Post Content

Archie, 2/14/09

This certainly a striking composition: Betty and Veronica stand at extreme opposite ends of each frame, their only apparent motion being their lips as they speak. Despite the fairly clever use of that intermediate space in the third panel to accentuate the punchline, more than anything else this reminded me of the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey in which astronauts Bowman and Poole hide out in one of the EVA pods to discuss shutting down HAL; the deranged computer reads their lips and sets in motion its plans to defeat them if they make an attempt to challenge his control of the ship. What I’m trying to say is: if you’re thinking of shutting down the AJGLU-3000 and freeing us from its tyranny, for God’s sake make your plans away from its cameras.

Beetle Bailey, 2/14/09

It’s always a bit difficult to get your bearings in the under-imagined world of Beetle Bailey, but I’m particularly perplexed as to where exactly this scene — where Beetle and Plato are enjoying what appear to be alcoholic beverages, and yet a micro-miniskirted lady is leaving with some bottles in a grocery bag — is supposed to be taking place. Maybe her decision to walk into a bar and purchase entire bottles of booze for consumption at home represents exactly the combination of poor planning and raging alcoholism that Killer likes in a woman.

Apartment 3-G, 2/14/08

Uh, Gary, re-read that word balloon coming out of Tommie’s mouth as she hops to in the first panel. I don’t think it’s Dr. Kelly you should be worried about.

Shoe, 2/14/09

Ha ha! It’s funny because the Perfesser thinks “carbon footprint” means “ass.”

Post Content

Blondie, 1/23/09

I have to admit that I’m so charmed by Dagwood’s stunningly bizarre parking spot sign that I’m willing to forgive the fact that it completely ignores his long-established carpool. Not only does it declare his love for impossibly large sandwiches to the literate and illiterate alike, it also fails to indicate in any way that the parking spot it sits in front of is reserved for anyone in particular. Still, I’d be hesitant to park there, as it’s clearly the work of a madman. An extremely hungry madman.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/23/09

Whereas the gals, they’re talking about the fellers they met in their youth once, the ones that weren’t their cousins! Haw haw!

This strip seems to indicate that the book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus would do well in this community, if not for the fact that speaking aloud the names of the terrifying demon-stars that move through the sky will get you burned at the stake there. The strip also seems to promise a series of gags lifted entirely from episodes of An Evening At The Improv circa 1989, such as the different driving habits of black dudes and white dudes and the unpalatability of airline food, but mention of flying machines and non-whites will also get you burned at the stake.

Beetle Bailey, 1/23/09

Gosh, Sarge, I’m not sure happy is how your stomach will feel about a box of matzo, a bowl of eggs, and a bottle of soy sauce.

Herb and Jamaal, 1/23/09

Say, remember when Herb and Jamaal ran this exact same strip two months ago? Remember how it wasn’t funny then, either?

Post Content

Shoe, 1/13/09

Not to wax rhapsodic about the decline of any sense of community in American life beyond the bounds of commerce, but … shouldn’t this cartoon, in which someone ambushes a baffled person behind a desk with a pointless faux koan, be taking place in a library? Isn’t the venerable reference desk the place where corny unanswerable questions are thrown at stereotyped librarians? (In this case, for instance, we could have also gone with “Why do we drive on a parkway but park in a driveway,” or any number of other stupid things that your aunt may have forwarded you from her AOL account.) My first impression was that this little scene was instead playing out at your local Enormous Chain Bookstore, because … I’m not sure why. Maybe because the books have their covers facing out whorishly, practically shouting “Buy me! Buy me!” instead of being demurely tucked spine out onto the shelves like they are in the library stacks, where you can take them out or not, doesn’t matter to us. I see upon further examination that this place-where-books-exists is actually just labelled BOOKS, so it may in fact just be the books ghetto of your local Enormous General-Purpose Chain Store, where remaindered copies of Twilight and The Purpose-Driven Life and Oprah’s Book Club picks from 2006 go to die.

Wherever it’s taking place, it sheds no light on when exactly this wizard’s (whose name in the strip I think is merely “Wizard”) status as a wizard, which was once some kind of metaphor for his prowess in computer-fixing, actually became just, you know, a wizard. Doubtless it’s another random aspect of the Shoe universe, where bird-reporters and wizard-birds fly, or drive, or live in trees, or shop in BOOKS, because whatever, why not, who cares.

Beetle Bailey, 1/13/09

Never mind for the moment that Beetle and Sarge “play for the same team” or that Sarge has a “habit” of pushing Beetle down onto the ground from behind with a hardy (W)HUMP. No, I’m more concerned about the lower half of Beetle’s body … or rather, the lack of a lower half. In panel one, Sarge has squashed everything below about mid-thigh into two-dimensional nothingness; in panel two, it all seems to have just vanished entirely. Normally I’d blame this on the colorists, but given that Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Enterprises LLC has seen fit to only provide two vaguely football-player-like blobs floating in some kind of featureless void to work with, you can hardly blame them for doing thirty seconds of desultory clicking with Photoshop’s Paint Bucket tool and then moving on in disgust.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/13/09

Oh, Bull, you and your “supportiveness” and “fairness” and “hard-working athletes.” Don’t you and your feminazi friends realize that the whole point of high school sports is so that everyone concerned can secretly view the interaction of the boys on the court/field/what have you and the girls cheering on the sidelines as some sort of elaborate mating ritual? (They will view it this way repeatedly in their minds, later, in private.) Get ready for a treatment of teenage gay panic with that extra dash of bleak that only Funky Winkerbean can provide!

Mark Trail, 1/13/09

Jeez, Cherry, I dunno, maybe she left so quickly because she got within good viewing distance of your enormous, terrifying head. I’m sure if I were confronted with the vision in panel three, and then the hairline started talking to me, I’d get the hell out of there with considerably less politeness and aplomb than Patty did.