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Mary Worth, 4/15/06

“Whale”? Did Mary just sit through a grueling week-long dinner dominated by savage passive-aggressive battles over eating and weight loss and just think “whale”? OH NO SHE DIDN’T! That skinny old biddy has crossed the line: even if it was just in thought balloon form, the sarcasm quotes around “whale” make sure that we know all about her smug superiority.

I’m looking at this strip again and just noticing that Lou is continuing to attempt to force-feed his hapless wife: he’s got a death grip on the back of her neck and he looks like he’s doing the “airplane” game with that spoonful of off-white mush, much as you would with a recalcitrant infant. Even creepier to me is Kelly’s attitude, which seems to boil down to, “Ha ha, that husband of mine, he’s an angry control freak who refuses to allow me to have any will of my own! Whaddya gonna do?”

B.C., 4/15-16/06

God and Mammon met head-on as B.C.’s Easter weekend took a Holy Saturday break for some good-old fashioned tax humor. I’ll ignore the joke of Saturday’s strip to point out that the keen-sighted blonde caveman dude in panel one (Peter? Thor? Does anyone actually know or care?) is suddenly transmorgified in panel two into dark-haired, glasses-wearing Clumsy, who is one of the easiest characters in the strip to recognize. I’m sure there’s a totally legitimate reason behind the miraculous transformation and I encourage you to post your ideas about it in the comments.

Easter Sunday we get the real goods, though. I think I caused some confusion Friday when I praised Johnny Hart for not hating on Darwin or the Jews; I meant that he didn’t do so in that particular comic strip, not that he never did. However, since I spent the weekend chowing down on a lot of unrisen matzo bread, I have to admit that I found the opening two-panel joke a bit unsettling.

The rest of the strip makes use of a technique found in some New Testaments, in which everything that’s a direct quote from Jesus is printed in red. This is, I suppose, intended to help us figure out when we have switched between the two speakers in this dialogue, though I’m intrigued that a convention used to highlight what most Christians believe to be the literal word of God is here used in a second-rate Dr. Seuss pastiche in the Sunday comics. When I showed this to Mrs. C., she asked, “Is this supposed to be funny?” I answered with a venerable Simpsons line: it’s not ha-ha funny.

Apartment 3-G, 4/16/06

On a happier note, Apartment 3-G continues to tease us with he prospect of a Tommie-centered storyline. Either wacky adventures await her (and us) as she journeys into Lucy and Ted’s den of boring lovesickness, or it’s just a device to write her out of the strip for the next few months while Margo and Lu Ann do more interesting things. As much as I want to see our favorite redhead in the spotlight, I hate to see the Margo not get her due: I love the first panel in bottom row, where she’s air-quoting so vigorously that she looks like she’s about the sprain something. The use of quotes in the word balloon to match her little bunny-ear finger gesture really drives the point home. Much as I love Margo, though, I am of course one half of a perfect couple, so I’m going to choose to take offense to her decree in the final panel.

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B.C., 4/14/06

I’m not a Christian, but I have no objections whatsoever to Johnny Hart doing Jesus-themed cartoons, really. Especially this weekend. Hart loves Jesus, this weekend is the holiest in the Christian calendar, so: knock yourself out. Bonus points for not hating on Darwin or the Jews.

What I object to is Johnny Hart doing Jesus-themed cartoons that make absolutely no sense. Is “stood on the truth” an idiomatic expression that anyone has used, at any time, ever, such that it would justify the word “truth” being carved, in faux Roman capitals, on an ant-sized podium in the middle of bleak ancient/post-apocolyptic hellscape, in order to set up this joke (and I’m using the term “joke” loosely)? In case you had trouble following that sentence, I’ll supply the answer to the question, which is: No.

(Also, the word “truth” doesn’t occur in John 1:14, in case you’re wondering.)

(UPDATE: Er, so it’s been pointed out to me that “truth” is in fact the last word in John 1:14. Apparently I looked up that verse, scanned it, didn’t see the word “truth”, and never got to the end. I’m as bad as Jeffy Keane (see below)!)

But hey, at least he managed to keep his eye on divine, soul-saving ball for the whole strip:

Family Circus, 4/14/06

It looks like this one started out as being Jesus-themed (“Mary”, “lamb” — lamb of God!) but then fell prey to the irresistible pull of an adorable malapropism. I’m pretty sure that people would read the Bible more often if it featured less smiting and thundering against hypocrites and more little kids mispronouncing words in hilarious ways.

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Hi and Lois, 2/10/06

Sally Forth, 2/10/06

B.C., 2/10/06

A recent study has shown that many online arguments start because it’s difficult to convey one’s tone through text alone. Thus, we must pity the poor cartoon character, trapped in a world where all conversation is conducted via written letters floating just above hair level in word balloons. How are they to detect that most important arrow in any post-modern humorist’s quiver, sarcasm? Maybe Chip isn’t being fresh; maybe he has some sort of horrible disease that’s throwing his body temperature out of whack. When Hi is weeping bitterly over his son’s early grave, he’ll no doubt be begging a cruel God to let him go back in time and never spout this little quip.

The Forths over in Sally Forth at least have been given a vital clue for text based communications — the quotation mark, which as we know often indicates sarcasm (especially when it takes the form of “air quotes”). Still, Ted doesn’t pick up on it, proving his dorktacular cluelessosity (as if his peach-colored golf shirt weren’t clue enough).

Finally, if you need someone to take things too far into total incomprehensible insanity, well, you can always count on B.C. How many Nurenberg-level Crimes Against Punctuation are perpetrated in this strip? Panel two at least deploys the correct method of nesting punctuation marks (double on the outside, single on the inside), while panel one uses British-style single quotes for no good reason. Putting that aside, though: are the quotes around “gag rule” meant to “clue us in” that they’re going to be “key” to the upcoming “punchline?” Do we need quotes around “hurling” because otherwise we won’t get that it’s a synonym for “vomiting”? Does “voted-in” need quote marks at all, or for that matter a “hyphen”? These questions will never be answered, but it’s “important” that they be asked.