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Apartment 3-G, 10/22/04

Well, as predicted by me and her mother, Margo’s lucrative new job hasn’t turned out the way she’d hoped. I haven’t been commenting on Apartment 3-G here lately because, when compared to the meth-happy wackiness in Mary Worth, it’s been pretty by-the-numbers. Margo falls afoul of her evil employer, tries to bluff her way out, led to the car at gunpoint, blah blah blah. Boooorrrring — that is, until we get to today’s baffling fight over the special pillow!

OK, a shiny virtual quarter goes to anyone who can explain to me what in God’s name is going on here. Who is the other not-Lloyd chauffer? Why does Lloyd keep a pillow in the trunk of Mr. Eldon’s death sedan? Why does Lloyd offer Margo a pillow, then insist that it’s his, then appear to take it out of the hands of the not-Lloyd chauffer — even though he’s the who’s holding it in the previous panel? The only way the last panel makes even a vague sort of sense is if the position of the two blue-clad henchmen were reversed — but even then Margo’s position would be inconsistent with the previous panels. This is one mystery that even Photoshop can’t solve.

Margo earns kudos for nimbleness in the first panel: she’s wearing a micro-miniskirt and her hands are tied up behind her back, but she’s still climbing into that trunk like a pro.

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Panels from Apartment 3-G and One Big Happy, 10/14/04

Today we come back to our intermittent feature in which I talk about the cartoonist’s craft as if I know a damn thing about it. Mainly, I like the lines radiating off of the willful, dark-haired females in these two panels. Normally lines like these in the comics represent motion (or, in extreme cases, odor), but if that were true here, then these ladies would be vibrating like tuning forks with anxiety and/or manic energy. Actually, more than anything else, these remind me of the energy lines that shoot off of comic book heroes when they’re about to make use of some sort of extraordinary power. I guess when Ruthie starts emitting these waves, she’s about to unleash some supernaturally adorable malapropism. Meanwhile, Gabriella’s Gabriella-sense is no doubt triggered when Margo is about to get herself into some sort of trouble. It therefore is almost certainly going off all the time, which may explain why she always looks kind of constipated.

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Apartment 3-G, 9/23/04

And here I was thinking that the feds still needed to resort to antiquated concepts like “probable cause” or “a warrant” before launching a drug investigation. Apparently, though, all they need nowadays is a tip-off from a notoriously amoral PR flack in order to swoop on in. Hopefully all Pete did was break into poor Jack Landrow’s apartment and rifle through his stuff while he wasn’t there; if the whole thing ended in a Ruby Ridge-style debacle, it would no doubt generate a lot of paperwork, which would take Pete away from valuable pretending-not-to-flirt-with-Margo time. It’s a little-known fact that FBI-CIA cooperation on infiltrating militant Islamic groups has been hindered by the amount of energy intelligence agents spend on dealing with their ex-girlfriends.

Speaking of militant Islamic groups, I think the Taliban would want you to cover up there, Margo. I suppose that if you’re just going to be casually hanging around the apartment pretending to cook, while chatting with your former lover about the illegal abuse of his authority that you convinced him to undertake, then that’s the sort of thing that you’d wear.

Incidentally, while it’s always difficult to gauge the passing of time in the soaps, from the next few strips it appears that Tommie will spend the entire remainder of the evening in the next room listening to this conversation. Um, Tommie, I feel bad for you that the writers never give you anything to do and all, but don’t you have somewhere to be?