The one hundred and eleventh comic: #189 Gomer Goof
For me, Gomer Goof - or Guust Flater as I know it, or Gaston in the original language - is a childhood throwback for me. I loved the tales of the inept office worker/inventor and I read each of the albums I could find in the library. Even without knowing the office, it hit all the beats - decent gags, good interplay between who's on top, with our protagonist and nemesis/friend both coming out on top and there being some really nice moments in there. Reading it now, there's even some nice story build up through the gag strips - nothing too big, but it does feel like a consistent world it builds on. A lot of the comedy is unforced, coming from the established characters, who don't quite reach caricature level. It's actually pretty well balanced to read and while there's enough of a reset, Gomer Goof's laziness and inventions are nuanced enough that they don't come out of nowhere. It's a comic that still works quite well reading it many years later, and I enjoyed going back and reading some again.
The one hundred and ninth comic: #30 Barney Google & Snuffy Smith
The early comics list, as a result of the development of the medium, is dominated by newspaper strips. Barney Google is one of those that survived for over a century, although it shifted what it was about in a way that made it almost unfamiliar. The original are (by now) overdone gags based around Barney Google, with a lot of relationship jokes at first but evolving away from that. Snuffy Smith came in years later, but started to dominate the strip, as it became more of a yokel story set in the boonies, with the original character barely showing up. The hillbilly humour is even further removed from what I care for, and it feels like such a relic looking at it now, without moving much after the earlier larger shifts.
The one hundred and tenth comic: #347 Hagar the Horrible
In contrast, Hagar the Horrible comes in from a similiar angle, especially Barney Google's earlier city life, The daily gag strips aren't the best - again, there are a lot of known jokes, with the setting making it a bit more interesting as a contrast to the modern world. It's the longer stories that are more interesting, which there have been a few of from what I can tell. There's a lot of room for references, bu tthe longer format really helps set up the additional context for the humour.