lethargy both being traits Garfield is famous for possessing.
  • In the September 13, 2021 strip, Jon states from off-screen that lunch is ready, prompting Garfield to open his mouth and still lie down expecting Jon to bring the food to him. Jon refuses to comply and Garfield replies with "What are you, lazy?"
  • Garfield chastises Arlene for being late for being late for their scheduled date in the July 8, 2022 strip despite Garfield being late for it himself as well.
    Garfield: Arlene! You are twenty minutes late for our date!
    Arlene: How late were you?
    Garfield: Only fifteen.
• One Luann strip had Luann’s father tell her not to sit so close to the tv screen, he then proceeds to go on his computer while sitting close the screen.
• A Peanuts strip has Charlie Brown, who's dreading having to go to summer camp, seeing Psychiatrist Lucy about it:
  Lucy: This fear of going to camp is something you've got to overcome! It'll be good for you! It'll teach you to stand on your own two feet! This is just the sort of experience you need!
  Charlie Brown: How about you? Are you going to camp this summer?
  Lucy: AND LEAVE MY GOOD HOME? DON'T BE RIDICULOUS!!!
• Sherman's Lagoon:
  • After Hawthorne starts up an advise column, Fillmore asks what, exactly, makes him qualified to write one. Hawthorne then claims that he's a "compassionate, caring soul." In the next panel:
    Hawthorne: Whoa Nelly, look what this loser wrote.
    Fillmore: There's that compassion in action.
  • In another strip, Fillmore meets one of his competitors in the speed-reading competition, who goes on about how he's a rebel and a tough guy. When Fillmore dubs him a little impolite, he immediately shouts for his mother.
  • One strip, part of a storyline where the characters compete on "Underwater Fear Factor", has Sherman bragging that he's going to win the competition because great white sharks have no sense of fear. Then a bee flies into the water and Sherman runs away screaming.
  • When Megan starts up a new line of children's clothing, she asks Fillmore if his son Clayton can model them. Fillmore's on the fence about it, saying that he doesn't just lend Clayton out for any old job. Then Hawthorne comes over and says that he doesn't need to use Clayton as his doorstop anymore.
    Fillmore: You sure?
  • One story arc does this two days in a row:
    • First, Sherman claims to be ferocious. Then we cut to him wearing a dress that Megan is hemming.
    • Then Thorton claims that polar bears are one of the most powerful animals on the planet. Then he struggles to open a Snickers bar and asks Fillmore to do it for him.
  • One strip has Hawthorne calling Fillmore gullible for falling for a computer virus. Then he too falls for it (because it claims to be an e-mail from Jennifer Lopez).
  • When Sherman tells Hawthorne that if he wins the lottery he's going to get a solid gold dorsal fin, Hawthorne dubs this idea idiotic... and in the fourth panel it's revealed that he wants to get a solid gold claw.
• The long-running They'll Do It Every Time was all about lampshading everyday hypocrisy. A typical strip, for example, might show a parent admonishing a child not to speak at the table in the first panel, then show the same parent loudly holding forth among other adults at a dinner party in the second panel.
• The Wizard of Id had a strip where the preacher mentions he doesn't know what to use for his sermon next week. The king suggests the evils of gambling, which the preacher turns down as both hear the cry of "BINGO!" from the church.

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