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Six Chix
Mary Worth, 5/18/10
I have yet to read any of the comments you fine people have put up about today’s comics, but I look forward to any number of angry diatribes from mental health professionals about how Mary’s crockpot 30-second visualization exercises are in fact not an adequate treatment regimen for hoarding and other obsessive-compulsive disorders, and that she should instead seek help from a trained therapist who specializes in these issues. Or, who knows? Maybe there’ll be comments from people who say that, yes, this is exactly the way to break out of addictive behavior, hooray for Mary! I kind of doubt it, though.
One thing I’m not looking forward to is the inevitable crass suggestion that Mary is attempting to force Bonnie to her knees in panel two so that our poor shopping addict might sexually service her. Please! Mary simply wants Bonnie to prostrate herself and offer her the worship that she deserves, for her heroic meddling efforts. The feelings of pleasure Mary will derive from this go far beyond the sordid enjoyments of the flesh.
Herb and Jamaal, 5/18/10
Wow, this went very quickly, and with a lot of leaps of linguistic logic, from “You will rest your head on a needlessly uncomfortable object” to “God, my domestic life is SUFFOCATING ME.” But, hey, I’m not in a position to argue with whatever these two guys need to do to lay the groundwork for a camping trip full of on-the-down-low gay sex, I guess.
Six Chix, 5/18/10
This comic would have worked a lot better if the waitress had a pair of cooked human babies on her plate.
Ziggy, 12/18/09
Wow! Like a lot of people, I assumed that Ziggy would make a token response to Pearls Before Swine’s put-pants-on-Ziggy crusade before getting back to the bizarrely optimistic despair that is its stock in trade. But today brings us back to pants, and puts a whole new spin on things! Ziggy is visiting his wizened dry cleaner, who offers to give back the gnomish alopeciac’s trousers — along with his Nehru jacket, a garment that went out of style many years ago. Thus, this panel turns our scorn back upon us. Pants are so out of date, it seems to be saying. Maybe you narrow-minded losers are walking around, your thighs unfairly constricted by fabric tubes; but Ziggy is the new model man, his legs exposed to the open air, as is the style here in the future. You squares with the pants can do what you want. Ziggy won’t be having any of it.
Wizard of Id, 12/18/09
Hurl all the epithets you want at the Wizard of Id — “unfunny,” “irrelevant,” “badly drawn,” “minimizes torture” — but one thing you have to give it credit for is its unflinching attitude towards alcohol. While Hi and Lois, for instance, has gone along to get along, with “Thirsty” Thurston’s gin blossom-scarred nose of old having long ago vanished, the Wizard of Id’s Bung remains on the funny pages as an unrepentant alcoholic, and not the fun, charming kind. Today, for instance, we learn that, in the brief period of time after he awakes from his booze-numbed slumber but before he can stumble down to the bar to start drinking again, his hands are shaking so badly due to the lack of alcohol that he injures himself while attempting to attend to basic grooming. This may shock and horrify you, but anything that leads to awkward conversations along the lines of “Daddy, what’s the DTs?” is OK in my book.
Six Chix, 12/18/09
Speaking of horror, there’s something quite touching about this scene, in which ephemeral snow-lovers trade a last few endearments even as their bodies droop and melt.
Mark Trail, 12/18/09
Sheriff Stogie Q. Doublechin is right! That is a good one! What kind of monster leaves a little boy trapped under a car on the beach? How the hell does a car even get onto a beach on the first place? And would anyone leave a child in the care of this obvious lunatic? No, the sheriff doesn’t think he’ll be following that lead, than you very much. He’ll just stay here with his thumbs hooked into his belt and glare at you there in your cage, mister! Haw haw!
Note just what a state Mark is in, with no less than five hairs somewhat out of place. This is really the most desperate we’ve ever seen him.
Crock, 12/18/09
So, uh, the Lost Patrol, after years of all-male company, has been saved by water and masturbatory fodder? Eh, why not, it’d hardly be the most distasteful Crock ever produced.
Six Chix, 11/11/09
I suppose the joke of this strip is that our MC is admonishing not the audience but the actors on the necessity of turning of their cell phones, because HAW HAW THE KIDS TODAY AND THE CELL PHONES, amiright? But I’m frankly much more interested in the historic and dramaturgical significance of the largish cane being brandished by pilgrim #1 on the far left. Will he be swinging it about over the course of the show’s dance numbers, including “(The Church Ought To Be Organized On A) Congregationalist Model,” “My Goodness But I Am Very Hungry,” and “A Buckle On My Hat — What’s That About?” Or is it a vaudeville-style hook, to be used to drag off the lady pilgrim (for displaying the Sin of Pride by wearing whorish non-black-and-white clothes) or the Native American (for using all the good land)?
Apartment 3-G, 11/11/09
This is why you shouldn’t hire an aspiring Hollywood screenwriter as your PI, as he’s always trying to force the messiness of real life into his preconceptions of narrative entertainment. “Just think about it, Bobbie: what aging man doesn’t at some level yearn to recapture his lost youth via a tryst with a younger woman? And what wife doesn’t secretly worry that she won’t keep her husband’s attention as she gets older? The older, sophisticated audience we’re reaching for here will all be able to relate. And, I mean, check out the framing on these pics — see how the streetlamp serves as a spotlight on the secret lovers, isolating them in an island of illumination against a sea of darkness, symbolizing the way the whole world fades away when they’re together? It’s box office gold, baby! And once I figure out what the emotionally devastating denouement is going to be, I can guarantee that it’ll be Oscar time.” Instead, you should seek out experimental filmmakers in the tradition of Andrei Tarkovsky or Bela Tarr, who aren’t afraid to point their camera at the subject of investigation and just film his everyday activities for hours at a time.
Crock, 11/11/09
I was going to complain that Grossie’s comeback made little to no sense, but then I remembered that in the ever-shifting poorly drawn hell-world of Crock, one cannot count on one’s facial features or body parts remaining symmetrical, so it’s fully possible that “Sexy” Crock Lady Character Whose Name I Forget might from time to time have legs of wildly varying lengths or widths. But this is a universe where kneeless leg-stumps might be considered someone’s “best feature,” so I’m not sure if the punchline here is really an insult per se.
Two items of potential interest to you in a special mid-week metapost! First comes this AMAZING thing from faithful reader Jon. Did you know that one of the writers of the comic strip Six Chix is Margaret Shulock, who also writes Apartment 3-G? Also, did you know that there was a Six Chix blog? Well, both of these things are true, and Shulock last week put up a blog entry detailing how an installment of Apartment 3-G gets written. It just might blow your mind. Also, she says she needs info on A3G history before the ’90s, so get crackin’, folks!
Also! In non-comics-related news, I’m writing another one of my tech pieces, this time about IT “pet projects.” If you work in tech, have you been forced to toil on dumb pet projects on your bosses’ whim? If you want to share your funny or sad stories, send me a note at bio at jfruh dot com. I will anonymize to keep you out of trouble!
Six Chix, 11/20/08
As there seems to be some confusion over the meaning of this cartoon among this blog’s commentors, allow me to explain: our current economic crisis, the author posits, has the same roots as previous crises, and had we only remembered the lessons of history, we would have been able to avoid it. The two young ladies symbolize us, their falling asleep in their history class (presumably collegiate and taking place in a large lecture hall, the doors to which are at the right of the panel) represents our inability to learn from the past, and their barrel-wearing state represents poverty, the end result of the current crisis. The last bit is true because people who are clothed only by large, wooden barrels are a Universal Comics Symbol For Poverty of long standing.
I’m completely uninterested in discussing the didactic content of this cartoon, but it does bring up a question I’ve always found completely fascinating, which is: why are large, wooden barrels the Universal Comics Symbol For Poverty? I mean, I know I’m a decadent 21st century denizen who has grown accustomed to wearing garments that in relative terms cost very little, thanks to helpful Southeast Asian children with tiny, nimble fingers — certainly less than a finely crafted barrel. But is it possible that there was a time when a sturdy, wooden barrel with metal … circular dealies … that hold it together (boy, I hadn’t realized how weak a grasp I had of basic barrel vocabulary until just now) was actually cheaper than, you know, clothes? Did people really go into some kind of old-timey second-hand clothes store, sell all of their clothes (including the ones they were wearing), then walk, stark naked, up the street to the cooper (see, there’s a word that I know) to buy a barrel to wear, and have enough cash left over to afford life’s necessities? Did that happen? Because if not then, you know, barrels, what the hell?
Apartment 3-G, 11/20/08
A lot of people excuse the things they say or do when drunk by claiming that the demon booze made you say or do them; but when you’re intoxicated, you really just yourself, with less of a filter. This should make however many “Margo expounds drunkenly” strips we’re going to be treated to utterly delicious. Today, we learn that Margo really resents having to identify corpses, especially the corpses of people that she didn’t get a chance to kill, and that she believes that the intensity of your feelings about a tragedy are directly proportional to your proximity to the location where it occurred.
Ziggy, 11/20/08
Oh, Ziggy! It does seem unjust that the author of a beloved and hugely successful series of novel should get so much more money than the creator of a beloved somewhat tolerable bald pantsless cartoon character, doesn’t it?
Some of you have mocked this panel for being so far behind the times, to which I say: it’s Ziggy. The last Harry Potter book came out only fifteen months ago. This is in fact shockingly current.
The Comics Curmudgeon 2008 Fall Fundraiser
Well, Josh’s plan to hit the jackpot at
Jeopardy didn’t quite pan out as planned. And those Lehman Brothers and AIG investments have been underperforming, too. So here’s another
Comics Curmudgeon fundraiser — a twice-a-year event to help Josh maintain the naive delusion that he can actually make a living doing this.
Site stats show that most CC readers cruise by for a quick chuckle during the workday, while a determined few dig deep in the comments, wrangling out issues from Foob revisionism and Mary Worth’s fashion sense to Middle English grammar. Either way, the Comics Curmudgeon delivers the comics we grew up with — in some cases, the comics Moses grew up with — in a way that works for this century. Isn’t that worth a couple bucks? I thought so!
Click the panel up top to visit the special fundraiser page and help keep the Comics Curmudgeon strong and independent. Thank you!
— Uncle Lumpy
Curtis, 9/30/08
OK, the “evil coach” is an oldie, but credit Curtis for thinking it through — sure, the Eastern-European stereotype is overdone, but the hairy tongue (!) and Santa suit give it a fresh look. But really, “dandelions”? “Dandelions”?
Six Chix, 9/30/08
Margaret Shulock — one-sixth of the ‘Chix’ as well as the writer of Apartment 3G — serves up a double dose of death this week. But this Death be not proud — he’s just a gangly, socially awkward, self-conscious fella who needs fashion advice, and probably a hug. I bet he’s the one who claimed Alan’s soul. And I bet Alan was kinda pleased by that.
The Phantom, 9/30/08
Ah, now here’s a villian of the old school! We last saw Wambesi terrorist and Phantom-nemesis Chatu (a.k.a. “The Python”) in August 2006, leaving a crippled helicopter for ol’ Stripey to ride to firey death. Didn’t happen. Surviving now sans minions in greatly reduced circumstances, Chatu worked out a mad scheme to spread Ebola virus using fruit bats — but Ebolified himself in the process. The Ghost-who-Cares will track the virus to infected gym mats in somebody’s hut, as the villagers cry, ambiguously, “How are you going to kill it?”
Luann, 9/30/08
Remember how Tiffany used to be the schemer in this strip? Look how far our heroine has come. Without mussing a hair or even fully opening her eyes, Luann excises Tiff’s last shred of self-respect, then sends her spinning into the competitive cesspool of underage porn. Um, that’s a left leg, isn’t it?
Herb and Jamaal, 9/30/08
Not necessarily evil-related, but a milestone nonetheless: the comic strip Herb and Jamaal became self-aware at 1:09 Eastern time, September 30th, 2008. In a stunning irony, the strip was instantly sued by the copyright holders of the words “Crunchy” and “Powdered.”
— Uncle Lumpy
