Unless you’ve been using an ad-blocker of some sort (or have a selective webcomic reading list that is lacking in Project Wonderful ads), it’s inevitable you’ve stumbled across one of the multitude of Nicky510 advertisements that usually includes some attractive blonde lady who isn’t an actual part of the Nicky510 comic (which focuses more on the surreal adventures of a young hyper-imaginative child named Nicky (obviously)). Rather than the usual bait-and-switch advertising used by some webcomics, the Nicky510 ads were actually using art that cartoonist Crowden Alexander Satz (aka Crow) draws for his other comic, Chuckle-a-Duck (and in fact recent ads have been pointing to the CaD site).
To put it simply, CaD is a gag-a-day strip (or gag-twice-a-week, seeing that the comic updates on the days that the Nicky510 site doesn’t, allowing Crow to update essentially five times a week). As such, it doesn’t have a regular cast of characters (despite the similarity of the various blonde girls who show up in various advertisements) and no real theme. Crow will visit a variety of topics, from global warming to politics to squirrels on coffee to efforts by early man to make various discoveries such as fire, domestication of animals, and the like, all for comedic effect. The jokes don’t always work (and there were several that made no sense at all to me), but with the variety of content, it’s not difficult finding something to amuse.
The content isn’t the only thing to vary. The art will shift from black-and-white to color to greyscale, and from crisp artwork to stuff that honestly looks like it was tossed together quickly just to get an update up for readers. I mean, I feel horrible saying this, but it’s true. Even if CaD is just a filler site meant to increase updates and give readers a reason to visit the site daily doesn’t mean that the art and jokes shouldn’t be of the same quality as the mainstream comic. In short, Chuckle-a-Duck is one of those (usually) single-panel joke comics that doesn’t require much thought or need. If it’s your thing, then it’ll be a fun hour or two to get through the archives. Even if it’s not, the comic’s Random Update button should keep you amused for a short while.