Bad lovin’ gone worse
Luann, 2/17/06
Curtis, 2/17/06
Ladies and gentlemen, here on the last day of this Valentine’s Week (yes, it’s a whole week now, didn’t you get the memo from Hallmark and Cathy?), we have a battle royale between two comics love stories that just … won’t … end!
In this corner, in black and white, we have the eternal Brad-Toni-Dirk triangle. See the teasing! The sullen glares! The violation of restraining orders! The gratuitous use of the word “Chunkboy!”
And in this corner, in living color, we have the latest chapter in the Curtis-Michelle love-hate dipole. See what happens when the boy who can’t say “no” meets the girl who won’t say “yes”!
I think we have to acknowledge Curtis as the clear winner here. I’m getting real sick of Toni’s coy little sidelong glances and unnaturally pouty lips. From an artistic point of view, she’s got nothing on Michelle’s hilariously disgusted facial expression in panel three: eyes bugged out, lips curled in disdain, sweat balls flying, motion lines tracking her escape route and a well-placed elbow ready to jab her wannabe paramour in the throat if it comes to that. And while Brad’s wide-eyed, dot-mouthed horror in panel three of Luann is evocative of his new awareness of his own romantic ineptitude, it doesn’t convey bleakness the way Curtis’ lonely, underdressed blizzard trek does. Mostly, though, this Curtis promises to at least end the Michelle nonsense for a few weeks, whereas I have a sinking feeling that the Brad romantic hijinks will continue on indefinitely.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Are you crazy? This will not end the Curtis-Michelle nonsense. It will continue tomorrow, trust me.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
In panel 4, Curtis looks like a black Jimmy Corrigan.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
Ah, but ending these “love stories” would mean the end of the dramatic tension that drives the charact — oh, well, yeah, nevermind. For Chrissakes, they should wrap these up. You’re right.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Obsessive stalker behavior is always comedy gold.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
Re: Jimmy Corrigan
Somehow not having the Jimmy hair wisps makes Curtis look far less pathetic. Jimmy should definitely invest in Propecia. Or do that we-both-know-I’m-balding-but-I’m-shaving-my-head-to-make-it-look-like-I’m-not thing that is the new trend.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
terwilligers comment 44 on Everything old post spells it all out for me now! No wonder Rex doesn’t take June to the beach. I was hoping he’d invite the girls from AP3G, 9 Chick, and Blondie too!
Haven’t read MT much, who’s the guy with the Jack Elrod for President button 2/17?
February 17th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
Yeah, I’m sick of the Brad-Toni-Dirk thing too. I gotta admit though, the look on Brad’s face in panel three is friggin’ priceless. It gives him up for the doofus he truly is. Good God, whutta moron!
February 17th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
In addition to Brad’s “..wide-eyed, dot-mouthed horror…” I liked a couple other things about the Luann strip:
– The first panel indeed does show the Dirkmobile parked outside. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get to the FPP (final-panel payoff), I would have been able to see it and do my own foreshadowing.
– The extreme detail of the massive floral arrangement that Dirk “I’m a Japanese gardener this week – note my serenity” has gifted Toni with. Brad – you think you may be out of the running here? You think correctly, pal.
– Toni’s expression in the last panel: Is she just bored and wanting Brad to go away so she can get back to re-creating that “Sex and the City” ep that took place in a firehouse? Or is she embarrassed for Brad that he’s so lame?
– Finally, to cap it off, Dirk’s comment, which actually much wittier and cooler than anything Brad might have come up with.
To tell you the truth, I think Evans has set us up to hate Dirk – yeah, he’s a borderline personality who probably makes car-payment money by dealing meth in between his “landscape” business, and yeah, he’s a brutal thug that probably will end up terrorizing Toni after they have kids together and she’ll have a restraining order against him, etc. etc.
… but I say all that like it’s a bad thing. Face it, other than the above, who can blame Toni for preferring Baron von McExciting to Brad O’Couch Potato? Actually, ya gotta admire his stalking … er, loyalty and stick-to-itiveness.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Man, I hate Bon Jovi.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Adouble –
Yeah, I see what you’re saying re: Curtis’s luscious mane vs. Jimmy’s cue ball. I guess I see it more in the lines under the eyes. Or maybe I just like the idea of a black Corrigan.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Hey Josh, when you’re ready to do another post on “strips that only make sense if the character commenting is actually READING the word balloon instead of hearing it” -
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2006/2/17&name=The_Other_Coast
Still can’t believe the Chronicle is running this tepid strip by my small-town Canadian newspaper’s editorial cartoonist.
February 17th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
I’m in the Gitsum-gal: Yes / Jon Bon Jovi: No camp, but don’t take that to heart, Josh.
February 17th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say “Thanks for abstaining from ‘Cathy’ on Valentine’s Day.” Based on this week’s terrifying strips, I fully expect Irving to wake up some morning soon and realize what a horrible turn his life has taken. Cathy will be left dead, crudely drawn blood surrounding her crudely drawn body. Irving will head for the Mexican border (doubtless wearing a badly rendered sombrero and huaraches) to escape Yankee justice. I’ll be rooting for him to succeed.
February 17th, 2006 at 8:05 pm
“She didn’t get me a card either.” Brad and Dirk are about to realize they are meant for each other. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
February 17th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
#13–If Cathy received some valentine’s-related head trauma, I have a feeling that blood drops would spring forth in exactly the same way her worry-sweat always does.
February 17th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
While the so-called romantic triangle in ‘Luann’ is simply lame, the romantic triangle is ‘Curtis’ is flat out bughouse CRAZY. It’s also creepy, cringe inducing, and definitely criminal. That ‘cute little boy’ is nothing more than a future bell tower sniper or murder-suicide perp. If the later objects of his ‘desire’ are lucky their restraining orders will work. Handgun permits will be helpful too.
Given our increased awareness of domestic violence, stalking, and similar activities, Billingsley has to be willfully ignorant to continue inking these stories in ‘Curtis’. No one is that stupid, aside from Jonny Hart, and even ‘Andy Capp’ no longer beats up ‘Pet’. I’m surprised no women’s group has taken Billingsley to task over Curtis ‘hilarious’ behavior. He most likely gets a free pass due to ethnic squeamishness.
February 17th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Luann’s “artistic” style confuses me–is it always that bizarre mix of the nearly photographic (the car), well-executed (the roses), and the poorly done doodle (Brad)? It looks like this strip was completed with free internet clipart.
And Toni looks like she was ripped off from Ralph Bakshi’s “Cool World”.
February 17th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I must reiterate my request for the Luann strip to be renamed. “Dirk”. Or at least, “Brad”. Since they are the stars of the comic for the past few months. Except for that dumb cat.
February 17th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
#17–I think that car is literally photographic.
February 17th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
How can I e-mail todays Bizarro to Johnny Hart??
February 17th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
#4 I know where you live. ;)
February 17th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Re: #8, Dirk actually looks completely whipped, pouring all this time and energy into Toni and continually getting blown off. We would expect that from Brad, but any believable scary-tough-guy-criminal would have cut his losses long ago.
February 17th, 2006 at 11:49 pm
Today, the scion of the Big Purple Bruise are sharing a thought balloon with two, count ‘em, 2 exclamation points!! Gotta one-up that Speedyman, I guess, to keep on top of the comics trade.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/comics/king.htm?name=Phantom
And what does Tommie at Apt 3g mean by a “Sea” Change?
February 18th, 2006 at 12:44 am
Where does Brad work? What is Station Four? Is he a cop?
LOOP! OUT OF!!!!
February 18th, 2006 at 12:46 am
Oh. Right. Firetruck. Duh.
February 18th, 2006 at 1:17 am
I just noticed that Dirk parked his car right in front of the firetruck. Heh heh, he’s pretty slick.
February 18th, 2006 at 2:46 am
Notice that Brad delivered his Valentine’s Day card at least three days late! (So did Dirk…) If Brad had any sense, he’d buy one of the Cupid costumes you can get on any street corner, and appear at Toni’s workplace in pink diapers and a bow and arrow, with little wings on his hairy shoulders. One glimpse of all that chunky monkey flesh should make Toni realize how much she needs her cute little “stuffed animal.”
February 18th, 2006 at 8:55 am
FC 2/18. It’s not a cut or a boo-boo. . .It’s a booger.
February 18th, 2006 at 8:56 am
We have a new Mark Trail storyline percolating today, and it looks to be a real winner! Evil Gambling Boss Kojak is obviously gonna try to “bulldoze his own way” through the Forest of the Giant Deer, probably “accidentally” blowing up Gentle Retiree’s cabin in the process (unless it’s mistaken by the Giant Deer for a salt lick).
Now, this adventure clearly will not have the Southern literature-based overtones of our last adventure (with its inbred heroine battling to preserve her virtue from evil stepbrother Snopes while Big Daddy Dog Thief tries and fails to overcome the bond between man and dog), but it may provide its own visceral reading and viewing pleasure. I personally am looking forward to a more muscular story–perhaps an exposition on Man vs. Nature, or “The Old Man and the Casino, to Whom Go the Road Tolls?”
February 18th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Maybe this time we’ll have an old-fart-napping. Oh, wait. That happens several times a day. Maybe this time the old fart will be abducted. Yeah, that’s it.
February 18th, 2006 at 10:44 am
For a great “sea change” reference, Number 23, check out “The Tempest,”
Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Clearly, Shakespeare’s talking about the degredation of a body by the sea, but nowadays, a “sea change” is any profound change.
February 18th, 2006 at 11:24 am
When I read Tommie’s remark about the “sea change”, my first thought was that Lu Ann was already strange–is she rich now, too?
February 18th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Totally off topic, but it just has to be said.
RE: FBOFW
Dear god, give me a BREAK!!!
That’s all.
You may all carry on as before
February 18th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
In Florida….it’s so nice, but wow do the comics suck! I miss all of the ones up in Jersey!
And ACK!!! Cathy!! But alas, the comics are in color, everyday!
Funky Winkerbean is seriously just starting to scare me, and Crankshaft is going through a depressing photo collage of how bitchy Rose was and is!
February 18th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
I can smell this MW plot shaping up… Wilbur isn’t gonna tell Iris and Mary in advance just WHAT he’s celebrating… Oh no, he’ll wait and do it in the restaurant. And at the VERY NEXT TABLE will be — oh no! JANE HAND!!! Overhearing every gloating word! Result, there’ll be a Rita Begler-esque cocktail-throwing scene, and Mary will have to spread platitudes all over creation to cover the damage.
Mark my words.
February 18th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Oh my god Shiela, are you a swami, perhaps?
February 18th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
Adam@Home made me laugh today, for perhaps the first time ever. Looking at the last month’s strips, I see that there’s actually some good material there, but it’s going to waste. For instance, this one would probably have been funny if the first two panels had been replaced with an actual closeup angle view of the thing’s control panel. That would have been harder to draw, of course. Similarly this one would have been great as an additional uncaptioned gag thrown into another comic. This one could have been incorporated into this one. Some of the one-wide-panel ones, like this one, would probably work well if they were grouped by category, about three or four to a strip, and given a descriptive title. This would be great as the throwaway part of a Sunday strip if the middle two panels were removed (and show that washing machine!). Maybe what I’m saying is there is not enough good stuff here to carry a daily strip. Actually I’m trying to think how many people can think of enough good stuff to carry a daily strip, and then how many of those can do so for more than a year. If ALL comic strips were done weekly I bet at least a quarter of them would actually be funny…
February 18th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Without lovestruck Brad pursuing boy-sick Toni, we’re back to entire weeks donated to Mr. Luann’s cat allergy. I say let the doomed, blue-ball romance drag on forever.
February 18th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
35. I do hope you’re right, Sheila. Foul-mouthed outbursts of rage are always the reason I keep coming back to Mary Worth.
February 18th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
So let me get this straight – Milford is so small that both the newspaper and radio station have nothing better to write/talk about other than the fact that a basketball player is homeless, yet Gil Thorp had never even heard of the homeless shelter? Does that man even have a soul?
February 18th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
You know, I’ve always thought that if Brad and Dirk could actually sit down and talk, they’d realize how much they actually have in common; specifically a doomed-from-the start attraction to a cruel mind-f***stress who has no interest in either of them aside from the perverse joy she gets from watching them try to destroy each other.
February 18th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
#39. That’s because M*lford was created by a very stupid god. It has a high school but no other centers of learning. It has one street called Main Street that just loops like a Mobius Strip. The reason that the radio and newspaper talk about the school sports all the time is because it’s the only thing that happens in this sad universe. The residents would scream, but they’re mouths are too poorly drawn.
February 18th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
#11 — Mama is reading the nephew’s peculiar spelling as if in Chaucerian English, with the trilled “R’s” and extra syllables. Then she hands the paper to hubby so he can see the misspellings.
February 19th, 2006 at 12:24 am
Err, if my comment gets comment of the week, correct my grammer (fat chance)
February 19th, 2006 at 12:54 am
Pompous are we Hysterical woman? haha :)
Waiting for websites to refresh their comics selection.
New “Create your own Mary Worth comic strip tutorial on my blog! Click my URI.”
February 19th, 2006 at 1:23 am
Alert the presses!!! Mary Worth shows cultural references!! JADE EAST!!!
A hint that their world is not just all WASPs who dress in electric blue slacks.
Why is Iris saying “What a relief?” How did she find out? Did Mary tell her? Probably. What a relief is what you say after you just emptied your bladder, not just after you found out your transgender advice columnist neighbor was exonerated.
February 19th, 2006 at 2:28 am
Here’s the latest from the cartoon protests:
http://www.ucomics.com/drewsheneman/2006/02/09
February 19th, 2006 at 2:33 am
Ugh…Funky Winkerbean.
February 19th, 2006 at 7:51 am
Re: Number 33
Say what she will in Saturday’s strip, Lynn Johnston gets an online Slut-o-Meter promiscuity rating of more than 50 percent:
http://www.slut-o-meter.com/index.php?name=Lynn+Johnston
The little trollop! Even Bill Clinton only scores around 10 percent.
February 19th, 2006 at 11:48 am
#41 – In other words, Milford is like Pleasantville, except not pleasant.
February 19th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
I am confused. How did Curtis find Michelle, again? When she switched schools, did she stay in the same house? Ah, that must be it… sorry, I missed a few, er, weeks there… I did read your ENTIRE blog, yesterday, though… at least back up to your wedding. Entertaining is an understatement. Thank you. I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, I swear…
February 19th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Get Fuzzy: “Nostra-Dumbass” Heh heh heh heh heh… That’s great. I gotta remember that one.
February 19th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Anyone notice in Sunday’s Get Fuzzy that Rob is wearing a Stewie Griffin tee shirt?
Also, I think I missed the joke in Sunday’s Frank and Ernest. I just don’t get it…
February 19th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Sunday’s Zits–what’s Jeremy spraying in the 4th pic in the first panel? Is that really necessary? And could they not have spared us that?
February 19th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
When did the kid in FC learn how to fly?
February 19th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Is this the frgrance Wilbur is wearing for his dinner out with the lay-deeze in Sunday’s MW?
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/jbktrading/jadeeast1.html
(I remember this stuff, and it was…well, it was right up there with Hai Karate. And Brut, by Fabergé)
February 19th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
I wonder if Evans is making a run at increasing his male readership to compete with the appeal of ‘Zits.’
February 19th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
A small point and a minor question:
-I really like the single time-passes panel in Sunday’s PBS. It’s rather artful for a strip by a rather limited artist.
-Am I reading it wrong or does Sunday’s Frazz make no distinction between characteristics that celebrities clearly don’t have (e.g. Howard Stern’s tact) and characteristics that are merely independent from the celebrities fame (e.g. Jules Verne’s cooking). That was my reading of the strip, which makes the lazy punchline feel even lazier than it actually is.
February 19th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Dick Cheney should take Rita Begler, Anna Tieg, Jane Hand, and Mary Worth hunting.
February 19th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
Two comments:
1. Is Ray Billingsly of Curtis gerrting kickbacks from the quotation mark industry or something? The strip above uses them way more then neccisary, not to mention Dad’s frequent requests to “Turn that “rap” junk down!”
2. Sunday’ Opus is another blatant retread of a Bloom County gag, only less funny than the original bit. I liked BC, but Brethed has to start justifying his use of half the comics page better.
February 19th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
What are those lines emanating from Wibur’s head in the last panel of MW?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/mary.asp
Are they part of the “Art Work” in the upscale Jade East restaurant? Or could they be the remaining hairs left in his tightly shellacked combover? Maybe the forces required to keep them in place were finally overcome, and they launched themselves into space.
February 19th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
Dr. Laura: That is in fact a very interesting observation…If they were “Margo Magee ‘Nina Blake’ eminating linesTM” then I would think they would go right over the WASPy old woman in the background…..It could be a Japanese sun mural though…..Although it probably is eminating lines. Iris is proclaiming how her father is “the shit” and how he’s amazing most of the time.
February 19th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
“Wilbur sense tingling!”
February 19th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Those could be pain lines, of the sort generated by massive cerebral hemorrhage. The pain is so intense that the pain lines are not wavy, as pain lines normally are. Call me a dreamer if you wish.
February 20th, 2006 at 12:45 am
Ohh look! Jade East changed colors and Wilbur lacks a neck. A normal day in Mary Worthville…
One Big Happy is funny for once! hah. Kosher!
February 20th, 2006 at 12:48 am
Today’s Luann: Oh dear god, does this mean the kitten is going awaaaaaaay?!
Nooooooooooooooooo!
…
Screw you all, I liked that kitten.
-MB
February 20th, 2006 at 1:47 am
Today’s BC:
Is that a Clinton joke?
February 20th, 2006 at 1:59 am
65.
Yep it looks like Mrs. Horner is going to get herself a new pet.
But it will take Luann 2-3 weeks to get to that point… at which time it will revive the Brad/Dirk neverending story.
February 20th, 2006 at 11:15 am
In the unpublished next panel of today’s Family Circus, I bet Mr. Circus wanders into the room and says “Say Thel, seen Grandma lately? Looks like she forgot to take her Alzeimer’s medicine again… Boy Howdy! that sure was some blizzard we got last night, huh!”
February 20th, 2006 at 11:15 am
In the unpublished next panel of today’s Family Circus, I bet Mr. Circus wanders into the room and says “Say Thel, seen Grandma lately? Looks like she forgot to take her Alzeimer’s medicine again… Boy Howdy! that sure was some blizzard we got last night, huh!”
February 20th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Josh-
Let’s keep focus. “Mark Trail” is starting to gear up again, or, more accurately, again! “Luann” and “Curtis” are like the poor – they’ll always be with us, and nothing will have hapened since the last time we checked. “Mary Worth” is in a Chinese restaurant, and they won’t even get around to ordering the crab rangoon until St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not certain what’s going on over at “Gil Thorp”, but I’m pretty confident that no one without a buzzcut gives a crap.
“Mark Trail” – that’s what the people want!
February 20th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Is it my imagination, or is Sunday’s FBFW an overlong re-tread of an old Dilbert? Ooh, ‘Buzzword Bingo’–such a clever idea, once wasn’t enough? (Or was once once too many?)
February 20th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Gil Thorp questions:
After all of this time, and countless transgressions, how is it Coach didn’t take preemptive action against Marty Moon? This is like Lucy holding the football. Put the bastard in a jaw cast before he does what his despicable nature makes absolutely inevitable.
As for introducing violence, is it too late to hope that Ted’s got an abusive dad looking for his mom? Who’s going to find them now because of the scumbag Moon? I mean, after the in-depth study of interracial relationships, mere poverty seems a little wishy-washy, touchy-feely liberal.
Why the hell does Milford have playdowns when the rest of the world has playoffs?
February 20th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
All the women in Mary Worth showed up to the restaurant in the same outfit. How embarrassing.
February 20th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Two questions:
1. Is Dirk’s car actually clip art?
2. Did tough guy Dirk really sign the flowers “Luv”?
February 20th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
In today’s Mary Worth I love the twig with a bird sitting on it growing out the side of Iris’s head.
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20060220&name=Mary_Worth
February 20th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Now that’s embarrassing!
February 20th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
74 – Can’t say whether he drew it or cut & pasted it, but there’s not much doubt it’s the same picture.
http://www.comics.com/comics/luann/archive/luann-20060217.html
http://www.comics.com/comics/luann/archive/luann-20060130.html
February 20th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Where was “Committed” today? In my paper Houston Chronicle, it was replaced by a “Sudoko coming soon” sign, and it’s not showing up anywhere online. Was yesterday the last one? I really like that comic…
February 20th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Ok, I guess I could google before randomly asking a question. Committed is gone. Damn. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/syndicates/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001957252
February 20th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
76- Now, that’s embarassing. Fauna/Human/WASP hybrid, only in Mary Worth.
February 20th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
Flora, rather, it’s been years. :)
February 20th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Monday’s A3G:
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20060220&name=Apartment_3-G
“Between the live peacocks and the hysterical dressmaker, my life is a wedding planner’s nightmare.”
A bit wordy, but personally I think it would make a funny t-shirt. That is all.
February 20th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
DTGT: All you Detroit Lions fans will get a kick out of this. Check out the sign in the background in panel 1.
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2006/2/20&name=Gil_Thorp
February 20th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
# 84 I love it. If we can’t get him fired in real life, maybe we can dump him in the comics world. Maybe they could turn him over to Mark Trail and throw him in the pen with the man-eating pigs.