Karma Houdini in Comic Strips.
- The closest Moe in Calvin and Hobbes received in terms of comeuppance is when Calvin's mom called the teacher to report his taking of money from other students, but Calvin begged her not to because it would only make it worse for him if Moe found out he snitched. Calvin still wishes that something horrible would happen to him, but it never does and the most that he can do is see that if he's getting beat up or getting money taken anyway, he might as well deserve it.
- The titular character of Crankshaft is a classic example. A terror of a school bus driver, he deliberately causes kids to miss the bus, causes repeated property damage, and breaks every rule in the book For the Evulz. The worst he ever seems to get is a reprimand from the principal, who seems powerless to actually do anything about him. Sure, he's gotten his occasional comeuppance (such as losing a million dollars on a game show), but the idea that he still has his job after half the stuff he's pulled puts him in this category.
- Curtis's Annoying Younger Sibling in Curtis is this. He usually provokes Curtis into wanting to hurt him, then gets away with it. Let's just say many people find Barry to be Unintentionally Unsympathetic for this. In one instance, Curtis finally gets to tell his mother what he did: put toenail clippings in his sandwich.
- Dilbert
- Dogbert frequently does terrible things for his own gain and/or amusement, and never suffers any punishment for his actions. This is played for laughs.
- Lampshaded, justified and/or generally played with by Dogbert himself at least once, in the Aug. 6, 2005 strip.Dogbert: I believe in karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it.
- While the PHB and CEO often get some comeuppance, Catbert the Evil Director of Human Resources (and one of the cruelest characters in the strip) rarely does. (Maybe because being evil is his job?)
- Alice is a Downplayed example. Although she suffers as much as Dilbert and Wally do at the hands of the PHB and their annoying co-workers, she’s committed cold-blooded murder several times (sometimes justified, other times not so much) but has never even been disciplined. Catbert claims this is because she "did not discriminate, sexually harass, steal or take drugs". (He then gave her an award for her "cost-saving idea" of killing a co-worker.)
- The accounting trolls are trolls who act like trolls, but they get away with it, although one storyline suggests that working in accounting is their punishment for something else they've done.
- One issue of The Far Side has a wildly dressed man whose been hitting people on the head with a hammer stopped by the cops. Only for them to discover that he does in fact have a license to do it.
- For Better or for Worse:
- The aversion of this is notable in that the fans demanded it. When Howard Bunt attempted to sexually assault Elizabeth Patterson, and he was foiled by Anthony, writer Lynn Johnston was content to leave it there and move on to the next plot. She was surprised when fan demand for Howard to be brought to justice came in. In her eyes, he fulfilled his role in the story, and what should it matter what he did after as long as he left Liz alone?
- Anthony tends to play it straight, mainly because he's a Creator's Pet, and the story likes to side with him even when he's being an asshole.
- Speaking of Elizabeth, April got away with murder at her expense for years. It usually involved either Liz getting blamed for what April did, or Liz getting in trouble for not supervising April -note that she was not asked to in the first place in such cases, and often didn't know the parents were distracted or occupied.
- Garfield is a constant offender of this trope. He regularly bullies Odie and makes Jon's life hell, yet almost never receives comeuppance.
- It's subverted in The Garfield Show however, where Garfield (who's actually kinder in that series) loses a lot. Instead it's Nermal who's the Karma Houdini.
- Once, when Garfield was stuck in a body cast for a week, Odie did give back some of his own, but just on the level of mild teasing.
- Sadly for Odie, it ended up boomeranging on him when Garfield got out of the cast and used it to whack him in the head.
- Lucy Van Pelt from Peanuts is perhaps the oldest and most well known example of this trope in this particular medium. From bullying her younger brother, destroying Schroder's piano (twice), to her generally selfish demeanor, not to mention the infamous "football" Running Gag (which she successfully pulled off fifty times); it's little wonder why so many parodies involve her getting a surprisingly violent yet not entirely undeserving comeuppance.
- In Pearls Before Swine, Rat regularly annoys and/or beats up the rest of the cast, and gets away with it. The one strip where
he didn’t ended up becoming a fan-favourite. - Retail:
- Many of the customers never receive any comeuppance for their bad behavior and often get rewarded for it thanks to the 'customer is always right' policy, but that kind of goes without saying.
- Jerry never receives any sort of karmic punishment for making Marla's life hell or his blatant misogyny that kept Marla and other women from being promoted to store manager. He simply retired no worse for wear.
- Discussed after Marla fires Josh. While Val expresses hope that Josh gets what's coming to him for lying about getting a better offer in order to get a raise, constantly butting heads with Marla, and then telling her off when he does put in his two weeks notice, Marla is too cynical to believe he would.
