Archive: Ballard Street

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Archie, 4/30/07

I was going to say that coming up with a spoof of the Gap called “the Goop” was the funniest incidental gag I had yet seen in the Archie newspaper strip, but then I realized how very, very low my bar for this feature has been set and I got kind of depressed.

Either the Goop has wowed the fashion world this season with a new line of clothes made entirely out of lead, or the strain of trying to keep Riverdale’s hottest brunette and hottest blonde emotionally and sexually satisfied has sapped Archie’s man-essence and left him a feeble weakling. Either way, Dilton is rightfully horrified.

Mark Trail, 4/30/07

Some commentors seem to think that this supposed to be a response to my claims that Mark is gay; in fact, I’ve never asserted anything of the kind. Rex Morgan? Gay. Beetle and Sarge? Very gay. But Mark Trail? Mark is completely asexual. His desire for physical intimacy with other human beings regardless of gender is either entirely absent or buried so deeply by psychological trauma that he only gets aroused by peeping in on frogs and birds while they do it. Frankly, today’s strip does not disabuse me of this notion. I dare you to imagine Mark’s right hand in panel two as about to do something erotic without shuddering.

Ballard Street, 4/30/07

At first glance here, I assumed that Scooter was imitating his Wall Street heroes’ habit of celebrating business victories with a little nasally-ingested stimulation. I still think that version is funnier.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/30/07

I’m very excited about the potential feedback loop being set up here: Rex stalls Hugh, then Hugh says something condescending that makes him sound like a pompous jackass, which pisses Rex off and makes him all the more determined to delay him. This could go on for weeks, with each strip ending with a sitcom-style muted horn going “Wanh Wahn WANNNH”. Eventually, Rex will just be walking in place somewhere in the bowels of the garage, mime-style, while Hugh berates him.

This isn’t the first time someone’s let lose an aside like Hugh’s within earshot of Rex, though usually it’s in regard to his medical procedures. “I’m sure it’s the kidney … or maybe the liver?” “Well, which one is it man?” “Maybe it’s the spleen!” “Of all the incompetent…

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Apartment 3-G, 10/6/06

The Case Of The Dumb Blonde In The Mysterious Dark Building has been grinding on slowly while the other A3G girls enjoy their old-man-taunting dinner party. It’s not exactly clear where it is that Lu Ann is sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong; presumably its door was opened by the mysterious set of keys Alan left for our blonde bombshell back in August, and it’s the only building in New York that isn’t in the midst of a condo conversion. Hopefully the moodily lit Lu Ann will get to the top of the stairs and discover that Alan has been living for the past few months Phantom Of The Opera style in a ruined but strangely beautiful aerie, where he’s been perfecting his art in isolation and brooding over the girl who got away. Either that, or it’ll be some kind of sex dungeon.

I don’t like to criticize when I can’t offer alternative solutions of my own, but: I’m not really sure how in the context of a single relatively small panel you’d indicate that a character’s flashlight is starting to flicker on and off, but I’m pretty sure having it emit the words “BLINK BLINK” isn’t it.

Mary Worth, 10/6/06

OH MY GOD FUNERAL FUNERAL FUNERAL! You know what happened the last time Mary went to a funeral, don’t you? Don’t you? AWESOMENESS! Even if Aldo really is dead, surely the presence of the evil meddlers who drove him to desperate self-harm will cause some sort of angry riot among his (no doubt many) friends, family members, and loved ones. Will Mary and Toby have to flee one of Santa Royale’s classiest funeral homes one step ahead of an enraged mob of Kanes and Kelrasts? Will Ian and Wilbur find their bodies strung up from the nearest lamppost the next day? Or (better yet) will this “funeral” turn out to be an intervention for inveterate meddlers, presided over by none other than the not-really-dead Aldo himself? I mean, in real life, it’s probably going to be a chance for Mary to dispense Bartlett’s-worthy bon mots about alcohol abuse, but let a guy dream for a day or two, OK?

Mark Trail, 10/6/06

Uh, yeah, but Mark is really just lulling Hoyt into a sense of complacency, and then he’s going to turn around and punch him in the jaw, right? Right? I mean, the phrase “Keep your dogs off of Lost Forest property, Hoyt” would be best delivered with Hoyt supine, cowering, and nursing a broken nose.

I have a feeling that Molly is going to have a hard time understanding the hostility towards her from the administrators of the local hospital and the county health inspectors.

Ballard Street, 10/6/06

Uh, yeah, her own mind. That’s what she’s deriving all that pleasure from. Riiiight.

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Dinette Set, 2/21/06

Ballard Street, 2/21/06

So like I said, I’ve been reading a bunch of new comics on the Houston Chronicle’s Web page, and goddamn some of them are weird. It goes without saying that the market for off-kilter one-panel comics exploded in the wake of the Far Side’s success, but some of the efforts in this space have been more fruitful than others. This Dinette Set, for instance, seems to think that a collection of potentially funny elements, connected by a liberal amount of free-associative logic, together create a coherent whole; sadly, it is incorrect in that assumption. After much scrutiny, I think that this is supposed to be some sort of commentary on America’s energy-inefficient ways: the papaya-headed protagonists (The Dinettes?) scoff at attempts to use our dwindling fossil fuels more wisely, while enjoying a film sponsored by their utility company with a suggestive title. (They’ll be “paying” their gas and electric bills “forward” because they have that enormous picture window! Get it? GET IT?) Potentially less relevant is the presence of Some Like It Hot atop their VCR (a reference to the sky-high heating bills they won’t like paying?) and their guest’s attire. I want an “I Heart Sour-Dough Bread” t-shirt as much as the next annoying thirtysomething hipster does, but it doesn’t really fit in with anything else happening here, and only adds to the impression that the panel is flailing around waist-deep in humor-like material, desperately trying to grab onto a punchline that is nowhere in sight.

Today’s Ballard Street, on the other hand, while also not funny in any conventional sense of the word, is much darker and more wonderful in its utter opacity. In the Dinette Set panel above, you can kind of see where the jokes are supposed to be coming from, which makes them all the more pathetic when they fail. This Ballard Street, on the other hand, seems to come from some strange alternate universe; it’s entirely self-contained, and I feel like it would be totally hilarious if only I were grounded in the completely alien set of cultural assumptions from which it arises. Is that a mechanical dog’s head? If so, how is it emitting spittle? If not, why the crank? Either way, why the megaphone? And why is it apparently vibrating? And the gloves? Why is Bob wearing gloves? Nothing is explained, but I still somehow feel like it’s my fault for not getting it. The fact that the caption is in the present tense somehow only adds to the weird feeling of dislocation about it.