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B.C., 8/9/12

Why, I’m glad you asked, blond B.C. character whose name I’m not going to look up (I think it might be “Thor”)! The modern pentathlon was brainchild of the Pierre de Coubertin, who was the driving force behind the modern Olympic movement. It consists of five events:

• Épée fencing
• Pistol shooting
• 200 metre freestyle swimming
• Show jumping on horseback
• 3 km cross country running

Just as the Ancient Greek pentathlon, consisting of running, jumping, javelin, discus, and wrestling events, was meant to serve as a way to practice and display soldierly virtues, so too was the modern pentathlon meant to simulate the sort of things a cavalry officer might have to do if trapped behind enemy lines: shoot a gun, fight with a sword, swim across a river, run for an extended distance, and ride an unfamiliar horse. In fact, for the first few Olympics in which it was an event, only cavalry officers were allowed to compete!

I find the whole thing an anachronistic delight, as of course it it became outdated more or less immediately after it was introduced in 1912, since World War I fairly definitively ended the cavalry age. This makes its “modern” designation all the funnier, though it still does make a useful distinction with the ancient version. Still, bandying around the word “modern” ought to make you take a long, hard look at yourselves, cavemen who are talking to each other from behind boulders.

Baldo, 8/9/12

I’m … pretty sure this is not the case? Unless “help her lift a box” means something filthy beyond my imagination.

Momma, 8/9/12

This implied proposal to exchange of sexual favors for dental work is exactly the right combination of sleazy and practical for Momma.

Shoe, 8/9/12

Have you ever wondered what one of the freakish, unnatural bird-people of Shoe would look like in a state of intense erotic arousal? It would be difficult to distinguish from a massive stroke, apparently!

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B.C., 4/13/12

Hey, let’s talk about jokes, shall we? Let’s say you want to write a joke about about a rabbit who likes hip-hop music. I know, pretty funny, right? Because rabbits hop about? I mean, you know, the Preakness, a legitimate million-dollar horse race with a storied history, couldn’t resist making a rapping pirate Easter Bunny one of their mascots, so really, how could we expect B.C. to resist?

BUT HERE’S THE THING ABOUT JOKES, which is that you need some kind of set up, right? Like, here your set up is “all the animals are telling their favorite kind of music, and we want to the interrogator to be irritated by the cute puns by the time he gets to the hip-hop liking rabbit.” Except! The snake likes grunge music and the turtle likes easy listening, which, unless I am woefully out of the loop about animal stereotypes, have nothing to do with their species. They’re just … arbitrary musical genres. Here’s what the bird-thing should say in the final panel: “Oh, please, say hip-hop! I want the world to make some sort of sense, if only for a moment!”

Baldo, 4/13/12

Aw, Baldo is having a hard time working up the nerve to talk to a girl he likes, so his friend Cruz has brought him a Halloween prop to practice with! I don’t really talk about Baldo very much here, but I do read it every day, and when important things happen, like the title character being encouraged to hump a sex doll dressed as a witch, I feel obliged to bring them to your attention.

Spider-Man, 4/13/12

Well, Spidey, it looks like MJ just woke up without any help from you! “She’s just … someone I rescued — that’s all,” he says. “Yeah, rescued, that’s it.”

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Six Chix, 10/3/11

The comics do not have the best record of seamlessly integrating breast cancer awareness messages into their usual laff routines, so I suppose we ought to give Six Chix credit for making a halfway decent mammogram-themed gag, as well as for semi-accurately depicting one of the games from the Mario Brothers franchise. I was going to say that this freakishly proportioned doctor, with his oversized skull and bug eyes, looks like a classic movie mad scientist, which could explain his unorthodox medical equipment; but, honestly, his patient doesn’t look much like a standard-issue representative of H. sapiens either. Perhaps these two are all too aware of various forms of cancer, living as they do in a high-radiation zone full of mutants like themselves.

Baldo, 10/3/11

Oh, but SNAP, it looks like breast cancer awareness just got stone cold outrun (or outskated?) by diabetes awareness! Are there people rollerblading to cure breast cancer? I don’t think so! Boy, breast cancer awareness just looks like a pile of garbage now, doesn’t it.

Slylock Fox, 10/3/11

Once a habitat has been invaded by an outside species, can it ever truly be restored to its original state? Is the blunt instrument of government policy capable of managing something as delicate as an ecosystem, or do attempts to do so do more harm then good? Since species replacement is part of the natural cycle of life, is it even realistic to try to preserve a region’s biosystem in some arbitrary static state? Are these questions far too difficult for most adults to answer, let alone children? Oh, they are? Uh, well, then, just, I don’t know, count the snakes or something, I guess.