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Apartment 3-G, 4/18/07

I am desperate to know more about Margo’s assistant Sam, and not just because I can live out through him my longstanding fantasy of scrambling to carry out Margo’s imperious orders. Look at that wide-eyed wonder in panel two: “Ladies in New York get married? GAWRSH!” I think Margo just stood outside the Port Authority bus station one day, waiting for someone attractive and not-too-bright to step off a Greyhound with small town hopes and big city dreams, and hired him on the spot before he learned the details of typical New York pay scales. However, his cynical look of disbelief at the word “love” in panel three indicates that New York is already wearing down his soul.

For Better Or For Worse, 4/18/07

There’s always an ongoing struggle for the coveted title of “Unintentionally Creepiest FBOFW Character,” but Deanna is making a good bid for it today, with her near-orgasmic musings on replicating her in-laws’ family in photo-perfect detail. This of course is someone whose greatest act of initiative was to get pregnant “accidentally” by “forgetting” to take her birth control pills, which Elly probably bribed her to do somehow. Maybe the house itself is the promised reward.

On the other hand, as several commentors have pointed out, the ravine that she’s waxing about so rhapsodically is the same one where April notoriously almost drowned, with only noble Farley saving her from a watery death. Since the junior Pattersons don’t own any skilled rescue beasts, perhaps Deanna is hoping that a couple quick drownings, Mike’s subsequent suicide, and a sale at market rates of a house they bought at a steep family discount add up to her ticket to sweet, sweet freedom.

Gil Thorp, 4/18/07

Ah ha! See, “Mr. Rickey” is Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager who famously helped break baseball’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson (whose major league career started sixty years ago this week). I’m telling you, this amiable old black man is going to explain to these young white people how Jackie Robinson blazed a trail of opportunity for them.

Judge Parker, 4/18/07

We’ve all been assuming that this mysterious figure is Canadian Cedric the Super Butler, though he appears to not be wearing Cedric’s trademark glasses, so who knows. As a commentor or two pointed out, the shadowy stranger’s use of the word “scum” echoes Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative candidate in this coming weekend’s French presidential election, who famously and controversially used the term to describe rioting youths in Paris’ poor suburbs when he was Interior Minister in 2005. Perhaps Sarko is wearying of the hand shaking and baby kissing and has decided to embark on a little side campaign of his own … a campaign of vigilante justice. Since his intervention will deny Judge Parker readers the opportunity to see Neddy and Abbey sexily fight off their attackers with lead pipes and flamethrowers, this will just give Americans another reason to hate France once he’s elected.

Incidentally, the fact that Cedric/Sarkozy/whoever hears the punks speaking English indicates that the English we’ve been seeing in the word balloons isn’t just a translation of the execrable French for our benefits: they’re actually switching back and forth between English and execrable French. Hee.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/18/07

OK, Rex Morgan, we all know that it’s fun to look at June’s breasts, but there’s a little something called “subtlety.” I mean, Jesus.

By the way, if I were Heather, I wouldn’t be all that heartened by the magical thinking of a preschooler with a hideously misshapen head. Now, if Abbey the Wonderdog had barked her vote of confidence at me, I’d feel reassured.

The Lockhorns, 4/18/07

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here. Was Leroy attempting to hold out on Loretta by squirreling away a portion of his meager paycheck for his own use? Is Loretta upset that he would cut their already cramped budget down further? It’s hard to tell whose moment of triumph this is supposed to be because they look so damn depressed. Because in the Lockhorns, nobody ever wins.

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In the 48 hours or so since he first waltzed onto Milford High’s practice diamond, it’s become clear that Otha “Clambake” Yancey is a true hero for our age. Let’s review some of his classic utterances:

• “You’re pulling your head, son.”
• “Lock your eyes on one hole, get set, and swing.”
• “And keep doing it!”
• “Everyone calls me Clambake.”

The question quickly became: Should Clambake be commemorated by items of clothing that sport a logo that Josh quickly threw together using royalty-free clip art and offered for sale at the Comics Curmudgeon store? Frankly, to ask this question is to know the answer.

Yes! You can now display this baffling, ludicrous artwork on numerous items that you can purchase at CafePress! (Including the baseball jersey type shirts, natch.) If you’re sick of everyone calling you Otha and want to start going by Clambake, well, these are the shirts for you.

Meanwhile, there’s been some controversy over a statement I made about our good Clambake earlier today. Is Mr. Yancey indeed black, as I posited? I admit that, because this is Gil Thorp we’re talking about, subtle features like skin color can be hard to figure out. My own wife called me from work today to argue that he’s supposed to be a crusty old New Englander (which would ground the “Clambake” nickname somewhere near to sanity) and that “Otha” is some kind of Maineification of “Arthur.”

I base my assertion on being a longtime student of the subtleties of Gil Thorp artwork; plus, when Clambake was first introduced to us last week, he was seen talking to his son:

I admit that Yancey Junior is kind of racially indeterminate as well to the untrained eye, but the jagged nimbus around his head is one of the two styles of hair in this feature that generally indicates African-American status (the other, cornrows, being way too edgy for this harried buppie). Plus, Clambake pretty much exudes that vibe, associated with nice old black men in too many movies and books to count, of “Here’s a nice old black man who’s going to help you white people solve your problems with his folk wisdom/instinctive understanding of human nature/magical powers, but isn’t going to do anything to make you uncomfortable, like have sex with white women or vote or speak in that damn ‘izzle’ language.” But I could of course be wrong. Maybe Clambake’s racial background is unimportant. Maybe it’s just important that we call him “Clambake.”

Speaking of insanity and Gil Thorp, I’ve gotten quite a few good entries in the Self-Clubbing Tyler contest. I’ll probably be posting the first batch of pics by Friday, but you should absolutely send yours in today!

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Were you under the impression that only members of the species Homo sapiens could wear Comics Curmudgeon merchandise? Well, let Thing and Yong Yong, adorned in Molly the Bear gear by faithful reader Andrea D and the Grandstanding Oddballs, disabuse you of that notion!

Now that you know that Comics Curmudgeon gear can be enjoyed by your pets, you’re going to want to buy some, obviously.