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Apartment 3-G, 3/4/07

The final panel of Sunday’s Apartment 3-G — in which Margo, unfamiliar with normal human methods of showing emotion, does her best to illustrate adoration with closed eyes and pouty lips, while Eric recoils in disgust — is pretty much the best thing ever. It’s enough to almost make me ignore Katy’s blatant bit of pantomimed drug innuendo in the fifth panel. We’ll soon find that Eric is only capable of showing real tenderness to his blood relatives; he only chose Margo as a sexual partner because of her steely invulnerability to typical weaknesses like “feelings”, and thus he’s about to drop her like a hot potato.

Dennis the Menace, 3/4/07

Dennis’ level of menacing has hit a new low. By right, Dennis ought to be causing nightmares with malice aforethought, not suffering from them. But the last panel offers a clue to the lack of Menace: Dennis has clearly undergone some traumatic, Clockwork Orange-style de-menacing process. (The strip title in the first panel indicates that the techniques may have been derived from the CIA’s LSD-based mind control experiments from the 1960s.) Dennis knows that some essential bit of his soul has been killed, and he begs his father to reverse the procedure, or, failing that, to crack his skull open and be done with it.

Judge Parker, 3/4/07

Ah, wealthy suburban Americans, your wealthy suburban Americanism is showing! “Oh dear, my teenage daughter has a bag with several books in it; she can’t possibly take public transportation! I’ll call the butler, post-haste! This trip is totally helping her learn about life on her own.” Of course, like most of the 3.6 million people who choose to ride the Paris Metro every day rather than call for their manservant to come with the Bentley, Neddy and Abbey will inevitably be assaulted by punk rockers.

Incidentally, Neddy, they have these things called “backpacks” now that allow you to carry books more comfortably than that … whatever it is you have slung over your shoulder. Backpacks are even for sale in backwards, retail-starved cities like Paris.

Panels from Shoe, 3/4/07

The throwaway panels in Sunday’s Shoe brought me up short. Is that the bird version of Andy Warhol the Perfesser is talking to? So, if Andy Warhol were still alive today, he’d be doing public service announcements about the importance of staying in school? And he’d be a bird?

Also, this panel from Sunday’s Mark Trail was a little marvel of cruelty:

“Hey, kids! Did you know that the beach is covered with corpses? Rotting corpses?”

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Since the King Features servers are holding all that syndicate’s comics hostage, I can’t do Sunday or Monday’s comics yet. To distract you, here’s another adorable merch picture. Today’s model is faithful reader Em Stone. Her ursine friend isn’t a lovable size-changing tame bear, but he or she will have to do:

More Molly the Bear merch is of course available from CafePress.

You might remember Em’s awesome Mark Trail fan art that I pointed to here a few months back. She’s also recently broken into the exalted ranks of comics professionals, drawing a series of horror comics called Hack/Slash for Devil’s Due Publishing. Look for it when it arrives in May!

(Oh, and thanks to everyone for your suggestions on my merch sales situation. I’m going to assess them and figure out what I’m doing by the end of the week.)

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Sunday comics coming Monday morning, but let’s start off your week with the best of the comments of last week. First off, this week’s COTW:

“Brad’s black walls don’t do much for me, but the fact that he and TJ managed to paint half the room in 10 minutes is pretty damned impressive. I’d let ’em both paint my living room … but only in the very literal sense of the phrase.” –Cornwhacker

And the CsalmostoftheTW:

“LuAnn, I think ‘genius’ is spelled c-r-y-s-t-a-l m-e-t-h.” –AdamBa

“Why has no one commented on ‘I missed you too, Mary!… and the wise advice you dispense!’ Terrible. ‘I missed you too, [name]!… and [your primary character attribute]!’ ‘I missed you too, Reggie!… and your IS JERK!'” –Foobar

“I’m sorry, ‘litter bugs?’ That’s it, Family Circus, I don’t know why, but that’s it. I am now going to do everything within my power to stop you from being syndicated nationwide. Of course, that pretty much just includes this blog comment, so you’re off the hook. THIS TIME!” –Joe

“Did anyone comment on the look on Wally’s face at the end of the Saturday FW? It was like ‘Dead? If only.'” –gh

“What about June’s giant mammary cones of persuasion? She’s got a time machine hidden somewhere around the house or clinic, because the only place to buy bras like that is 1956.” –Squid Countess

“Jeez, not the ‘I am energy’ line. Seriously, I’ve never seen a ghost work harder to get into a woman’s pants. We get it! You’re a sensitive dead artist who can turn into cocaine! Now just bed her already!” –Lettuce

“I thought I was channeling an artistic genius once, but I was just light-headed from my roommate repeatedly farting in our tiny apartment.” –smacky

“If I were Arfo, I’d be more concerned about my exact duplicate, sitting just a few seats down. Maybe he’s Bizzaro Arfo! ‘Me love urban living! Me rent one-bedroom apartment in downtown high rise! Me want to live in culturally diverse area!'” –Lyman Returns

“I’d like to know what Dennis the Milquetoast did to deserve being put in the chair. As usual, all the actual misbehaving takes place off stage. It’s like watching Apocalypse Now with no guns and no Robert Duvall.” –dramashoes

“Why the hell does Dr. Cory’s daughter look just like Mary? Wouldn’t that be creepy? I mean creepier than dating Mary would be normally.” –reader-who-posts

“(DT)GT: This story line reminds me of an episode of Veronica Mars, if Veronica Mars was interminably slow and acted by ugly people.” –Mumbles

“I can’t wait to find out what Elvis shot. My guess is that he shot off one of his toes; what makes this funny is that he probably didn’t have 10 toes to begin with.” –The Avocado Avenger

“So, in conclusion, you’re a plugger if you are producing somewhat awkward syntax.” –Skullturf Q. Beavispants

“I don’t get the joke which, with Crock, is the best thing you can possibly hope for.” –King Folderol

“Yes, Pluggers has a Webpage. And yes, I was on it. WHO WANTS TO TOUCH ME!?” –Prehumous

“If anybody ever wondered what former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney would look like in excessively fabulous drag, today’s Dick Tracy will answer your question.” –monkey.dave

“Brad hasn’t been in that house more than two hours before he screwed up his end of the lease. And people say today’s young people aren’t motivated!” –andreavis

“I’m sure Tom Armstrong knows ‘like that popular toy’ is a ridiculous thing to say but gritted his teeth and wrote it that way because he didn’t want to date his comic with a short-lived cultural reference. No doubt he wants future generations to be able to appreciate the message of his comic just as well as our generation. (That message, of course, is ‘babies don’t know how to make jokes.’)” –Francis

“Dan’s scheme is fool-proof; an insurance company wouldn’t drag the lake since it is, in actuality, a near-bottomless plot hole filled with rain water.” –steven

“Having lived in the Cape Fear area for quite some time, I am familiar with things that one might say around large bodies of water. ‘COME ON, DAN, COME TO THE SURFACE!’ is not one of those things.” –uncle balustrade

And of course we must do our weekly offer of gratitude to our sponsors:

• Pixelgirl Shop Loves You!: Hot gifts for you & the ones you love!
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• The NY Pundit: A New York point of view, in exile in Northern New England.
• The Abandoned: She came to Russia for the secret of her past. Now she can’t escape it. In theaters everywhere now.

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Finally, I would be deeply remiss if I didn’t point that the fine Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has offered up a point-counterpoint debate on whether or not Mary Worth is a decent human being. The case against is written by Bob Braughler, aka faithful reader and commentor Smitty Smedlap (who also has his own fine blog). There’s also an insane defense of Mary Worth’s virtue and an intriguing interview with Mary Worth writer Karen Moy. (Fun fact: Before Moy took over, plotlines routinely lasted eighteen months or more; the current three-stories-a-year pace is breakneck speed by historical standards.)