Archive: Blondie

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 12/10/06

In an attempt to recapture the magic of one of the greatest Apartment 3-Gs in recent memory, Lu Ann is taking a magical trip to the world-renowned New York City public library. She’s looking for knowledge, but she’s sadly found only another romantic interest, albeit one who, with his reddish hair, glasses, and marginally softer features, is distinguishable from the classic boring A3G male type. Our bookworm is so deeply and erotically charged by Lu Ann’s mere presence that, in order to win her attention and affections, he’s transgressing the ultimate librarian taboo and actually shouting in the library.

Blondie, 12/10/06

I’m going to pass over the little drama of burning jealousy and suppressed lust that makes up the supposedly innocent humor of this strip today and just point out that the two throwaway panels at the top — which aren’t used in some layouts and thus need to be removable — are the biggest “fuck you” to the very concept of throwaway panels I’ve ever seen. Since their expressions are unchanged in all three, I can only assume that our young hunk was leering at Blondie, and Dagwood was raging inwardly, and Blondie was feeling genuine sexual arousal for the first time in years, for the entire time it took for them to walk the length of a city block.

Judge Parker, 12/10/06

I don’t mean to be a killjoy. I certainly wouldn’t want to deny us, the long-suffering readers of Judge Parker, the genuine pleasure to be had in Celeste Black’s spectacular drunken meltdown, or in Reggie’s ineffectual response. I’m not sure if I’m willing to forgive Sam and Randy’s smug satisfaction, however. After all, having an insane lush for a wife shouldn’t disqualify one for the bench per se; neither of course, should bachelorhood and/or homosexuality, which is why Reggie has clearly brought this upon himself. But there’s still a little thing called HIPAA that’s there for a reason. My prediction is that we’re going to find out that Horace is working as some kind of freelance ultra-low-rent Karl Rove and leaked this information to the press, and that Randy, distancing himself from old-time machine politics, will have to Do The Right Thing and sever ties with his old family friend, possibly by having his CIA agent girlfriend murder him in his sleep.

(For those keeping track, incidentally, this Sunday strip is the work of the temporarily unavailable Eduardo Baretto, as Sundays need to be prepared a few weeks in advance of the weeklies.)

Mary Worth, 12/10/06

You know, we all got very jazzed up about Mary during the glory and excitement that was Aldomania. But this strip reminds us what Mary Worth is and truly ought to be all about: relentless petty outrage over stupid, meaningless things. That and pointing. Lots and lots of vigorous pointing. I love Mary’s look of surprise in the final panel, and Ella’s attempt to put on her “Who me? I’m a harmless old lady! Ha ha!” face. Ian, resplendent as always in his Astroturf jacket, is unimpressed by Dent’s j’accuse: he seems to be thinking, “Look buddy, last month I was an accomplice to murder, and condo board power plays do not impress me any more.”

Fun game for the coming months: In how many upcoming Mary Worth installments will we be able to construe Gary Dent’s rambling diatribes as accusations that Ella is a prostitute?

Beetle Bailey, 12/10/06

This installment of “How to turn a public domain Department of Defense informational pamphlet about the Pentagon into a comic strip and still make your 1 p.m. tee time” has been brought to you by Beetle Bailey.

Post Content

Slylock Fox, Blondie, and Rex Morgan, M.D. 12/6/06

Ye cats, it’s a panoply of intertextuality in the funnies! Slylock Fox gets in on the Blondie 75th anniversary a year and a half late and simultaneously shows us all too vividly what Dagwood’s freakish, apple-shaped skull is really like; a little girl walks by and looks on with the appropriate degree of horror. Meanwhile, back at chez Bumstead, Alexander is living out his fantasies of being a tattooed, mulletted meth-dealing bad-ass. The real Elvis and his tough but still thoughtful and compassionate crime boss refuse to acknowledge this winking series of in-jokes, as befits the serious nature of this strip.

What does not befit the serious nature of this strip, however, is the name “Eightball.” Eightball. It’s the most hilarious thing that’s happened to me this week, and I shall savor it like a fine wine. I hope that, after Rex, June, and Abby the Wonderdog inevitably take the troubled and now orphaned Niki under their collective wing, Elvis and Eightball manage to escape the long arm of the law together and get their own spin-off strip, or, even better, a TV show on Fox. “He keeps a level head when things go bad … and knows how to get out when the getting’s good! He’s got a short fuse … and isn’t afraid to smack a kid in the face! Together, they’re … Elvis and Eightball!” They could put it on right after Prison Break.

Momma, 12/6/06

When someone mashes together an e-mail address and a URL like this, you sort of get the impression that they’ve never actually seen a computer, but have had one described to them.

Mary Worth, 12/6/06

The Mr. Dent vs. Ella drama has ground on even more slowly than is typical for Mary Worth, but there’s always a payoff in this feature eventually. In this case, it arrives today, as we’re shown exactly what it would look like if Thomas Dewey were angered by a 92-year-old prostitute and paid her especially contemptuously.

Plugger, 12/6/06

Since nobody’s actually used one since 1998, I’m pretty sure that a plugger beeper is actually a beeper.

Post Content

Blondie, 11/11/06

You know, Dagwood gets walked in on when he’s in the bathtub an awful lot. It’s one of this strip’s stock jokes, but you have to admit that it’s pretty weird. But our nosey paint-jockey’s comment made me think, “Say, it’s kind of unusual that Dagwood is shampooing in the bath, rather than in the shower,” which then made me think “OH MY GOD DAGWOOD AND BLONDIE DON’T HAVE A SHOWER WHAT WEIRDOS.” Seriously, there’s no shower head, or curtain, or even a rod where such a curtain would be, and the soap dish is blatantly at tub-level. This strip shows the showerless tub at a different angle. This goes a long way towards explaining why Dagwood is so damn late for his carpool every morning.

Hey, is that a glass door on the bathroom? This gets more disturbing by the moment.

Mark Trail, 11/12/06

I love the way Jake and Snake — surely two of the dumber miscreants in the history of Mark Trail villainy, and that’s saying a lot — don’t ever form any kind of long-term villainous plans, but rather lunge at each new opportunity for evil like a giant rabbit at a delicious carrot. Sure, bear-baiting and illegal organ sales are all good fun, but why not engage in a little kidnapping and torture if you have an opportunity? Unless they think that Kelly Welly gallbladders sell for good money on the Asian market, they seem to be losing track of the goal here.

I also enjoy the reassuring similarities in the appearance of Mark Trail villains. Facial hair is of course an obvious indicator of evil, but the orange-shirted, non-mulleted half of Jake and Snake (has it actually been established which is which?) is beginning to bear an uncanny resemblance to the no-necked patriarch of the petnapping hillbilly clan from two or three storylines ago:

The Phantom, 11/11/06

The NEXT: box in the Saturday Phantom is pretty much always awesome. This one sent the phrase “Last night the Phantom saved my his life,” to the tune of the title line from Indeep’s 1983 hit “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life”, rattling through my head for the past 36 hours or so, so I thought I’d subject you to the same treatment.