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Blondie, 9/25/05

In my first non-metapost as a married man, I don’t really feel a need to point out the insufferable lameness that is the Blondie wacky anniversary adventure, or the problems with this strip’s surf instructor’s technique (which, according to Mrs. Curmudgeon, who’s been known to “hang ten” now and again herself, are many and egregious), or even discuss Blondie’s lovingly detailed breasts. No, today I want to draw your attention to Dagwood in the first panel on the second line, and specifically to his torso. At first glance it appears that he’s wearing what one would expect for a surfing lesson, which is to say no shirt at all. But the absence of nipples, combined with the baffling rippling concentric circles around his neck, lead me to believe that he is in fact wearing a flesh-colored turtleneck. Let’s hope that he hasn’t actually fashioned a shirt of real human skin in some kind of twisted, ritualistic attempt to gain spiritual power, conquer the big “momma” wave, and awe everyone with his surfing prowess. Because not only would that be wrong (yes, I take the tough, unpopular stands against making garments out of human flesh), but it clearly hasn’t worked, which is always embarrassing outcome to an unspeakable act of totemistic horror.

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Garfield, 8/20/05

My personal curmudgeonly opinion is that the less said about the 75th anniversary Blondie mutual wank-a-thon, the better, but I feel compelled to drag Saturday’s Garfield out to help illustrate why comics characters drawn by different artists shouldn’t be put in close proximity to one another. Because I’ve been reading Garfield pretty much since I achieved rudimentary literacy, but it wasn’t until I saw Jon next to Dagwood that I realized that OH MY GOD HE HAS NO NOSE! I MEAN, LOOK AT HIM! HIS ENORMOUS, BULBOUS EYES ARE JUST SITTING DIRECTLY ABOVE HIS UPPER LIP! SWEET JESUS CHRIST THAT’S CREEPY! I’m sure the architects of this huge crossoverfest were looking to instill a sense of “warm and fuzzy” in their readers; for me, anyway, they got “aesthetically unsettled” instead.

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Blondie, 7/14/05

So Blondie’s 75th anniversary continuity-thon is in full desperately clumsy swing, illustrating via its stumbly awkward weirdness why the strip does not generally tackle multi-day story arcs. Today’s strip intrigues me though. I’m assuming “Raphael” is either Blondie’s gay hairdresser or a Ninja Turtle who does hair styling as a sideline. The notion of a new ‘do for Blondie is also interesting. Will it be as shocking as Ma Family Circus’ sensible bob was in its day?

But I have to admit that what really caught my eye was this: in panels two and three, Blondie is sitting with her back to us and partly obscured by the sofa, and yet we can still see one of her breasts. And how many 75-year-olds can we say that about?

By the way, my jury service has come to an end. The case did not fit, so we had to acquit. Then the city gave me $30 for my trouble. Woo-hoo!