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Apartment 3-G, 12/14/06

You know, I’m not the sort of person who just applies DSM-IV diagnoses to people in the comics … oh, no, wait, that’s exactly the sort of person I am. Anyway, I think it’s pretty obvious that Margo is bipolar. I’m sure Eric is enjoying happy manic Margo right now, but he’d better hang on, because as Tommie and Lu Ann know all too well, he’s in for the ride of his life, and not in the fun, sexy way. The cocaine, of course, does not help.

(Could it be that I’m overdoing the “Margo loves nose candy” jokes? Is such a thing even possible? I’m going to say “no.”)

There’s something very unsettling about the perspective in the first panel. Either that tree really is huge, and it’s about ten feet away, which means Margo couldn’t be gently fondling its branches, or it’s about three feet tall and the bottom of its trunk is floating mysteriously somewhere around Margo’s sternum, or we’re just seeing the very tip of it, pointing downwards, and, in a fit of superhuman strength, Margo’s trying to stuff it into her shopping bag.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/14/06

Note to cartoonists: if you need to have a character in your cartoon explain your joke, your joke has not been deployed successfully.

Mark Trail, 12/14/06

You know, I’m pretty sure that the only reason that Mark adopted Rusty (other than to avoid having ICKY SEX with an ICKY GIRL) was to have a victim for his twisted head games. “Hey Rusty, let’s rescue this wounded beaver! Hey Rusty, what do you want to name your new friend, the beaver? RUSTY! WHY DID YOU TAKE THIS BEAVER OUT OF ITS NATURAL HABITAT? IT’S MISERABLE HERE AND IT HATES YOU!” No wonder the poor kid is so depressed. He looks like the subject of a Margaret Keane painting in that last panel.

The Phantom, 12/14/06

Bangallan President Lamanda Luaga is my second favorite cartoon president (after Teenage Girl President, of course). He already gets mad style points for wearing morning dress at all times; now it appears that that he’s taking off his morning coat in order to beat the crap out of this guy, and I love it. If wanting to see the president personally physically assault a civil servant makes me a Republican, then so be it.

I’m curious about which two laws the president is about to suspend. I’m guessing one pertains to not beating up a government official without a trial of some sort, and the other forbids the president from appearing in public without his morning coat on.

By the way, I know I said I wouldn’t touch the whole Bruce Tinsley thing again, but I would be very much remiss if I didn’t draw your attention to this.