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Some of you may not have seen Monday’s Pearls Before Swine:

Those of you who did see it may have thought that its worse crime was the egregious punnery that brought Rat to tears in panel three. However, today’s Baltimore Sun ran a letter to the editor with a different view:

Crude comic insults the devotion of nuns

In light of all the calamities confronting our country, it might seem rather mundane to write a letter to the editor concerning the comics. However, there are so many ways that artists and writers chip away at any of the core values left in America.

Two of the most decent comics that were in The Sun, Prince Valiant and Mark Trail, were eliminated and replaced with yet more inane and offensive comic strips.

Could it be that those comics were dropped because they dared to mention God at various intervals?

On Monday, Stephan Pastis hit a new low when his Pearls Before Swine strip mentioned a nun having enemas with the crudest of entertainers, Eminem. How disgusting.

I had three aunts in the convent who dedicated their lives to the poor. The nuns in our parochial schools gave my children an excellent education that has served them well.

This cartoon is a slap in the face to each of these self-sacrificing women.

Polly Thornton

Elkridge

Mind you, this was written before they start putting bestiality in the Jumble, so things are only going downhill faster and faster. If anyone can point me to a religious tenant that declares enemas to be sinful — or for that matter, a religiously themed Mark Trail — I’d be grateful. Last Christmas Mark gave Jesus short shrift so he could focus on Santa, so I’m not convinced of his piety.

Speaking of the decline and fall of our civilization, faithful reader Victoria Solomon recently sent me a link to a video she and her little friends made mocking another good-hearted and decent comic, the Family Circus. Enjoy, heathens!

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Spider-Man, 5/10/06

Folks, if you’re tired from “Spider-Man is lame” posts from me, you should write angry letters to Stan Lee and demand that Spider-Man STOP BEING SO GODDAMN LAME. For those of you keeping track at home, the last time Spidey actually tangled with anything remotely resembling a supervillain was nearly a year ago, when he fought the Rhino. Since then, he battled a greedy but entirely human doctor out to patent his blood, which included a distasteful a sequence in which he briefly assumed the identity of “Gown Man”; and spent all of 2006 so far attempting to recapture his spider-suit (the relative suit of a spider!) from a suicidal loser, in the process taking on the sneer-worthy “Justice Guy” persona.

On Sunday, the strip’s teaser promised that at long last we’d be seeing a new nemesis for Spidey: the Panthress! Who of course is actually just a role played by Mary Jane’s sexy older costar. Presumably Spider-Man will have to battle her in some yawn-inducing manner that doesn’t involve web-slinging, wall-crawling, or kicking ass in any way, shape, or form. In fact, he’ll probably find some laughable reason to infiltrate the set under a new identity: Production Assistant Lad!

Jumble, 5/10/06

So the Jumble has strippers in it now? Huh. This is either a sign of “We’re desperate for readers and this is how low we’ll stoop” or “Nobody reads this anymore so we’re just going to put in zoo porn and see what happens.”

The presence of the grinning sailors — in full uniform — is a nice touch. I think it’s charming that the Navy keeps the old school white-bell-bottoms-and-black-cravat-and-little-hat get-ups in active service. I used to live in the San Francisco area, and during Fleet Week the whole town would be crawling with those guys, and they looked like they had walked right out of a World War II movie. It was the gayest thing I’ve ever seen, and I lived in San Francisco for nearly six years.

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For Better Or For Worse, 5/9/06

YAHHHH! ZOMBIE SEX! THE WALKING DEAD, THEY WILL MAKE LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER! NOOOOOOOOO!

Gil Thorp, 5/9/06

Damn, Coach, you got served! I love the fact that she closes the door just so she can deliver her cutting commentary through it. In fact, I’m loving Mrs. Raptor and her bizarre hair more and more every time she appears. Maybe if we all start writing in letters of appreciation about her, she’ll get her own strip, called Millicent Raptor Will Crush Your Soul.

Curtis, 5/9/06

Gunther … Rose Petal … Curtis … I hate to interrupt this little domestic drama, but your abuse of quotation marks today has attracted the attention of someone. What’s that you say, Finger-Quotin’ Margo?

Let that be a lesson to you!