The Comics Curmudgeon

Metapost: Delays … HEY LOOK CUTE BABY

Probably won’t have time to post Wednesday comics till Thursday afternoon, but to tide you over till then … LOOK, IT’S FAITHFUL READER BANANA’S ADORABLE SUN IN FINGER-QUOTIN’ MARGO MODE!

By all means, you should clothe your child in the inscrutable hipster arcana of your choice from the Comics Curmudgeon store. If the logo you want isn’t available in kids’ sizes, just let me know and I’ll add it.

Funny punctuation, funny pointing

B.C., 2/27/07

B.C.’s love of the interrobang should come as no surprise to regular readers of the strip. But since it’s not a love shared by the population at large, it probably wouldn’t have hurt to actually, you know, show one (if your browser can display it, you should see one here: ‽). Since most readers probably never even heard of this useless punctuation mark even during its 1960s heyday, that first panel might as well have read “Who can tell me what a ‘shootupsuspect’ is?”

B.C.’s use of the accidental (or “accidental”) death of someone in police custody as joke fodder should also come as no surprise to regular readers of the strip.

Speaking of odd typography, what exactly is that symbol between the 2 and the 4 on the blackboard in the third panel? It looks like a backwards “R” — like the one used in the title of that Amerika miniseries in the 1980s, where the Soviets take over and then put all registered gun owners into concentration camps. Hmm, I’m seeing a pattern here.

Judge Parker, 2/27/07

You watch out, Angela! Cedric is going to point the hell out of at you! Look at that blast of energy — he points with the pointing power of a thousand temp butlers!

Lord only knows what sort of outfit Cedric favors when he’s not on duty, but panel two is proof that it’s physically impossible to look menacing and bad-ass when you’re wearing a bow tie.

Apartment 3-G, 2/27/07

Yeah, see, this is what I’m talking about: Margo, baby, Margo! Just as Lu Ann’s art studio adventure is a cautionary tale on the dangers of huffing paint, so Margo’s drama illustrates how cocaine use can ravage your relationship with others. In panel one, our girl Magee is a tightly coiled spring of rage, ready to punch the next person who crosses her — or even looks at her funny — right in the teeth. In panel two, she’s so happy to see Eric that she looks like she’s going to lunge at him and tear off his clothes, or possibly his face. I hope that the “someone special” that Eric wants her to meet is wearing a catcher’s mask, for his or her sake.

Dennis the Menace, 2/27/07

Ruff also doesn’t have to go to school, and gets to urinate outside and roll around in his own filth. On the other hand, there’s the whole castration angle to consider.

Momma, 2/27/07

If you have to repeat the same phrase twice — once to mishear, once to clarify — in consecutive panels, then your miscommunication-themed joke has gone off the rails. On the other hand, I appreciate the mace-like object that Tina is holding in the final panel. Apparently she feels that Mother Hobbes deserves to be bludgeoned to death.

My secret shame

Cathy, 2/26/07

So. Um. Here goes:

I actually … sort of … found Cathy funny today.

I mean … not hilarious or anything, but … I actually laughed. Well, “laughed” is a strong word. Strictly speaking, I exhaled out my nose a little harder than usual. Still and all, I need help. I know it.

Apartment 3-G, 2/26/05

I didn’t cover Sunday’s Apartment 3-G, mostly because I don’t think it’s particularly cool when comics encourage kids to do drugs. But now that I’ve seen Monday’s strip, I have to say that it’s one of the more egregious instances of content recycling in recent memory:

Apartment 3-G, 2/25/07

I know that the soap opera strips have to spend Monday recapping Sunday because not everyone gets to see the Sunday strip, but this week Apartment 3-G seems to have mainly tweaked the dialogue and taken out the Margo panels. And is removing Margo from an installment of Apartment 3-G ever a good idea? No, no it is not. You could show three panels of Margo reading the newspaper and sneering at no one in particular and it would be more gripping than anything that ever happened to Tommie.

Blondie, 2/26/07

There are so many layers of insanity to this strip that I barely know how to approach it. Do the police ever ticket drivers for excessive musical volume? Does Dagwood labor under the assumption that the theme from Bondanza can never be played too loudly? Was he sitting at a stoplight, his subwoofers causing all the cars around him to vibrate, only instead of blaring Master P as God intended, he instead treated the world to that all-too-familiar “dun da duh dun da duh dun da duh dun da DAHH DAHHHH”? Still, what disturbs me the most is that somewhere out there in Blondie land, there’s a radio station dedicated to classic TV theme songs. I’ve been telling people for years that the 517 different channels available on satellite radio will eventually destroy all that’s decent about our society; maybe someone will finally listen to me now.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 2/26/07

“How it is dept.: Libertariana and Rando are sick of their taxes being used to fund city schools and parks for poor people, so they move into a condo complex that keeps the proles out. But howzat? Homeowners Associations can also force you to pay for improvements for the common good? OH YEAH!!!” I’m surprised the acknowledgment line didn’t read “Anita and Sol, Unnamed Heavily Armed Encampment, Somewhere in Montana.”

Metapost: I am immature

If you spend your free time shoehorning innuendo into perfectly innocent Rex Morgan, M.D., dialogue, do you end up an emotional cripple who reacts to everything in the world at the emotional level of an eleven-year-old? Based on the junior-high-esque giggle fit into which I was sent by the flyer below, which I found tucked into my mail slot this morning, I’d have to say that the answer is “yes.” (I added the circles for emphasis.)

Anyway, I felt I had to share this with all of you, since you’re the only ones who’d understand. Most people, I’d just show it to them and they’d say, “I don’t understand. You don’t even have a garage.” And then I’d laugh some more.

Metapost: Comments. Comments. Who wants this week’s greatest comments?

Hi kids! It’s that Sunday treat you all crave … the comments of the week! Here’s this week’s top performer:

“Hey, Dr. Jeff, could you elaborate a little on this Agent Orange thingy? Was it a good thing or a bad thing?” –Weasel Boy

And the others of the most hilarious:

“And MW is cranking along nicely, I see. I especially like Saturday’s. ‘So Jeff, tell me about the children … were they tasty?’” –lesles

“Are only Americans allowed to leave Vietnam? From the passengers in that plane it looks like they just left Salt Lake City.” –reader-who-posts

“All I want to know is: Where exactly is he hiding that sack full of carrots? … No, wait, nix that. No I don’t.” –JamesK

“The more I’m exposed to Slylock ‘Pound of Flesh’ Fox, the more convinced I am that it is an exercise designed to teach children that life is not fair, consistent, nor just.” –Pelagius

“‘I hope Andy doesn’t start barking!’ ‘I hope the tranquilizer I put in Andy’s snack works!’ ‘I hope old Mark Doesn’t figure out what I did until Sally and I are out of the country!’ ‘I just have to be careful not to leave any evidence behind!’ ‘I dread getting in the cold water!’ For a con artist (short for ‘confidence artist’, I might add), this guy is totally devoid of any confidence in his plan.” –Suburban Legend

“FW: Don’t worry, they’ll be able to distinguish between you and your son because you’ll be referred to as the ‘late Wally.’” –Caged Tygre

“Whenever someone says that kids today have it too easy, just show them the impossible-to-solve Slylock Fox.” –AppleGirl

“The plot sickens! Gil Thorp, Man Detective!” –Marion Delgado

“The idea of The Family Circus using the phrase ‘a whole line of’ anything is almost too tantalizing to pass up. I will, though.” –Joe

“At some point, I expect to see the following Slylock Fox answer: ‘Because he just had a hunch, okay? Slylock then proceeded to beat the suspect with a sock full of pennies until he got a confession.’” –Steve S

“And by the way, Tommie is provocatively dressed today. Her entire neck is visible. Me likey!” –PeteMoss

“‘Cleaning the garage’ seems like such an ugly euphemism for this tender moment between a juvenile delinquent and a married nurse. I think they should have gone with something more subtle and tasteful like ‘lapsnorkeling.’” –Monkeys Uncle

“I’ve found a way to remember who R.J. is in Gil Thorp: when I see him I think of ‘R. J. Reynolds’ because his head looks like a pack of cigarettes.” –gh

“(DT)GT: Well, the look on R.J. Brennan’s face in panel two says it all. I don’t know what it’s saying, since I’m not a misshapen alien from a nearby planet, but it’s certainly saying it loud.” –Craigers

“Is that blonde woman sitting behind Mary and Dr. Jeff a terrorist? Because if she isn’t, she will be by the end of the flight.” –gkl

“Dan’s plan seems to involve him getting nude outside a lot. My kind of plan.” –Tukla in Iowa

“This topical episode would be cutting edge in most nonpolitical strips, but in Funky? My only surprise is that it was topical at all. In the Funky-verse, he was just as likely to get maimed by a toaster or have a drunk driver plow through his wall and squash him in bed.” –Vex the Sane

“I’m glad FW is finally providing just what my comics page needed: entrails. –Tracer Bullet

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The only way to fly

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/25/07

“God damn it, June, I thought we’d been through this already! You’re the one who goes for teenage boys! I like charming, distinguished-looking men in their forties!”

You know you’re a smooth operating criminal desperado when you plaster your name all over your car’s license plates. I am so hoping that Officer Brushcut and his partner manage to take down Elvis, and possibly Eight Ball (whose vanity plate presumably reads “8BALL”), in an exciting gunfight that takes place entirely offstage, while we get treated to Rex trying to decide what kind of ice cream to have for dessert.

Mary Worth, 2/25/07

You will see few things in this life more terrifying that Mary Worth’s eyes in the first panel here. It’s as if she suddenly panicked about trying to sneak her huge stash of Southeast Asian narcotics through customs, so she just swallowed it before she got on the plane in Hanoi, and it’s finally kicking in. I’m assuming Jeff did the same thing, since he’s wide awake and smiling one moment and completely unconscious the next.

As for panel seven, I can’t say it better than faithful reader and longtime Mary Worth hater MossMoses did in a comment on a previous thread: “NEWS FLASH: MARY WORTH ADMITS SHE’S SELFISH, DETAILS AT 11:00.”

Blondie, 2/25/07

Right up until that last panel, I was pretty sure that this was the build-up to the most awkward wife-swapping session ever.