Shoot the Shaggy Dog/Newspaper Comics


 * Happens regularly on Pearls Before Swine in Rat's stories about "Angry Bob". In a typical example, Angry Bob decides to go to a bar to socialize, and quickly strike up a romantic rapport with a beautiful woman. They begin kissing in her car, only for Bob to get caught by the woman's UFC husband and die horrifically.
 * From Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin finds an injured baby raccoon and tries to help it. He fails, and the raccoon dies. The real point of the story was showing how Calvin would cope with death.