Post Content

Apartment 3G, 3/4/08

Today, sullen wastrel Alan interrupts his power-dive at Jones’s Crank ‘n’ Skank to reconnect with his Muse. The bottle in panel one is a nice touch. Oh, yeah, and there’s another Margo clone. Wait, could this actually be three different women, or one woman with three different heads? Who counts? Who cares?

A3G is the collaboration of two cartooning talents: Margaret Shulock writes the strip; Frank Bolle illustrates it. Both have other gigs, Shulock as one of the Six Chix, Bolle as the new illustrator for Gil Thorp, inheritor of the Mantle of McLaughlin. So: can we deconstruct Apartment 3G into elements found in Six Chix and Gil Thorp? Let’s see!

Six Chix, 3/4/08

Well, sometimes life just hands you a gimme, don’t it?

Gil Thorp, 3/4/08

Wow; characters you can tell apart, limbs connected to bodies at reasonable angles, Newtonian sports action: not what we expect from Gil Thorp! Still needs work on drawing people between 9 and 35, but we’re on our way! Frankly, though, it doesn’t look much like A3G: it’s already better. Nice work, but maybe it’s time to pay some more attention to the core franchise?

– Uncle Lumpy

Post Content

Ziggy, 2/29/08

Sometimes, it’s important remember that we all have a huge, aching hole inside of us, a hole of hate and despair and pain and loss. What can fill that hole? Love, of course! Except that nobody loves us. So, we’ve got to go with the next best thing: food. Food is almost like love, except in the sense that if you absorb enough of it, you’ll probably throw up. But still, you keep eating those milkshakes that are literally larger than your head, Ziggy. Because maybe this time it’ll make you feel better. Maybe this time.

Shoe, 2/29/08

Ha! It’s funny because the only thing he hates more than his wife is talking to his wife! Thankfully he’s in a bar with Shoe, where his wife can’t possibly go, because she’s a lady. Don’t worry, fella: Tasty brown liquor doesn’t expect you to hold up a conversation!

Apartment 3-G, 2/29/08

Man, how much smack is running with Alan’s veins right now? Just saying his name make Lu Ann look all heavy-lidded and blissed up. “I can’t wait to tell Alan … Alan … so nice … Alan … [falls out].”

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 2/28/08

Good lord, is there anything more divine than imagining a timid and baffled Lu Ann on some sort of weird A3G approximation of The View? I can just see her shrinking with embarassment further and further down into her seat as Whoopi Goldberg and Elisabeth Hasselback scream at each other about the merits of modern art or something. Then Margo would burst onto the set, slap Whoopi and Elisabeth, and, eyes flashing with fire, bellow “This interview is over!” at Barbara Walters. Next, taking off one shoe, she’d…

…OK, I’m officially a little too excited by this scenario.

Gil Thorp, 2/28/08

The sad Tale of Andrew The Abandoned Boy continues, with the A-Train forced to boil things for his little siblings while his father heroically protects U.S. State Department officials with Blackwater. Today, I’m mostly troubled by whatever the hell is going on under the narration box in panel two. It looks like Andrew is programming some sort of 1950s-era computer, complete with a slot for a punch card. Perhaps the artist thinks that once a check is “direct-deposited,” one can extract the money from ENIAC?

Site note: I’ve finally done something I should have done years ago: I created a privacy policy for the site. Take a look, won’t you? (Update: I just made a few quite minor tweaks thanks to suggestions, including adding details about PayPal.)