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Apartment 3-G, 6/18/06

As Mrs. C. pointed out to me this morning, this shocking revelation would be more shocking if the characters in Apartment 3-G were drawn well enough to be distinguishable from one another. Based on the hair alone, I’m guessing our lovers in an elevator are Tommie’s friend Lucy (Mary Tyler Moore-esque flip) and somebody who isn’t Tommie’s friend Lucy’s husband Ted (not black). Poor Tommie’s been driven into a frenzy of head bobbling by the double whammy of “AHHH, PEOPLE MAKING OUT THE ELEVATOR!” and “AHHH, SOMEONE I KNOW MAKING OUT ADULTEROUSLY IN THE ELEVATOR!” Of course, she’s already noted that she’s been made a little woozy by the combination of booze and “cigarette smoke”, so she’s really primed for a little head-bobbling action. Check out the bald beatnik and sassy minx in panel three … everybody at this party has head bobblin’ fever!

Longtime Apartment 3-G readers know that this strip loves the big elevator-doors-open-to-reveal-smoochery gimmick. If memory serves, that’s how Margo found out that Lu Ann was dating her ex, FBI Pete. It’s just one of the hazards of living in a vertical city like New York, I guess, especially if you can’t handle being alone with someone for thirty seconds without sucking face.

Crankshaft, 6/18/06

I’m all for gentle humor, in principle, but this punchline is so gentle that it takes two panels to roll into place, then makes no impression when it finally arrives. Maybe if the joke had been more hilarious, it would have distracted from the young female character wearing Daisy Dukes and a belly shirt in the final frame.

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Apartment 3-G, 6/15/06

Yeah, cause the guy I want to get my art criticism from is the clean-cut white guy who shows up at the hipster Manhattan art opening in a bad electric blue three-piece suit.

Is that what this storyline is going to be about? That when artists hang out with beatniks and bohemians their art goes to crap in the eyes of squares like Squarey McCleancut here and, well, Lu Ann? Because that’s going to be frickin’ hilarious.

The Phantom, 6/15/06

Not to minimize the Phantom’s sneaking-up-on-bad-guys skills, but this is pretty clearly the lamest group of terrorists in the history of terrorism. “Waaaaah! Waaaaah! They don’t have the desert I like! Boo hoo!” What’s next — is the big purple guy going to interrupt two guards as they fight over who gets the special pillow?

That being said, the Phantom’s witty comeback — “Guess that puts us in conflict!” — is pretty stilted as superhero catchphrases go. I think he should just stick to punching people.

Crankshaft, 6/15/06

So as soon as I figured out that yes, the current Crankshaft storyline really does involve Crankshaft enslaving a group of old ladies to do his gardening, I started really enjoying it. Check out the look of remorseless cruelty on the old bastard’s face in the second panel, and the look of sheer terror on the old lady furthest to the right. Yessir, that’s light-hearted comics page fare right there. Yep.

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Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean, 3/17/06

Again, due to relentless pressure from my readers, I have begun reading twin strips, Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean, years after my last acquaintance with them. I have fond memories of FW from my youth, having been a dorky band dork, though I was perhaps too far removed from the marketeer-coveted cranky-old-guy demographic to care much for Crankshaft. As promised, both strips seem to have been transformed into well-drawn but plodding quasi-soaps at some point in the course of my young adulthood.

I’m featuring Crankshaft today, which takes place at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, for two reasons:

• It makes a totally-not-subtle joke about cocaine.
• It makes a totally-not-subtle joke about cocaine and it’s funny.

This Funky Winkerbean, by contrast, seems to me to exemplify all that’s wrong with the retooled strip. I used to love the FW episodes about the megalomaniacal band teacher and his Glengarry Glen Ross-level mania for selling band fundraising trinkets. It was way, way over the top, as was everyone else’s terrified reaction to it. But here in the new, hyperrealistic Funky Winkerbean, blond boy’s busy selling to an gender-indeterminate mark who’s possibly the most depressed person in the history of the comics, including Charlie Brown. He (let’s call him a he, what the heck) looks like this unwanted intrusion is the final push he needs to download those painless-suicide-by-carbon-monoxide instructions from the Internet. Hopefully he’ll buy some candy first.

Meanwhile, Dr. Troy has finally outed himself … as a Canada-loving commie!

“You know what I’m for, Troy? Freedom! Freedom and anal sex. Now shut up and let’s ‘play golf.'”