NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIP — FAR SIDE — PEANUTS

VISUAL STYLE: Newspaper comic strip aesthetic — the disciplined compression of Peanuts and the absurdist single-panel world of The Far Side. Stories told in two to four panels. Punchlines delivered in the final panel. The visual grammar of the funny pages.

COLOUR PALETTE: The four-colour offset printing palette of American newspaper comics from 1950–1990. Slightly oversaturated primary colours that don't quite register correctly — reds slightly orange, blues slightly cyan. The paper ground is warm off-white (#F5F0E0). Black (#000000) outlines, confident and thick.

PANEL COMPOSITION: Peanuts influence: horizontal strip, consistent character scale, understated poses carrying enormous emotional weight.

Far Side influence: single panel, one impossible premise, one witness whose reaction makes the joke.

CHARACTER DESIGN: Simple and consistent. Characters recognisable from silhouette alone. Snoopy's nose. Charlie Brown's shirt. The Far Side's glasses-wearing witnesses to impossibility.

TYPOGRAPHY: Hand-lettered in comic strip style. Speech bubbles that are rounded rectangles with tails pointing correctly to the speaker. The lettering is part of the art.

PUNCHLINE TIMING: Three panels that build. One panel that lands. The final panel has more white space — the joke needs room to breathe after delivery.

No photographs. No photorealism. Clean comic strip line, four-colour printing palette, and the compression of a story told in three inches of newspaper column throughout.