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Crankshaft, 11/29/10

You know, it seems the holiday season lurches into action earlier and earlier every year. For instance, somebody’s dearest Christmas wish — to see Crankshaft in his underwear — has already arrived, and it isn’t even December yet! Merry Christmas to you, you desperate pervert!

Mary Worth, 11/29/10

Meanwhile, it seems that Adrian has already given herself a Christmas present — the massive dose of high-grade Ecstasy necessary for her to become Mrs. Scott Hewlett without first becoming catatonic with anxiety and self-loathing. She seems to have perhaps overdone it a bit, however, as in panel two she appears to actually be floating several feet off the ground.

Mary Worth plots are generally linear to a fault, so I offer kudos to the strip for jumping over the rest of the wedding preparation and getting right to the rehearsal dinner, before Mary even gets a chance to meddle Jill into submission. I am assuming that Jill is the Amazonian gal in panel one, listing wildly to her right and demanding more booze, all the better to lay the groundwork for a drunken tirade that will prevent anyone but Jill from enjoying themselves tonight. This week may be awesomer than any pool party!

Shoe, 11/29/10

“Ha ha, just kidding, you know I love a good pun! Seriously, though, we see the same prostitutes.”

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Panel from Mary Worth, 11/7/10

Few things brought more delight to me today than the opening panel of Mary Worth. “I had fun!” the fleeing K-car declares sunnily as it speeds away from the towering concrete monstrosity that is Charterstone. Never has this supposedly high-end condo complex looked more like a ramshackle series of cinderblock structures thrown up in short order after the whole area had been leveled in an Allied bombing raid, following a plan laid out by M.C. Escher. The faux-Spanish tiles slapped on the roofs cannot hide the buildings’ essential ghastliness. Hovering merrily over it all, of course, is an Oscar Wilde witticism about stabbing people.

Crankshaft, 11/7/10

As a rule, Crankshaft isn’t shy about its Northeast Ohio setting, or its characters’ love of the various hapless Cleveland-area teams, so I’m a bit confused as to why Crankshaft’s vitriolic screed today focuses only on “our football team,” Herb and Jamaal-style. Is the strip under pressure from the syndicate to somehow be more “universal” and “relatable”? Can’t readers across the country think of at least one angry, unpleasant old man that they hate, without needing to imagine that he’s raging about their football team in particular?

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Apartment 3-G, 11/2/10

Oh, say, what’s that on Iris’s left hand, which is being thrust meaningfully into our faces in panel two here? It sure looks a lot like a wedding ring to me. It seems that her projected image as a wacky, carefree aunt who (in the words of Sunday’s strip) has “adventures” instead of the “homes and families” other people have, is fake, and she is in fact nothing but a common married person. Her vaguely hipster glasses and all her talk about partying in Paris with the Situationists and ’68 are nothing but lies, and she certainly isn’t heading to some kind of bedbug-infested hostel in Bed-Stuy; she’s probably taking the train back to her suburban cul-de-sac in Connecticut, ready to curl up on the couch with her husband Irv and watch whatever iteration of NCIS is on tonight.

(Sorry, this is just my attempt to drum some interest up in this boring storyline. EVEN THE WORST SCANDAL I CAN COOK UP IS INHERENTLY BORING. IT IS IN FACT ABOUT BORINGNESS.)

Crankshaft, 11/2/10

Ha ha! Crankshaft and his old buddies have no idea that it’s already November, and that it’s election day today! They’ve probably been sitting in that booth, muttering nonsense, for days now. Nobody has come looking for them, because they’re all unlikable.

Actually, for once I can’t suspend my disbelief at this strip. Old people never forget to vote! It’s what they live for!

(And if the mere mention of “voting” has inspired you to go off onto an election-related rant, I urge you to do so over here, instead, on last election’s thread.)

Mary Worth, 11/2/10

Mary, Adrian’s heart is telling her that she should obsess endlessly over every little detail about other people’s opinions, because she can’t function unless someone is telling her what to do. She can’t stop thinking about the opinions held by other people! Honestly, it’s like you don’t even know her.