Comic strips and puzzles have a longstanding symbiotic relationship. Crosswords, Sudoku, mazes and more -- they've neighbored or even overlapped with comics for ages untold.

Beginning in ancient times, comics and puzzles have regularly appeared together on everything from Mesopotamian ziggurats to Egyptian tombs to Olmec pyramid walls, forming a deep kind of ancestral memory across civilizations that remained with humankind through the advent of the printing press and our present digital era. In short: our history will not allow us to completely dissociate one from the other. At least on Puzzle Day, when the narrative suits the needs of the opening of a blog post collecting several puzzle comics.

Indeed, much was decided before we were born.

And so in this, the year of 20 and 17, we present you a collection of comics honoring all things puzzle. You would not believe just how many comics there are about crosswords. Actually, you will, because here come many.

Reality Check by Dave Whamond Dec 25, 2010 

Grand Avenue by Mike Thompson Sep 12, 2002 

The Born Loser by Art and Chip Sansom Jul 2, 1998

Brevity by Dan Thompson Dec 18, 2006

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis May 24, 2010 

Lola by Todd Clark Apr 15, 2011

Frank and Ernest by Thaves Apr 28, 2002

Drabble by Kevin Fagan Jun 2, 2011

Peanuts by Charles Schulz Oct 12, 1958

Garfield by Jim Davis Mar 7, 1997