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Blondie, 7/20/12

Because of my 100% total commitment to YOUR ENTERTAINMENT AND EDIFICATION, I actually determined, by looking it up on Wikipedia, that “Untold Stories of the E.R.” is not a made-up T.V. show but an actual program carried on TLC. This is how Wikipedia describes the show:

In this program real-life emergency room doctors tell about their most bizarre and puzzling cases. Typically these involve medical sabotage, violently or strangely acting patients, life-threatening injuries, or even situations in which the E.R. physician is too overwhelmed to handle the caseload and can’t transfer responsibility for the patient to someone else.

Which is funny, because based on the dialogue we’re getting on-panel, I had assumed that it was carried late nights on Cinemax and every episode started with “Dear ‘Untold Stories of the E.R.’: I never thought this would happen to me, but…” and depicted people who came into the hospital with high fevers or head injuries quickly getting to third base with the triage nurse. I’ve also never seen “Cake Boss,” because we don’t have cable and also live in Baltimore and so are required to be loyal to the “Ace of Cakes.” Does “Cake Boss” involve the creepy eroticization of desserts? Someone involved in the writing of this dialogue really wants to fuck a cake, is what I’m trying to say.

Mary Worth, 7/20/12

I know I never unironically praise the art in Mary Worth, but I would like to unironically praise the art in today’s Mary Worth. I love everybody’s faces in panel one: the lady in the foreground and the ginger dude with the flapping hair are just going for flat-out screaming in terror, while the blondie lady with the pearls is thinking “I’m well-dressed and well-to-do, so nothing bad could possibly happen to me! I’m sure this will all work out fine.” Meanwhile, Wilbur looks genuinely crushed that he’s brought his only child on a doomed cruise that will kill them both, while Dawn just looks resigned and numb. Life is brutal. She already knew it.

The second panel is, if possible, even funnier. “Mama mia!” says the captain. (That’s a swear word in Italian, so they had to censor it.) “I didn’t see it!” He shakes his fist at whatever obstruction he just rammed the boat into. Meanwhile, his three assistants are standing absolutely still with neutral facial expressions, hoping nobody notices that they’re there.

Gasoline Alley, 7/20/12

I’m really kind of in awe of how long Gasoline Alley has managed to drag out its not-remotely-interesting-even-by-Gasoline-Alley-standards “Skeezix buys a new DVD player” plot. But I’m comfortable saying that it was all worth it, because it led to the sentence “Now to hook this baby up so we can watch some DVDs!” appearing in newspapers nationwide. The fact that it depicts an old man somehow managing to electrocute himself while hooking up composite cables is really just icing on the cake.

Apartment 3-G, 7/20/12

“Have you come up with a name for my granddaughter, Scott?”

“Not yet, Fred. I was hoping for a girl.”

“And how about you, Nina? Are you going to answer me in a way that indicates that you actually understood the question I asked?”

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Click the banner to help sponsor Josh’s novel and to reserve your copy! Details here.

On the Comics Curmudgeon’s 8th blogiversary, I have a couple of quick notes on my planned novel. First, THANK YOU! My Kickstarter reached its goal in the first 24 hours it was up, and has already raised much more money than any fundraiser I’ve ever done. The book will still be better — better edited, better designed, and better written — if I get more pre-orders, and you get a more physically pleasing version of the book if you pre-order, so please do check it out.

Second, you might note that some of the high-end rewards I’ve offered involve me travelling to your home town to participate in a book party. These look pricey, but aren’t so much if you split the costs among many party guests! If you’re interested in hosting, email me and tell me where you live, and I’ll try to connect you with others nearby.

Blondie, 7/11/12

Mr. Dithers is violating any number of employee protection laws, but it’s almost certainly worth it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/11/12

Sorry, Rex, Iris hasn’t understood a word you said since she heard the telltale sound of a corkscrew opening, because she’s been so very focused on staring intently at the delicious, delicious wine.

Luann, 7/11/12

When Luann’s mom was a teen, “heavy face time” was the name for a deadly plague that caused people’s faces to fill with pus and swell up painfully, so you can understand why she looks so upset.

Beetle Bailey, 7/11/12

I feel bad for constantly making fun of General Halftrack’s alcoholism and erratic behavior now that I know that he suffers from terrible PTSD.

Family Circus, 7/11/12

Sam the dog looks beseechingly at the sky, wondering why the ancient Thunder God gave Jeffy enough warning to successfully escape the terrible electric death prepared for him.

Herb and Jamaal, 7/11/12

Herb’s attempts to live out his philosophy of non-violence as a youth failed to make him a better person, and instead have left him a bitter, frustrated adult, consumed by thoughts of revenge.

Six Chix, 7/11/12

This nice scientist has grown a baby in a lab, raising any number of disturbing ethical questions.

Marmaduke, 7/11/12

Someone gave Marmaduke a bag of corn chips.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/1/12

Here is a True Story from Josh’s Real Life Events: Many years ago, when I in the midst of my failed attempt to acquire a PhD in ancient history, I discovered that getting a humanities grad degree doesn’t pay particularly well, so I used to do office temp work between semesters. So in this one temp gig, I was doing doing filing at a professional association for optometrists with a guy who was getting an MFA in poetry (AND THAT SENTENCE IS A SELF-CONTAINED CAUTIONARY TALE FOR ANYONE THINKING ABOUT GRAD SCHOOL, BY THE WAY). As people do when bored with mindless work, we started shooting the pop-culture breeze, and somehow it came up that I had alway found it amusing that Steve Miller appeared, based on the evidence of the lyrics in his smash hit song “Take The Money And Run,” to believe that “Texas,” “taxes,” “facts is,” and “justice” all rhymed with one another. And the poet-temp, whether to pull my leg or be contrary or because of genuine poetic conviction, made the case that there is a such thing as a “soft rhyme,” which has a long and honorable history in poetry, and thus Miller’s rhyme scheme was perfectly acceptable in that context.

I was already planning on bringing this anecdote up as a lens through which to discuss Mary Beth’s rhyming of “holler,” “dollar,” and “feller.” In my own speech, the first two rhyme with each other but neither with the third, and I wondered if this were an example of soft rhyme or if we were getting a glimpse of the phonology of Hootin’ Holler’s unique, isolated dialect. But then I took one last look at the throwaway panels and finally noticed that Mary Beth begins the strip by reading Emily Dickinson — the very poet my co-temp used as an example of someone who employed soft rhymes frequently. Thus I’m assuming that our young poetess, while still clinging to traditional structural forms like the limerick, is beginning to explore more advanced techniques. This is, in other words, the most cultured Barney Google and Snuffy Smith ever written, not that there’s really much competition for that title.

Blondie, 7/1/12

Speaking of academia, if you’re writing a thesis about the connection between masculinity and earning power in pop-cultural depictions of contemporary society, you could find worse examples than the next-to-last panel here, in which Dagwood, finally realizing that he’s been duped again, crouches a bit and gently protects his crotch with his briefcase.

Mary Worth, 7/1/12

I was going to write the long riff about how Mary’s response is just as vague and bloviating and self-important as the letter that prompted it, but then I got to the final panel, where we learn that Dawn can’t go anywhere without being reminded of her ex-boyfriend’s cock, and literally all other thoughts were sandblasted out of my mind.