Most cartoonists would take the hint after a few rejection letters. Tony Lopes collected more than 200 and kept going, a level of persistence he has joked required therapy. The Sydney-born artist grew up studying Warner Bros. cartoons, sold a first cartoon at 16 and worked as a photographer before “Insanity Streak” took over. The strip began as a weekly in 1992 and went daily on April 1, 2000. The choice of April Fools’ Day, Lopes insists, was no coincidence.
What makes “Insanity Streak” so unpredictable is that it has almost no rules. There are no recurring characters, no fixed setting and no storyline, so one panel might take place in a desert, the next in outer space, and the one after that among cavemen joking about evolution. “I enjoy the freedom of taking the readers anywhere,” Lopes has said, and the results are delightfully absurd: animals with very human problems, puns that sneak up on you, and everyday moments nudged just far enough off course.
Fellow cartoonists have noticed. Lopes holds a record 15 Stanley Awards for best comic strip from the Australian Cartoonists’ Association, and since 2023 the strip has been syndicated by King Features in newspapers across more than a dozen countries. We’ve gathered some of our favorite panels below. Settle in and let the insanity take its course.
