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Popeye
Dick Tracy, 2/8/10
Dick Tracy has been even more incomprehensible than usual lately, and what I have been able to understand has just irritated me, but I do read it diligently, in case any gems pop up that ought to be shared with my readership! And lo and behold, panel two is just such a gem. “…Not everyone loves you, and you must die.” Couldn’t this sinister, gnomic pronouncement be uttered about each and every one of us? None of us is so lovable as to earn the affections of all, and each of us is mortal! Of course, most of us won’t be terribly maimed by an exploding Stradivarius, with a square-jawed fascist saying something pithy over us as we die in agony, for which we can be thankful.
Luann, 2/8/10
Speaking of people nobody likes, it’s Luann! It actually took me a minute to get my head around the punchline here (i.e., everyone will finally know Luann DeGroot, who will be in disguise, as a Puerto Rican); I at first assumed that we were meant to laugh at Luann’s cheerfully proposed brownfacing. Still, I rather think that her classmates will remember her for her performance, if only as “that girl who got the school picketed by the National Council of La Raza.”
Popeye, 2/8/10
Speaking of incomprehensible and irritating, Popeye just ended one of its stories that I half paid attention to and is about to start another one in which I’ll probably be equally uninterested. Still, you have to admire this strip for showing that even a plot that is extremely grim and all too real for too many people today — a desperate attempt to hide the extent of your financial ruin from your family, who depends on you economically — can be made hilarious through ersatz dialect. “I yam out of monies!’” Ho ho ho!
Marmaduke, 2/8/10
Look, lady, if you keep marrying them, he’s going to keep killing and eating them. I’m not sure why this is such a hard concept for you to grasp.
Pluggers, 8/7/08
Far be it for me as an elitist non-plugger to point out when Pluggers loses the thread, but, well, it appears that someone has to. Hey, Pluggers! The primary reaction of a plugger upon encountering modern-day movie theater concession stands should be goggle-eyed horror at the high prices. Suggested joke: “A plugger remembers when the most expensive thing at the movies was the ticket to the movies.”
On the other hand, having the plugger devour the entire bucket of popcorn while still standing at the concession counter is pretty much spot on.
Popeye, 8/7/08
Generally speaking, I only bring Popeye to your attention when it crosses the border into completely deranged, like when Olive Oyl cheerfully threatens suicide or the strip makes genocide jokes. The current storyline, in which Sweet Pea is bonked on the head and gains puppet-master-like power over the of others, is somewhat derivative of that terrifying Twilight Zone episode with the little kid who can kill with his mind; still, it clearly is going to go down the road of pleasing perversity, as you can see here.
Mary Worth, 8/7/08
Phishing, everybody! Phishing! That’s what the build-up is all about. Mary Worth is going to advise its perhaps not-so-tech-savvy audience (median age: 68) about the dangers that lurk in fake spam emails from online merchants; so as not to anger the oldsters, it’s Charterstone’s resident thirtysomething trophy wife who will be defrauded and humiliated for the edification of others.
Gasoline Alley, 5/26/08
Can I confide to you that I actually find the concept of a heavily-accented, curly-mustachioed French pitchcat named “Chef Meowrice” pretty funny, if deranged? I’m guessing the name is supposed to be a pun on famous French-accent-haver Maurice Chevalier. However, I am firmly, firmly opposed to “Tabby Wynette,” mostly because she should be be belting out country tunes full of hard-earned sadness and loss, rather than just standing around in some kind of creepy cat S&M get-up and cozying up to some Frenchie for pulverized mouse bits.
Popeye, 5/26/08
In other news, Popeye has come ’round again to Olive Oyl’s suicide, as is its wont.
Apartment 3-G, 5/26/08
Meanwhile, across the world in Tibet, we’ve been given a respite from Alan’s zany drug antics. Eric and Tenzin have been making the long trudge to Lhasa on foot, apparently unaware that you can actually take the train there now. You can tell that they’ve been on a long journey because Eric has grown a neatly trimmed beard, while Tenzin has become a blond-haired Caucasian. Seeing the fabled city in the distance, Eric muses that it would have been better for the place to have been destroyed and all its people killed than to have any contact with modernity.
Judge Parker, 1/26/08
So the big interview with No-Legged War Hero Mama’s Boy Works-For-Nothing Steve is over, and it’s becoming more and more obvious that Gloria likes what she sees! Likes it so much, in fact, that she’s got to close her eyes in the final panel, because if she has to look at that hot hunk of filial piety for even one more minute, she can’t be held responsible for her actions.
I do think it’s kind of curious that, since one of Steve’s major characteristics is that he lost his legs in Iraq, we’ve never actually gotten a good look at his prosthetics. Not that we should let his disability and define him and I’m sure most people with artificial legs actually wear pants that cover them up, but it almost seems that the artist has gone out of his way to arrange the panel composition such that his legs are just out of view. Could this be one of the problems of a comics strip that’s a collaboration between an artist and a writer — could the artist have gotten the scripts and cried “Argh! Prosthetic limbs! My greatest weakness!”
Popeye, 1/26/08
Popeye is in the midst of some completely uninteresting plot about Sweet Pea’s allowance, but I have to pose this question to those readers who are part of the nautical division of the Jungle Patrol: What the hell does “typical fat-armed sailor” mean? I always assumed that Popeye’s bizarre physique was a result of artistic whimsy and/or steroid abuse, but are we to understand that his pencil-thin biceps and unnaturally bulging forearms are somehow representative of his profession — and are also somehow related to the cheapness endemic to seamen? I’m obviously way behind on my sailor stereotyping.
Dick Tracy, 1/26/08
In our upcoming storyline, Dick Tracy will drop any pretense about being a frank cheerleader for fascism as Dick is ordered to go break up a local showing of “degenerate art.”
Marmaduke, 1/26/08
For “lost,” read “ate,” obviously.
Mary Worth, 11/20/07
Ah ha! Chester’s real owner! Here at last is the conflict, the drama that has eluded this storyline for so long! Mary will be confronted with some sad-eyed waif who’s so happy to be reunited with her very special Prince Snuffles or whatever the dog’s real name is. She’ll be all torn up inside about letting go of the dog she’s come to love in a short time. Will she be able to do it? Will she do the right thing and return the dog to his rightful owner? Or will she find some way to rationalize keeping the dog, leaving the child heartbroken? Action! Excitement!
Or, you know, it could play out like the damn condo rules feint. “I’d better find out if Chester has a real owner. Oh, he doesn’t! Hooray! I’m so great!” Damn you, Mary Worth, I don’t need another strip that sets up dilemmas only to summarily dispatch them with no effort on the part of the characters. I have Spider-Man for that.
You’ll note that Chester himself has given up on anything fun happening in this strip and has decided to just hump Mary’s leg until her shin goes numb.
Herb and Jamaal, 11/20/07
Ah, yes, “that sappy chick flick.” Thank God US law only allows one of those to be in theaters at any given time so that we don’t have to sully our lips with its name.
Judge Parker, 11/20/07
Things that might be going through Abbey’s shocked and horrified mind in panel three:
- “Oh my God, my husband kissed another woman!”
- “Oh my God, my husband kissed a woman!”
- “Oh my God, my husband broke several rules in the Bar Association’s ethics code!”
- “Oh my God, my husband thinks that ‘a big wet smacker on the lips’ is some kind of acceptable phrase to use in conversation!”
And here’s a couple of amusing standalone panels for today:
Panel from Gil Thorp, 11/20/07
We all know how pathetic and basically lonely Coach Thorp is, but today, with Gil giving a pep talk to the shrubbery outside his house, really brings it home.
Panel from Popeye, 11/20/07
There’s context for this, sort of, but I like it best in hilariously inappropriate isolation.
Apartment 3-G, 10/9/07
No, Margo! Don’t trust him! Eric Mills is not what he seems! Her suspicions shouldn’t necessarily be raised by his expressing passing concern for the well-being of another female human when he should be attempting to seduce and/or marry Margo; I’m sure his curiosity about Lu Ann’s health is essentially mercenary, and can be summed up as “Will she still be capable of churning out mediocre fern prints that I can unload on the condo and hotel lobby market at a healthy profit?” No, the real clues of nefariousness are those glasses, which are totally inappropriate for serving cognac. That means Eric’s not a real millionaire, and Margo’s been wasting her time and sexual energy on him; she needs to move on post haste. Does she really want to be tied to someone whose financial future lies in Lu Ann’s artistic abilities?
Archie, 10/9/07
One might have written off a single reference to Betty’s blog as a sad and desperate bid to remain relevant to the kids today; but her Web journal’s reappearance as a plot point here indicates that, in a bid for cross-media corporate synergy, the Archie newspaper strip is pimping Betty’s actual blog (or, well, “Betty’s” “actual” blog), which I suppose I’ll serve as a tool of Archie Comics Publications Inc. and direct your attention to. The many content providers for this sprawling media empire haven’t coordinated their efforts well enough to actually have date details up that might make Veronica beverage-dumping mad, but Riverdale’s cheeriest blonde does wish her Canadian friends a happy Thanksgiving, which is more than FBOFW has managed to do (unless the secret message of this week’s plot is “Be thankful you haven’t had multiple strokes”).
Mary Worth, 10/9/07
Ah, see, this is how we know that Drew was right to choose Vera over Dawn; Charterstone’s go-gettingist clerk-typist doesn’t resort to tears and incredibly bland quotes when confronted with an ambiguous offering from a two-timing ex; rather, she thought-balloons a clever little bon mot that includes a “drew” pun and prepares to move on with her life. Perhaps she’ll find happiness with a new man — like that handsome deliveryman! His russet hair is rakishly long, but not drug dealer long.
Popeye, 10/9/07
The current loopy, meandering Popeye plot involves “spincoal”, a superpowerful form of compressed spinach that serves both as a miracle food and a miracle fuel. It hasn’t been all that exciting, but I am intrigued by the promise of energy industry skullduggery to come. I’m pretty sure that Popeye strips are actually reruns from the 1990s, so I’m assuming that the figure in the second panel is then-Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney.
