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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I find the whole thing an anachronistic delight, as of course it it became outdated more or less immediately after it was introduced in 1912, since World War I fairly definitively ended the cavalry age.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., 7/31/12

Hey, everyone, have you heard about the Olympics, which are in England, which is foggy, sometimes? Anyway, this is hilarious because if the rowing events were taking place on the Thames (which they aren’t) it would be foggy and there would be antics anOH MY GOD SHERLOCK HOLMES’ CORPSE IS FLOATING IN THE THAMES OH MY GOD HE’S REALLY DEAD YOU MONSTERS

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/31/12

So, quick poll: What’s creepier, addressing your spouse (while the two of you are alone together) as “[Honorific] [Your last name]” or as “[Nickname by which one of your descendants would address him or her]”?

Gil Thorp, 7/31/12

“It’s not that you have one arm too few, it’s that you have one arm too many! I’m a pointing top, you see. I’m the only one in a relationship who’s allowed to point at things, like so! No, don’t try to imitate me, you’ll just enrage me further.”

Mary Worth, 7/31/12

Wilbur may be about to tumble to his death, but at least he’s going out as he would have wanted: with his bulbous crotch looming at us menacingly.

Spider-Man, 7/31/12

Meanwhile, in Spider-Man, everyone is literally just sitting around killing time until the title character decides to show up.

Wizard of Id, 7/31/12

And in the Wizard of Id, a witch is puking into a bag.

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B.C., 6/18/12

OK, while we have yet another example of B.C. predator vs. prey antics, with implied family dynamics among eusocial insects to boot, and I’m on the record as enjoying this sort of thing in the past, I’m afraid I cannot fully approve of today’s B.C. Mostly I feel puzzled by the role in the narrative of the tree-dwelling … bear … thing. Did the bear-thing put up the fake foreclosure signs in an attempt to con the bees out of their hive and acquire the delicious honey within? Are the foreclosure signs actually meant to not be fake, and the bear-thing is an agent of the bank that holds the mortgage note on the beehive? Is this some kind of opaque political allegory about the ongoing housing crisis? Does the bear-thing have a primitive axe? When did bears start learning how to use tools? Should we be scared of an army of tool-weilding bears, come to take what’s rightfully theirs, like beehives and our foreclosed homes and who knows what else?

Funky Winkerbean, 6/18/12

“Silence, running-slave! The whole point of bringing you to this state of exhaustion was to leave you too tired to make unfunny puns or forced jokes! Looks like we’ll just have to keep going until you lose your power of speech entirely!”

Apartment 3-G, 6/18/12

“I never read What To Expect When You’re Expecting, so I literally have no idea what happens next! I know at some point I’m going to have to pay for this tiny human to go to college, but everything between now and then is a mystery. Does something come out my hoo-hoo at some point?”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/18/12

Snuffy can’t clean any of the clocks today, because he was savagely beaten over some gambling debts and is in too much pain to move.