The scientifically-proven fact that all (or most) Ctrl+Alt+Del strips are improved by removing the second and third panels. It'
s customary to also remove the dialogue from the fourth panel, but in
rare cases it can be
left in.
This works because your typical four-panel
CAD strip follows a
basic formula:
-Panel 1: The setup. Note how instead of spreading it across the first three panels, he crams the entire
thing into this first panel.
-Panel 2: Buckley excitedly blurts out the punchline (assuming he didn't already do so in Panel 1), and spends an inordinate amount of time explaining it. Commonly referred to as "Buckleybox A".
Panel 3: Completely redundant panel that exists only because Buckley refuses to abandon three four-panel format. Full of stifling
walls of text that either drag along the
joke from the first
two panels, or are full of "plot" that nobody cares about. Commonly referred to as "Buckleybox B".
Panel 4: Buckley continues dragging along the
joke until he finally kills it. More notably, however, there is usually some sort of a visual gag here, and it'
s typically better than the actual punchline.
As we can see from that, the biggest problem with
CAD is the pacing, as by the time the reader get to the visual gag - the funny part - he or she has had to sit through the
two Buckleyboxes and the Panel 4 dialogue, which completely destroys any comedic timing. As such, removing the offending panels results in a significantly improved comic.
