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B.C., 9/22/04

So all week I’ve been trying to understand B.C. I know, “Don’t do it!” you’re shouting. But generally this is not a strip that’s hard to figure out: whether it’s making jokes about golf, slamming on the ACLU, or saying that Jesus has come to put a stop to Hanukkah, it pretty much says what it means.

However, this week’s strips on the presidential race in, um, B.C.-land are fairly obscure. Comprehension is clouded from the get-go because the struggle involves three characters who are virtually identical in appearance and behavior. (They’re named “Peter,” “B.C.,” and “Thor,” and I won’t even begin to go into what all is wrong with that combo.) On the one hand, the sequence of events is oddly specific — Peter has successfully put up his sign, while everyone else’s campaign tactics are backfiring in strange ways. It’s more than just simple “Hah! Politics are stupid!” humor, but it doesn’t seem to correspond to anything else either. And, of course, it’s not even remotely funny. Maybe it’s supposed to be a commentary on the current U.S. presidential elections, but if it is, then it’s based on information coming from some parallel universe.

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B.C., 7/16/04

I almost invariably hate B.C., so I’m rather surprised to find that my first mention of it this blog is positive. Jokes about golf and/or toilets date back to the Paleolithic Age themselves, but what made me laugh in this strip is the use of the word “SKULL,” apparently as a verb, between the two panels.

I’m always curious about strips that are set in specific time periods in the past and then indulge in anachronisms. Does Johnny Hart find the idea of prehistoric golf courses inherently funny? Or did he just get to a point in his career when he ran out of caveman jokes and said, “Darn it, Beetle Bailey does golf jokes, so why can’t I?” Hagar the Horrible is in a similar place today — Hagar and his wife are hovel-shopping with what I presume is a bloodthirsty Viking realtor — but this strip gets bonus points because it features a character talking into an 1890s-style phone mouthpiece that’s embedded in a tree.

By the way, mad “props” to TopFive.com, Acorns from an Oakie, and Clea’s Cave, all of whom linked to me on my second day of public operations.