Running Gags in comic strips.
- In Agnes, the title character is quite unable to speak up in class without ending up in the principal's office in the last panel.
- Beetle Bailey: Whenever General Halftrack sends his officers a written instruction, it will always have one tiny spelling error that completely changes the meaning of the orders ("buns" instead of "guns", "gag masks" instead of "gas masks", etc.). Someone will point out what the general meant to say, but then someone else will — always, invariably — ask: "But who dares to tell the general that he's done a mistake?" Nobody dares, and in the end, the officers always do exactly what it says in the instruction, even though it makes no sense. Often, General Halftrack is depicted witnessing the end results of his subordinates' interpreting his orders in some absurd way, and his reaction is always the same: "Now what?"
- Dagwood in Blondie (1930): Always making his decuple-decker sandwiches, always running into the mailman on his hurried way out the door.
- Calvin and Hobbes has enough to get its own page.
- Garfield is also known for its running gags, including, but absolutely not limited to:
- Garfield kicking (or occasionally pushing) Odie off the table (or even just kicking him).
- Garfield eating Jon's plants (especially his ferns).
- Jon getting constantly rejected by Liz the veterinarian. This one tapered off when they actually got together, and has kind of been replaced by John embarrassing himself or Garfield embarrassing him in front of Liz/on the phone with her.
- Garfield's "treaty agreement" with the mice.
- Garfield using a book (but not always) to squash spiders.
- Garfield getting into fights with bigger dogs.
- Garfield and Jon playing pranks on each other.
- Garfield climbing up Jon's drapes.
- Jon's refrigerator needing to get cleaned out.
- RX-2 the talking scale making fun of Garfield's weight.
- Garfield making fun of the space between Arlene's teeth.
- Garfield's annoyance at Nermal "the world's cutest kitten".
- Garfield threatening to mail Nermal to Abu Dhabi.
- Jon trying to get Garfield to exercise.
- "I hate Mondays."
- Garfield blaming Mondays for his problems.
- This comes to a head at one point with a story arc about "the Monday that wouldn't die".
- Garfield getting spluts with Pie in the Face. Once there was a week long arc including one defective pie that made a different sound.
- John's weird stories about farm life.
- "Ask a Cat/Ask a Dog" segments.
- Get Fuzzy: Bucky Katt's well-documented and forever-undying hatred of monkeys, and his occasional plans to eat one.
- Madam & Eve has a few:
- Eve hasn't gotten a pay raise in over thirty years, so she supplements her income by selling various services from a roadside booth.
- Mother Anderson somehow gets Thandi out of the house and slams the door behind her.
- Mother Anderson's ongoing war against the local Mielie Ladies.note
- Nero:
- Whenever characters go and visit their creator it turns out he's on safari.
- Clo-Clo screaming loudly and deafening the others.
- Adhemar saying This is scientifically impossible.
- Abraham Tuizentfloot pricking people with his sabre.
- Peanuts and its TV specials were fond of these, although always with some sort of variation. Lucy pulling the football away, Charlie Brown crashing his kite, etc.
- In Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis has made a habit of setting up puns that are beyond lame. As of late, this has been lampshaded almost every time with Rat demanding that Pastis quit cartooning.
- The Phantom has endless variations on this exchange.You can't bring that dog in here!
Devil is a wolf.
Well... you can't bring a wild animal in here.
Devil is completely tame. - Retail: Quite a few show up here, such as customers showing up after the store closes asking to shop anyway, customers discarding their empty cups on a random display instead of the trash (often when the trash is literally next to the display), Grumbel's pushing the Christmas Creep earlier and earlier, and, of course, the dreaded "it must be free!" joke (done, according to a fan's calculations, a whopping eighteen times). Granted, all of this is justified: as anyone who's ever worked in the retail industry can confirm, all this and more happens all the time.
- Zits: Jeremy's inability to perceive of his brother's presence until he's just leaving.
