"Why is the bear so pissed off? Probably the same reason the owl is the judge. Bears are angry murderers, owls are wise hooters. And in Slylock's forest, chicks are either old or hot, and green evil-looking people are always evil. Honestly, it's the easy-to-follow stereotyping in Slylock that I enjoy the most, and I really hope kids can take that from the comic and apply it in their day-to-day lives." --MolyBendum
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Apartment 3-G, 4/23/08
Margo has mysteriously settled on Colonel Sanders as a sartorial role model.
B.C., 4/23/08
B.C. has ill-advisedly decided to feature a joke involving eating rat feces.
For Better Or For Worse, 4/23/08
For Better Or For Worse has chosen to reinforce the common bigoted belief that chronic masturbators never achieve anything in this life.
Click here to jump to comments
April 24th, 2008 at 12:47 am
I can attest to the fact that chronic masturbators achieve much in life.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Well, that’s nice to know…
And I can’t believe that there is only one comment (well, two now) if this has been up for over an hour! I guess some people actually SLEEP, who would’ve thunk it??
April 24th, 2008 at 12:55 am
I’d say fending off prostate cancer sure is achieving something!
– Hey, cast of Funky Winkerbean! I think you have a solution to your problems…
April 24th, 2008 at 1:02 am
maybe you, uhmmm, er, are coming at things from the wrong angle … this is what happens to sad, sad, sad pathetic types who spent 4-5 years thinking they might score with the ‘girls’ from a canadian high school ‘field hockey’ team … a sad, sad, sad, ‘please don’t laugh at me as i make my only exit after existing in this strip for three panels (plus back up gigs for your lame band) and trying to pick any of you up’ for the last seven years. my only speaking part involved you humiliating my healthy, yet muted/thwarted/desexualized/castrated urges; there; now I am gone … exit; panel right/side left…
April 24th, 2008 at 1:03 am
If I had to pick a job best suited for chronic masturbators, “worldwide-sporting-event-organizing travel agent” probably wouldn’t even make the top ten. But hey, if that’s his fantasy, he should go ahead and grab it with both hands. Or one hand. Or whatever. I don’t need to know the details, dude.
April 24th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Thursday’s comics creep in on little digital feet:
Mary Worth: I know why Donna Amalfi is not afraid — after one brief conversation with Mary Worth, she now knows that there are far, far worse things than death. Things even worse than having her two Joey Buttafuoco-lookalike sons wrestling in her hospital room.
Admittedly, as grief counseling goes, the “Death is a sweet release from talking to Mary Worth” plan kind of sucks. Ideally you’d want the patient and her family to accept the loss and find some sort of tranquility in her final hours…but with EVERY GODDAMN HOSPITAL EMPLOYEE apparently spending all their time in the cafeteria, there’s just no room in the budget for a professional counselor. And so the job is left to ghoulish amateurs like Mary.
Spider-Man: One of the things that always surprises me about the villains in Spider-Man is that they can do miraculous things like build magnetic anti-gravity devices out of (I assume) prison bedsheets, plastic sporks, and small rocks, but never seem to have any good ideas past that. It’s like their day planner reads “Monday: Invent amazing technology that upends all known laws of physics. Tuesday: rob a liquor store for a couple of hundred bucks. Wednesday: Yell at the TV for not recognizing my greatness. Thursday: Avoid getting caught by Spider-Man, with the help of some idiotic coincidence. Friday: Set out to find Spider-Man so he can catch me properly. Saturday: Meatloaf day in the prison cafeteria — DO NOT MISS!”
Dick Tracy: I usually don’t know what the hell is going on in Dick Tracy, but these past few weeks have been even more incomprehensible than usual. Dick’s
Trojan horseChinese Kwanxoi plan fails because he’s incapable of pulling a trigger before the bad guy can throw a hammer at him, and then the world’s least assertive SWAT team sat around for about four hours wondering if maybe they should break down the door and rescue the hostages, and then Dick’s incapable of picking up his gun from the ground quickly enough, but somehow he can cram his awkward blocky body into a full suit of armor before the bad guy can run into the next room and back again, and then some suit of armor (I’m guessing not the one Dick is wearing) got shot in the arm with a crossbow, and then the bad guy started doing an interpretive dance, and then the SWAT team finally showed up but didn’t actually do anything, and there’s something about Cole Lector wearing a mask which doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything, which is hardly unusual in this story, I know, but it still bugs me…and now, at long last, the obligatory second bad guy that is apparently required in every single plot is appearing, only not really, because we’re still in the phase where we’ll have to see Every. Single. Character. ask “WHO shot that arrow?” or exclaim “Cole Lector was shot with an arrow!” for at least another week before the second bad guy finally shows up, and then it still won’t make any goddamn sense at all and who the hell is it that lets Dick Locher do this, I mean aren’t there any editors or agents or priests or forces of goodness in this world that would make him stop, please, I just want it to stop, my head just hurts from trying to wrap itself around this exercise in perverse moon logic and absurdist anatomy.[deep breath]
…yeah, so, Dick Tracy. I guess Cole Lector got shot or something. Read it at your own risk.
April 24th, 2008 at 1:06 am
That’s April’s fantasy for him… he seems awfully inarticulate about it…..
April 24th, 2008 at 1:09 am
In the interests of science, on my next date I will say “I’m into communications” with a totally straight face, as if it’s a common interest, instead of a mundane aspect of daily life. Maybe I’ll change it up a little on future dates. “I’m into traffic density.” “I’m really interested in logistics.” “I care deeply about airport infrastructure.”
If the woman I am with says anything about knobs and the handling thereof (other than “You’re a knob, and I’m leaving.”), I will be sure to let you know.
April 24th, 2008 at 1:09 am
“And you, there – the pale, flowery, and intellectually dulling one – you must be Lu Ann. Your paintings speak for you.”
April 24th, 2008 at 1:19 am
This hospital cafeteria is cutting-edge: Doughnuts! On a bookshelf! I’m sure they bring the same zany creativity to the ICU.
April 24th, 2008 at 1:43 am
Man, I don’t care if BC’s joke today was ill-advised. It’s still refreshing.
April 24th, 2008 at 1:55 am
Thursday Some-Liners:
9CL: “Smell of blood”? Soon, it’ll be, “Ladies, you’re soaking in it!”
A3G: Difference is, in the current situation, Margo will make Eric a very unhappy gallery owner.
Archie: Yes, Dilton, those are a girl’s breasts. The artist says, “You’re welcome.” … and decided to freeze Arch’ for some reason.
Curtis: WHAT THE HELL DID HE DO??! (And, no, “drugs” is too obvious)
DtM: And it was great time before TV bashers, you elitist Barbara Bush!
DT: That guy’s been dancing-grunting for, what?, three days… and NOW he’s got an arrow in his back?? I know who shot that arrow: frozen-in-place Archie Andrews!
FOOB: No.
FW: Whenever we’ve said that Funky Winkerbean was sucking all the life out of everything, it used to mean the comic strip. Now, it’s the character.
MF: BT sure knows how to draw someone’s chef’s hat collapsing, doesn’t he? ………oh.
MW: Meaning: She, the mother, is not afraid of losing those two sour idiots when she dies.
OBH: POW!! Oh, look; there’s his “inner posse” leaking out through his nose.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:00 am
A3G: Is it me or is the period at the end of Jack Davis’ final sentence in the strip unusually large? As if to say, “Your paintings speak for you. And they’ve said enough. No, no, please — don’t speak. To me. Ever.”
April 24th, 2008 at 2:03 am
KNOB?!
Ew.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:53 am
DT: People, people, people. Add it up. Crazy clues. Monster in art museum gets his mask ripped off to reveal he’s not who he seems. Mysterious figure really behind it all. Clueless police. All we need is a big goofy dog showing up going “Rooh-Roh” and the line “and it would have worked too, if not for you interfering kids.”
…which would be an improvement.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:25 am
So, why is it that April has been discussing her future plans again? I mean, what collage courses are there that will prepare her to be barefoot and prengant, married to some bland underachieving loser that her mother hand-picked for her? Maybe she’ll get a job, but it won’t be a career, because her career, like the career of all women in Lynn Johnson’s strange little world, is squirting out anklebiters and making sure they grow up to be as twisted psychologically as possibe.
April 24th, 2008 at 5:08 am
If only Elizabeth would let go of The Knob before she ends up married to him.
April 24th, 2008 at 5:54 am
Wow, the whole concept of tomato-and-raisin soup has caused B.C.’s head to collapse in panel two.
April 24th, 2008 at 6:04 am
’scuse me, I gotta go open my door. IYKNWIM. AITYD.
April 24th, 2008 at 6:29 am
A3G: It looks like Jack Davis has been having the same oxygen-deprived hallucinations that Luann was having. Maybe it’s something in the paint. Or maybe Luann is just lucky to find a business partner she has so much in common with. Like brain damage.
April 24th, 2008 at 6:34 am
FOOB: How could that not be a masturbation joke? No 14-year-old is going to say “let go of the nob” with a straight face. Is panel 5 Shannon jumping from behind the bleachers and saying, “That’s… What… She… Said!”?
April 24th, 2008 at 7:00 am
I understand FBOFW’s rule about how teenagers speak, but anyone using Tony Robbinsesque motivational cliches about career development should not be dropping the D off the word “and.” I find this very creepy, somehow.
April 24th, 2008 at 7:01 am
“Ummmmm……………I’m sort of interested in business stuff.”
OK! This kid is headed for the top!
April 24th, 2008 at 7:55 am
I gotta tell you, I looked at that FOOB punchline for a few minutes, and couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It was incoherent, even for FOOB quippery.
Thanks to Josh, now I can sleep easy. Now it comes across as a seventh grade health class filmstrip.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Say what you will about the comics. At least there’s still some whimsy. PBS: Hey! Panelwalking!
April 24th, 2008 at 8:07 am
FOOB — Given April’s history, “let go of the knob” was more of an invitation to service her under the bleachers.
BC — I agree with #11 Shalomi; “raisin soup” was about the best BC panel in years. It’s sort of a reverse “jump the shark” moment.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I don’t get it. Is that African-American kid in FOOB trying to conceal his boner by slinking away off the bleachers? Hence the “Let go of the knob,” comment.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:19 am
BC: “The rats got into the tomatoes again.” (I hate putting an “e” in tomato) This may be a euphemism for…
April 24th, 2008 at 8:37 am
“Your paintings speak for you.”
“…they say ‘I suffer from brain damage brought on by asphyxia.’”
April 24th, 2008 at 8:38 am
This may be a euphemism for… – NotAGoatHead
… not letting go of the knob?
April 24th, 2008 at 8:48 am
How could that not be a masturbation joke? No 14-year-old is going to say “let go of the nob” with a straight face. – smacky
In my junior year of HS, they made us read Emerson and Thoreau … of course, all we kids did was find every single one of Emerson’s many references to masturbation that we could.
They also made the mistake of giving us the Norton Critical Edition for Huck Finn in 10th grade. After reading Leslie Fiedler’s famous essay on that novel, we couldn’t read any other novel that year without uncovering all the references to homosexuality. Y’all should have heard what we did with A Separate Peace.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Margo’s little scarf-tie thing reminds me of when I got a summer job at a Safeway during college. Everyone was supposed to wear a white collared shirt and a tie, and the women were expected to wear those hideous floppy ’80s bowtie thingies. I refused on fashion principle, so my boss told me I could wear a “man tie.” And though my man ties didn’t keep sketchy customers from sexually harassing me, I never had to show my face in public looking the way Margo does right now.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I find FBOFW’s use of the semi-word ” an’ ” more distracting than realistic, especially when used about eight times in one strip. I see that Lynn wants to infuse the strip with these inflections which are apparently rampant in Canadian youth, but surely there are other ways for her to establish a relatable cast of characters for her intended audience. An’ thats how I feel about that.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:11 am
22 & 33 – An’ I hafta agree.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Looking at Gil Thorp and Dennis the Menace, I think I know what happened to Sherman’s fins.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:23 am
AD – Perhaps we should start calling it BM.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:30 am
More disturbing, perhaps the “raisins” alluded to in BC are in fact mice BABIES. That’s actually the first thing that came to mind in reading the comic strip… perhaps that reflects poorly on my own mental health, but how could they let that get past the editors?
April 24th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Masturbation jokes aside, it’s awesome to see how foolishly optimistic these kids are. In five years, Duncan will be working nights at the sporting goods store and Eva will be working with Flo at Mel’s Diner. Because that’s just the way the world works.
April? April will have a perfect marriage with her first boyfriend Gerald who will have slunk back to her and admitted how foolish he was to have entertained the notion of following his dream.
After all, she’s a Patterson, and Pattersons ALWAYS get their man.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:45 am
So what do you guys think, is April going to lose it to Barack Obama?
April 24th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Regarding B.C.: EWWWWWWWWWWWWW
April 24th, 2008 at 10:13 am
#27 Big Dave. You mean the African-Canadian kid?
April 24th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Ya know, the more I think about it (and I really shouldn’t) they got smart-assed rats in BC that like to go around sneaking pieces of chopped up prunes into the oatmeal. This is the only thing that keeps the comic strip going.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Oh, about the oatmeal. The rats also carry MRSA which makes oatmeal look like tomato soup. Yum!
April 24th, 2008 at 10:45 am
31. DAS.
Emerson? Ye gods, and I thought he was being all transcendental and stuff. I wonder if he and Walt Whitman ever hooked up…?
April 24th, 2008 at 10:57 am
#31 & 44: Wow! That gives “pulling an all-nighter” a new meaning.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:31 am
‘An when you read foob, you hafta remember that she writes in dialect ‘an stuff. You hafta try ta’ not get annoyed ‘an stuff! ‘Cause doors open ‘an stuff right? ‘An I willingly typed in the address ‘an stuff ‘an I decided to read this ‘an stuff.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Rat feces! Ha ha ha.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I know we’re not supposed to suck up to the Pope, but the one-liner below Foob was quite wonderful. Well worth spitting water all over my screen.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
# 31 DAS — Ah, high school. I played “Aunt Abby” in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, and we cast members found dozens of dirty lines. I still remember “Point your gun the other way!”
April 24th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
# 6 Trilobite — Let’s be grateful that we have CC as a soft place to vent, because reading DT in solitude would hurt even more. Of course if it weren’t for CC, I would never have known DT was still running, let alone gotten hooked on it. I now look back on the bizarre Queen of Diamonds storyline as a bastion of sanity, compared to what has followed.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Okay, Zits got in an uproar over the word sucks, but BC gets a pass for something blatantly disgusting?
April 24th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
8. Gattamelata
Next opportunity try, “I’m into social intercourse.”
33. Cuddlly (your adjective, not mine) Cornpone
During a moment of blurred vision, I thought you were saying “caste.”
April 24th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
A3G: “Your paintings speak for you, much in the same way a helmet speaks for a special-ed kid.”
April 24th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Dear FOOB: Just say “and”! Please!! Say it once! You don’t introduce any other signs of colloquial accent into your orthography, so just put down that f***ing ‘D,’ for the love of B.C.!
Chronic masturbation is the least of these kids’ problems if they can’t learn to pronounce the most common conjunctive in the language. Or, from another perspective, the best of their problems.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Someone already mentioned this, but enough with the “an’”s and the “hafta” in FOOB!!! I am a Canadian, and I can vouch that most of us speak more clearly than that. Blurg.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
FOOB: The key is to let go of the knob BEFORE the door opens. Otherwise, you’ll get caught.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
FBOFW: Whenever it is you let go of the knob, make sure you wash your hands before _AND_ after.
By the way, keeping your hand on the knob for extensive periods of time can cause blindness, insanity, hairy palms and social alienation. But at least the Canadian health care system can treat some of those conditions.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
#55 Lydia–As a 30 Rock fan, I’m delighted to see their all-purpose expletive showing up in other places. However, according to an NBC.com message-board post by no less than Tina Fey herself, it is, in fact, spelled “blergh.”
BtheGuytheCharactersKeepReferencing: From prehistoric evangelism to shit jokes in only a year. Yay! Maybe one day Mason will get around to giving the two women characters actual names instead of their current monickers: “Cute Chick” and “Fat Broad” (names established after Johnny Hart decided everyone else was Hell-bound, incidentally).
A3G: “Your paintings speak for you…sadly, you don’t appear to have much to say. Have you considered a career in bartending?”
April 24th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Wow, did this one get cut short!
April 24th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I find it annoying that the FBFW characters seem to laugh every time another character makes a pun. It’s actually a little sad to see that they live in a goldfish-like state, where every instance of witty wordplay leaves them in a state of ecstasy.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:09 am
I didn’t realize so many British and Canadians frequent this site. Here in the USA, it takes us almost ten seconds to make something dirty out of “let go of the knob.”
April 25th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
BC: I’m not claiming to be Anthony Bourdain or anything, but I’m reasonably confident that, should I be thrust into such an unfortunate culinary situation, I’d still be able to tell the difference between a raisin and a piece of rat feces.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
nix childward preventingly ornithotrophy nonsludging lungwort continued monodynamic
California Cockatiels
http://ccr.nci.nih.gov/research/
January 10th, 2009 at 6:08 am
I have to take issue with your analysis of FBOFW. I think it’s simply a matter of common politeness to let go of your knob when the door opens.