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Marvin, 5/15/07

Remember, kids: HIGH TECHNOLOGY = COMEDY GOLD. Here’s a list of punchlines that would be very similar to the one in this strip, but which fail to achieve knee-slapping hilarity because they ignore the crucial “e-factor” of Internet-related revelry:

• “I think it means mom got me from Christie’s in New York.”
• “I think it means mom paid money for me at a store.”
• “I think it means I was born in a country that doesn’t value girl babies, but does value Western currency.”
• “I think it means mom couldn’t get anyone to have sex with her.”

Mark Trail, 5/15/07

I’m pretty sure that, like George W. Bush’s famous “Bring it on!” line, County Commissioner Sideburns Q. Mustache’s statement that “If Mark Trail is looking for a bird problem, let’s give him one!” will haunt the rest of his political career. Thus it will probably be a blessing that said career isn’t going to last much longer, since Mark will soon show up to impeach him WITH HIS FISTS.

Longtime Mark Trail readers probably thought that last year’s “I’ll use explosives to fake a rockslide so as to convince the county to seize forest land via eminent domain to the advantage of my planned gambling casino” was some sort of apex of laughably unrealistic political skullduggery, but with this “Let’s get people fired up about birds so we can convince them to vote in a new airport on our property,” we move past “contrived” and straight on into Dada. If you managed to convince Karl Rove to drop acid and write a comic strip — and I have to admit that I would support you in such a quixotic effort — this is the sort of thing he’d come up with.

B.C., 5/15/07

Hey everybody! Let’s set the wayback machine for [squints] 1997 and enjoy some classic B.C.! Today, we learn that you shouldn’t go to chiropractors who are deranged mass murderers who build furniture out of the mangled body parts of their victims as some sort of horrific monument to their soulless evil. See, this strip used to be “edgy.”

Apartment 3-G, 5/15/07

FYI, I’m officially boycotting Apartment 3-G until it starts making God-damned sense again.

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Apartment 3-G, 5/11/07

Sure, Gabriella is a cringe-inducing stereotype who babbles in a parody of Spanish that’s worse even than the Judge Parker punks’ French. She also nurtured the black, black soul of Margo in her womb for nine months. But if she manages to rescue Lu Ann where all others have failed, she’ll officially become one of the most together and interesting people in this strip, rivaling the “I’m a docent!” guy and leagues ahead of Tommie. She’s doing it with style and panache, too, saying a little prayer and then letting Satan himself know that she is on the side of good and that his infernal “locks” cannot keep her from her holy mission.

Family Circus, 5/11/07

For reasons I can’t explain, I am totally charmed by the fact that Jeffy and Dolly have thrown some pillows on the floor to relax on for their little chat, and that Jeffy is resting his chin in his hand while he contemplates the insane nonsense that his sister is spouting. If they were older, I’d say they were high (“Hey, is that old saying, like, ‘moth’ or, like, ‘moss’? And, like, what does it mean?”), but as it is they’re clearly just morons on pillows.

B.C., 5/11/07

So, for those of you not following the details: the B.C.s written before Johnny Hart’s death ended around the end of April, and for the next eight weeks or so we’ll be getting the Hart family’s favorite classic strips before we start in with the “new” strips assembled from old drawings and new jokes. The repeat strips have as near as I can tell all been from the last ten to fifteen years, which is kind of odd for a strip that had decades of storied history and a kind of terrible last ten to fifteen years.

Anyway, today’s repeat struck me as really familiar, which is an experience I have a lot, since I read newspaper comics obsessively and have a disturbingly good recall for them. If you squint at the copyright notice beneath the first panel, you’ll see that the date on this is 1996, but my memory of it was a lot fresher, so I went hunting through my archives and found this, from three months ago:

B.C., 2/5/07

Yeah. Um. The weird part is that it’s clearly not the same strip — the art is different and the wording of the punchline has been tweaked a bit. I do need to say that if you have to write a joke every day for years and years, you could actually plagiarize from yourself and not realize it — after all, if you thought it was funny once, you might think so again a few years later. Going through my archives, I’ve found that I’ve made the same joke, nearly word-for-word, in more than one post. Still and all, you’d think someone else would have noticed that and chosen not to run this rerun strip just now.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/11/07

Now, let’s cast aside our petty differences over Asian stereotypes and dumb names and unrealistic corporate governance procedure. I think we can all agree that panel three is the most awe-inspiringly beautiful depiction of a combover ever set to paper by an artist. Mary Worth team: you’ve been resting on your laurels long enough. The next time Wilbur needs a close-up, you’ve got to raise the bar.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 5/11/07

There’s much to love about today’s TDIET, including, but not limited to, “Doodleville,” “Dancing With Dorks,” “the urge to tear out her vocal cords,” Nurse Nulla using a conveniently placed stack of books as a leaning post, and “Nurse Nulla.” But I’d really like to direct your attention to the “thanx to” box. It’s as if someone held captive by substandard medical care sent a desperate message out to the only person who he knew could help: Al Scaduto.

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Mark Trail, 4/19/07

“Josh,” people ask me, “Why do you waste your time on Mark Trail? Why do you wade through week after week of stilted dialogue, nonsensical plots, and freakishly enormous animals?” Well, folks, this is why. When Mark Trail starts punching people, there’s a little warm glow you get in your gut that tells you that everything is right in the world. Sure, it’s only happened twice in the last fifteen months (Mark punches Snake, or maybe Jake, I forget; Mark punches a lecherous, petnapping hillbilly; the installment in which Mark knocks over a trio of bumpkins with a booby-trap is awesome but not a punch per se); but the long waits make the payoffs all the sweeter.

Actual, not-made-up quote in the Wikipedia article on Mark Trail: “His assignments inevitably lead him to discover environmental misdeeds, most often solved with a crushing right cross.” This sort of whimsy almost always gets purged from Wikipedia by killjoy editors, but this sentence cannot be removed because it is demonstrably true.

In this strip, Mark even gives his erstwhile buddy the chance to throw the first punch, which he hilariously botches despite the fact that Mark is standing about six inches away from him. SORRY DAN, MARK DOESN’T GET PUNCHED, HE PUNCHES! Mark’s own steely blow proves to be stronger than even professional-grade spirit gum. It is of course laughable that Dan would skulk around a hotel wearing a cheap wig and fake beard when he could have simply purchased hair dye and grown real facial hair (Dan, did you know that if you stop shaving hair will grow right out of your cheeks?). Another wonderful possibility is that Dan did in fact dye his hair and grow a beard but Mark’s fists are so powerful that they are capable of punching the lies and deceit right off of Dan’s face.

B.C., 4/19/07

This may be a sensitive subject, but: it appears that when the syndicate said that B.C. would be taken over by “the Hart family” they meant that it would be taken over by “an elaborate computer program that almost, but not quite, understands humor and jokes.” Yes, it looks like Archie’s in for a little competition … from the B.C. Laugh Generating Unit 4000! THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Apartment 3-G, 4/19/07

You know, I make fun of Margo a lot on this blog, but it’s only because of my deep affection for her. She’s being so very, very obviously set up for a fall here — note to Margo: usually if a dude is thinking of marrying you, he’d at least let his immediate family know that you aren’t the hired help — that you can’t help but feel bad for her. Still, the coming rage and subsequent bloody revenge will be exquisite to watch.

Possible things running through the horrified mind of Sam the Assistant in panel three:

• “Margo, no! Didn’t you see Blood Diamond? How many African children must die to keep you in trinkets?”
• “Jesus, all a ring is going to do is draw attention to your hideous claw-hand.”

Also, is Sam actually packing up already-inflated helium balloons to take to their next party? Margo is an awful thrifty party planner.

Family Circus, 4/19/07

Since grown-up Jeffy is now drawing this thing, I don’t think it’s possible to pack more self-loathing into a single panel than he does here. Perhaps he knows that “Moronic Children = Comedy Gold” but is afraid of lawsuits from his siblings, and so is forced to humiliate his four-year-old self repeatedly in newspapers across the world to earn a living.

Judge Parker, 4/19/07

God damn, is Cedric going to off these punks execution-style in a dark alley? BADDEST. BUTLER. EVER.

By the way, I can’t conceive of an even remotely plausible chain of events that would end with me holding two actual punk rockers at gunpoint, but if I found myself in that situation, the temptation to say “Do you feel lucky, punk?” would probably be unbearable.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 4/19/07

OK, “The Halves Of Restaurant Sandwiches Are Sometimes Not Adequately Separated” is officially the pettiest TDIET gripe in the history of humanity. Still, the narration posits that “Howcum” and “Why, oh, why” might actually be different questions, which is a philosophical conundrum that will haunt me for days.