Facial expression theater
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Panels from Apartment 3-G and Crankshaft, 5/21/09
Just as I am, in a larger sense, kind of in love with Margo, I’m also more specifically in love with her facial expression in this panel. She’s doing the head-bobble that A3G characters are contractually obligated to do when presented with surprising information, though you’ll notice that she’s upped the degree of difficulty by attempting an asymmetrical semi-bobble. But despite the bobble, her face still shows her mingled boredom and contempt. It’s as if she’s acknowledging the fact that she’s just now learning her parents have been making nice with each other behind her back, but she still wants to make it clear that this doesn’t change her opinion that love is dull and gross and so are they.
Meanwhile, the facial expressions in today’s Crankshaft would lead you to believe that you’re seeing the end game in a hate-filled, Lockhorns-style marriage of mutual emotional violence, in which one partner has finally managed to cross the line and say something completely unforgivable. You aren’t, though! They’re characters in Crankshaft, is all, so they just look like that all the time.
Marvin, 5/21/09
You know what’s a million times worse than Gil Thorp plots about YouTube? Marvin plots about YouTube.
You know what’s a million times worse than Marvin plots about YouTube? Marvin plots about YouTube that involve YouTube videos of Marvin running around with his penis flapping about.
Mary Worth, 5/21/09
“Certainly nobody whose father I knew years ago could possibly ever be a bad man! Here, take my daughter, and a list of her credit card and bank account numbers!”
Marmaduke, 5/21/09
“Also, someone in the house has a face that’s melting off the front of her skull!”