Comparator strings fail to transmit 1-tick pulses

When I feed a 1-tick pulse to a string of comparators, the first comparator lights up, but does not transmit a signal. Occasionally, the signal is carried through several comparators. No rule seems to affect this, not even chunk boundaries. When a single comparator followed by a redstone wire receives a 1-tick pulse, it works fine, as does a single comparator followed by a repeater.