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The Family Circus, 7/24/04

The culture war for the soul of America rages on in The Family Circus. Who are you going to believe, Billy — Mommy, or the secular humanist park ranger who’s no doubt determined to undermine your family’s most cherished beliefs? That ranger was probably appointed under Bill Clinton’s watch anyway. You can get the real scoop from the park bookstore if you’ve had enough of the Park Service’s so-called “science.”

Today’s fun Family Circus fact: did you know that in Latin, the word circus originally just meant circle? The Romans also used it to describe the circular arenas where horse-racing, beast-fighting, and gladiatorial combat took place, which is where we get our meaning of the word from. So, you see, the name of the cartoon is in fact a bilingual pun, since the panel is always circular. Pretty clever, huh?

The Roman arena is also where many early Christians were sent to their death, so maybe there’s some symbolism there. These martyrs were massacred — just like Billy, Dolly, and Jeffy massacre the English language! OK, I’ll stop.

Incidentally, my friend Dalton has uncovered a vast conspiracy involving The Family Circus and Amazon.com. Click on the link to find out more — but prepare yourself emotionally for what you’ll learn!

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Boy, do I have prompt and responsive readers! For those of you who have been on tenterhooks about the career paths of the Apartment 3-G girls, but too lazy to read the comments, my plea to the public has been answered. A reader who goes only by the gender-ambiguous name of “Robin” says: “Tommie is a nurse. Margo is in PR or marketing or something like that. I *think* Lu Ann is a teacher.” That all sounds right to me (as Robin says, “Isn’t that all just painfully obvious, when you think about it?”), and if I had even the vaguest desire to do fact checking, I wouldn’t have posted the question to begin with, so I’m declaring Robin the winner, with the prize of getting his/her name published in the blog. You go, Robin!

Robin also points out that Lu Ann and Margo’s facial expressions would make much more sense if the art (but not the dialog) for the second and third panel were switched. If you look at the strip with this in mind, it’s so striking that I have to believe that somehow the panels got swapped during production. It’s just more proof that comics ought to be drawn, written, and composited in unionized facilities right here in the good old U.S. of A., rather than in poorly-ventilated third-world comics sweatshops.

There were also alternative suggestions as to what’s in Lu Ann’s cereal box, but they’re far too vile to report here. Have you people no decency?

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The Lockhorns, 7/23/04

Here’s part of what King Features has to say about The Lockhorns: “The award-winning Lockhorns panel gently spoofs the state of marital bliss … Their snappy repartee and witty banter has made them a perennial favorite.” This is for the most part accurate, if you were to change “gently spoofs” to “questions the very possibility of,” “snappy repartee and witty banter” to “passive-aggressive attempts to emotionally destroy one another,” and “perennial favorite” to “horrifying cautionary example.”

Today’s panel has Leroy and Loretta in their familiar places at the dinner table. I especially like suppertime at the Lockhorns, since that’s when they seem most filled with heavy-lidded despair. Usually (though not today) one of them has a puffed out cheek that makes it look as if they are eating crushed glass. Also, with Leroy in profile, we can see that his hair is actually just a series of horizontal lines, which I find quite charming. (Unfortunately, in the online version I’ve linked to here, this effect is somewhat ruined by the coloring job.)

I actually really enjoy The Lockhorns, though perhaps not in the spirit that its creators intend. It’s settled on a few themes (Leroy is lazy, doesn’t earn enough, and makes an ass of himself in social situations; Loretta can’t cook, can’t drive, and spends too much money — that’s about 90 percent of the comic’s content right there) and uses them to relentlessly hammer home the failure of the Lockhorns’ marriage. If, as King Features claims, “comics fans can’t help but see a little bit of themselves or someone they know in Leroy and Loretta Lockhorn,” then God help us all.

I’ve often wondered why, unlike most dysfunctional couples I know, the Lockhorns don’t have any children. Maybe at some level they realize that any child exposed to the venom that flows freely in their household will grow up to be terribly scarred emotionally. But it’s more likely that they just can’t bring themselves to have sex.