I’m an old man, so I remember the Golden Age of newspaper comic strips, back in the mid-80s to mid-90s when you could look forward to Gary Larson’s Far Side and Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes every morning. Those days are long-since past, and while many artists have tried to replicate Larson’s and Watterson’s success (sometimes by outright copying their shtick or their style–unsuccessfully, I’m happy to say) few cartoonists have replicated their success. And with newspaper strips being eclipsed with independent webcomics–like Ben & Winslow and about a bazillion others–few cartoonists will really have the same opportunity.

This strip is related to ones from earlier this year where Winslow was trying to find ways to improve Ben & Winslow, which he thinks has become stale and uninteresting. Oh Winslow. Poor, poor, Winslow. This strip will never become stale. It is like a cheese, perfected with age and the occasional tuft of blue mold.

Winslow has always had an interesting relationship with food (and things technically not classifiable as food), so it doesn’t surprise me that he’d engage in some sort of staring contest with a rice ball. The horror.

I guess now that the Moustache Wizard is dead and buried, Winslow feels safer dabbling in sorcery, and reveals something interesting about his magical past…

Dedicated to my son, whose handwriting is terrible. Way worse than Little Winslow’s.