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Bizarro and Six Chix, 2/2/24

Were you, as an adolescent, fascinated by Dante’s Inferno, and in particular by the book’s weird geography, in which hell is a kind of cone under the Earth’s surface, with each “circle” a ledge on which some ironic and awful punishment is dished out on unfortunate sinners? Or were you, unlike me, normal? If the former, you are truly primed to appreciate and perhaps even create today’s Six Chix, which some might fight offensive to Italians but I consider a true delight even though the pun is a little bit of a stretch. If the latter, you might produce today’s other Dante comic. Get it, OMG=”Divine” and LOL=”Comedy”? This is the product of the normie mind and frankly doesn’t deserve the label “bizarre” at all.

Pardon My Planet, 2/2/24

If one of your deep-seated fantasies is cruelly taunting women on social media for going to the bathroom, because you get off on the idea of them having to sit there uncomfortably and hold it until your issue your approval via Facebook comments, then I guess it’s better to write a syndicated newspaper comic strip about it than it is to actually do it? Like, more people will know about it from a comic, which is bad, because nobody should know about this, it’s obviously very shameful, but at least you’re not actually targeting any specific women, and women in general now have a pretty good sense that they should steer clear of you.

Beetle Bailey, 2/2/24

Ha ha, artificial intelligence, am I right? It would certainly be crazy if AI were to replace Beetle and Sarge. Now I know what you’re thinking: given that today’s strip involves a close up on our two characters whose facial expressions barely change and who are standing in a featureless, backgroundless void, how do we know that AI hasn’t already replaced them, in the sense of writing this strip? Well, just as an experiment, I asked ChatGPT to write a Beetle Bailey on this topic:

Yes, well, there you have it: the soulless machine produces dialogue even less funny than the Walker-Browne Humor Industries LLC sweatshop, somehow tries to drag things out over four panels like this is 1959 and the comics pages have infinite space to fill, gets minor details wrong (have you ever seen “polishing boots” as one of Beetle’s assigned tasks?), and seems to think that Beetle and Sarge like each other.

But what about comics bloggers? Could they be replaced by a shiny cybernetic robot?

I feel like this is something that would’ve shocked every ’60s sci-fi writer churning out pulp novels and short stories about killer robots while out of their mind on benzedrine, but the thing about AI is that it isn’t mean enough to be funny. It’s called the Comics Curmudgeon, you pablum-spewing chatbot! Get back to me when you’re prepared to say that Beetle and Sarge engaging in “banter” isn’t enjoyable for anyone!

Anyway, tune in next time, dear readers, as we explore the unpredictable landscapes of the funny pages. Until then, keep those comics coming, and don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments. Over and out!

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Bizarro, 12/6/23

A fun fact is that while “Frankenstein,” in the sense of a story about creature sewn together from corpses and reanimated via forbidden science with unexpected results, is in the public domain, Frankenstein’s monster, in the sense of the green-skinned corpse guy with a flat head and bolts in his neck, is the intellectual property of Universal Studios, for whom that design was created in 1931. I really had it in my mind that the flat top of the head was meant to indicate that the skull had been sliced open to drop a brain into it, but I can’t find any citation to that now; however, the Wikipedia article for Frankenstein’s monster does have the unsettling note that “Jack P. Pierce … based the monster’s face and iconic flat head shape on a drawing Pierce’s daughter (whom Pierce feared to be psychic) had drawn from a dream.” Anyway, today’s strip raises a lot more questions than it answers: are the Monster and his Bride having sex, reproductively, and are their corpse-mangled qualities passed down to their offspring via some Lamarckian mechanism? Or did the pair conspire to reproduce the sins of their creator, assembling in their own image a son from scavenged corpse parts, continuing the hideous cycle? Also, is the kid’s full name “Frankenstein’s Monster Junior,” and does he get mad if people just call him or his father “Frankenstein?” I honestly care about all this much more than his potential head injury situation.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/6/23

This week’s Rex Morgan is really just dragging out a plotline we had all hoped would be done by now, but honestly I’ve been enjoying a lot of the facial expressions so I’ll give it a pass. Today, Mr. Ollman (get it? he’s an “old man”????) has hit the end of his patience with this entire conversation, as his face in panel three makes very clear. “Look, doc, I came here because I need my prostate checked out and I heard you weren’t gonna give me a lot of pushback when I asked for a painkiller prescription. I stopped making new acquaintances 15 years ago, and I certainly don’t want to hear anything about some Italian I’m supposed to know, got it?”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/6/23

It seems to me that you should be rewarding a budding young musician for time spent honing and practicing his craft in whatever way works best for; demanding a new song in exchange for each cookie feels like it’s encouraging quantity over quality, just my take.

Gasoline Alley, 12/6/23

Rufus’s dick has burst out of his elf costume, right? That’s what’s going on here? He’s hanging hog? That’s what’s going to get the beloved comic strip Gasoline Alley cancelled after all these years? Rufus with his dick out?

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Bizarro, 8/6/23

Josh’s dogged (foxxéd?) seventeen-year investigation into the post-animalpocalypse world of Slylock Fox has given us deep insights into the cruel, authoritarian, and relentlessly petty society that replaced human civilization. It’s like a worldwide Home Owners’ Association using a gestapo and tactical nukes to enforce garage setbacks and paint codes.

But what of the Before Times? Alas, we have only fragments, no doubt because the social and technological structures that maintain a historical record were destroyed in humanity’s collapse. We know that Count Weirdly struggled to replace mankind with terrifying genetically-engineered animal-folk who were somehow not pluggers, and that his first attempts went horribly wrong.

Now we see the fruits of Weirdly’s second try: The Age of Cats. This fully realized urban civilization sprang Covid‑like from the Count’s lab and swept across the earth. The Age ended suddenly when the cats invented the Internet and were instantly absorbed into it. Sort of like the Maya, but in the cloud, with adorable memes.

Sally Forth, 8/6/23

Who’s up for a Sally Forth recap? You are? Okay!

The Forths head off for a fun-in-the-sun vacation and rent their house to the Park family for the duration when strange things happen. Young Emma Park joins and tries to boss around Hil’s band, develops a werewolf obsession, starts showing up in Hil’s friends Faye and Nona’s Apartment 3-G‑style flash-forwards, and gets all chummy with Hil’s boyfriend Duncan. Dad Dae Park starts freaking out at the sound of the ice cream truck and launches a campaign to grill the perfect summer burger. Mom Joon Park dives into Sally’s Starlee and the Moonbeams reruns and finds them “glorious.”

Faye and Nona deduce that the house is turning the Parks into the Forths, and likely releasing its hold on the Forths themselves as well. They negotiate with the evil spirit of a doll that’s also haunting the house (yes this is a double haunting, stay with me here) to blackmail the Parks—who by now are so Forthy they believe they have always lived there—into leaving.

Meanwhile the vacationing Forths, released from all agency, responsibility, and idiosyncrasy, are having the time of their lives lolling around a tropical paradise like normal people until the moment the Parks walk out their door back home. The house, Sauron-like, instantly locates and locks on to them, and here we are.

But hey. I understand Sally’s panic at returning to her pinched, neurotic life. I mean who would want to live for even a minute in that lady’s head, amirite? The puzzle is Ted: as the house slips its evil tendrils back into his consciousness, he should be manically nattering “Let’s play Tenet Monopoly” or announcer-voicing “It’s time for the Star Wars Christmas Special.” But instead he deadpans his home maintenance to-do list, as though he and the house have somehow fallen symbiotically into cahoots. What, I wonder, will Ted demand from his house-accomplice in exchange for that sweet coat of fresh blacktop?

Watch out, Sally.

The Phantom, 8/6/23

Josh may want to wrap up the current Phantom Multiverse of Mozz storyline, but I remain all in. Especially since the Sunday strip has become a sort of sidequel to the dailies, and double especially because it features Patrolwoman Hawa Aguda, my #1 non-Savarna Phantom crush object.

But first, my sincere compliments to author Tony DePaul for revisiting the Mina Braun story the past few months of Sundays. Mina is a talented and pretty “scholar/adventurer” who fell in love with the Phantom after a bout of traumatic scholar-adventuring way back in 2005. To erase her trauma and untangle his relationships, the Phantom had Guran dose her with Bandar amnesia powder—the same thing he did to spunky reporter Lara Bell in 2014 to protect the secrets of the Phantom Cave.

In this year’s Sunday strips, we see Mina again, outside the Domain of the Almost Humans (who are somehow not pluggers), and learn that Guran’s dose fucked up her life. Tormented by dreams and half-memories, thought a madwoman, and with her career in ruins, she found her way back to rediscover her past and resume her scientific work alone. Mrs. Phantom Diana Palmer speaks for readers in calling Mina’s treatment—at her husband’s command—”inhumane.” Gracefully done, Mr. DePaul.

In today‘s strip, ex-amnesiac John X (the Phantom) returns to Jungle Patrol HQ after the events at Gravelines Prison covered in the daily strip. But Hawa’s congratulations seem off: it was the Phantom, not John X, who liberated Gravelines. Somebody is having trouble keeping his aliases straight. (“Um, lessee—Walker: sunglasses, fedora, no beard; John X: sunglasses, ball cap, beard; Unknown Commander: secret mailbox, spooky handwriting …”).

Gosh, that’s a long one. Back to wisecracks and cheap shots tomorrow, I promise!

—Uncle Lumpy