Archive: Curtis

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We mock, but cartoonists’ lives are hard. The drumbeat deadline, day after day for decades, enfevers the brain ’til it cries out, “Stop!” And stop it does — every cartoonist has a trademark way of putting the strip on autopilot so they can take a freaking break. And February, when the days are grey and the year ahead looks endless, is a great time to knock off for a bit. Here’s how they do it:

Crankshaft, 2/6/08

Tom Batiuk relaxes by expanding weak puns into multiple panels for weeks on end. This one is part of a recurring series, “Crankshaft mispronounces stuff.” The setup is completely arbitrary: Ed doesn’t cook, and wouldn’t use a frou-frou ingredient like balsamic vinegar if he did. If you really must make sense of it, assume that vinegar is Ed’s beverage of choice and they ran out of malt.

Dick Tracy, 2/6/08

Dick Lochler just hits the “pause” button on his calendar. Honestly, Chief Liz has known for more than a month that having your “gross” portrait in the museum gets you disappeared — that’s why she called Dick in the first place. Today’s strip is the equivalent of, “Yeah — what you said.” Somebody needs his Gretchen.

Curtis, 2/6/08

Ray Billingsley famously repeats the same themes year after year (this one is “Curtis’s Black History Month essay”). I suppose we should be grateful that Curtis recycles its material every year — Marmaduke does it every freaking day.

Get Fuzzy, 2/6/08

Darby Conley creates some of the best characters on the comics page today, but everybody deserves a break, and goddammit, he’s taking one. Lately, he seems to have taken to his bosom the cause of the television industry writers’ strike — an issue of pressing concern to no one on the face of the earth.* Phone us when you get back, pal.

– Uncle Lumpy

* Emphatically not true! See discussion in the comments, and retraction at #144

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Curtis, 1/28/08

Continuing on my residual fumes of Curtis-directed niceness, I have to say that I find Chutney’s exaggerated body posture in panel two really adorable. Panel four, on the other hand, disturbs and horrifies me: Curtis’ mouth appears to be sliding around the side of his uncannily ovoid head! Perhaps his mind and heart have finally opened up to the possibility of smooches from Chutney, but his mouth still won’t have any of it and is trying to escape.

Gasoline Alley, 1/28/08

The current Gasoline Alley plot, involving people who have never appeared in the strip before, surreptitious phone camera photography, and numerous end-runs around the grievance procedure laid out in the collective bargaining agreement between the U.S. Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union, is, as you might expect, meandering and dull. But I have to admit that I love love love the exchange in panel one today. Any and all questions lobbed at me that are even vaguely along the line of “You know what your trouble is?” will be met with “The system” — though ending not with some lily-livered question mark but a defiant exclamation point.

Mark Trail, 1/28/08

Mark Trail’s nemeses are in fact just flying around to get a better shot; the fact that Mark is severely overthinking their motivation just goes to show how dumb Mark Trail villains are. Mark’s contingency plan is of course foolproof, since any jurisdiction that would release a suspect with overwhelming evidence damning him as murderer based on outrageously unlikely hearsay from Mark would of course do the same if said outrageously unlikely hearsay was scrawled on a piece of paper attached to a dog that wandered into the police station.

Anyway, I’m mostly posting this because I wanted to share a couple funny graphics sent by faithful readers. First up is this note from faithful reader Daniel:

While my wife asked ‘What are you planning to do today?’ I came up with this. I think it’s the most productive ten minutes I’ve spent since getting laid off last week. I figured people could print this sign out, and place it in their car windows, or at least xerox a dozen fliers and post them in their neighborhood. People need to know the facts!

Ha ha, all fun and games — or so you think. But this note and pic, from faithful reader Gal Friday, will blow your mind!

As seen at Sundance!!! What does it mean?!

It means that folks on future Wes Anderson productions need to watch their backs, that’s what.

Mary Worth, 1/28/08

So it turns out that maybe Vera didn’t summon her ex-boyfriend to this hell cafe for the sole purpose of having her new boyfriend beat him up; rather, she’s just too lazy to make dates in separate restaurants with her various bits of emotional baggage. She also appears to have planned a two-plus hour lunch or something — I’m sure that goes over well with the head honchos at Disturbing Lack Of Affect Ad Agency. Anyway, Ryan’s bizarre way-too-early appearance, combined with his weird neck fondle in panel one, spells C-R-E-E-P-S-T-E-R to me. Or maybe V-A-M-P-I-R-E.

Of course, I’m less and less concerned about these boring humans and more and more interested in the bizarre series of identical bright orange donuts/bagels/round whatevers behind them. When we first saw these sweet (or possibly savory) treats, they at least had shelves to sit on. Today they appear to be simply glued to the back of the display case, or possibly nailed there.

Family Circus, 1/28/08

Dolly’s ultra-smug facial expression shows that she’s feeling that deep sense of self-satisfaction that only reinforcing traditional societal gender constructs can provide.

Pluggers, 1/28/08

I was going to accuse Pluggers of just slapping a new caption on art first drawn for a submission from faithful reader gh, but a quick trip to my archives revealed that said panel actually featured an entirely different drawing of an entirely different human-animal hybrid species, albeit one also featuring polka-dot boxers and obesity. Turns out that the Pluggers creative team just likes drawing huge-gutted furries in their underwear. Who are we to judge?

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Having had a sudden fit of boredom with being mean, I’ve decided to try to be nice today.

Archie, 1/24/08

I like Archie’s scarf! I would actually wear that design in real life. Plus the way it hangs on him looks pretty realistic!

Curtis, 1/24/08

I like the casual way Curtis flicks his coat across the room. At first it kind of looks like a hospital gown or something, with the seam up the back! But no, that’s just because the momentum made the sleeves bend backwards. Again, good realism!

Judger Parker, 1/24/08

I like Sam’s facial expression in the third panel. “Lawyer I don’t have to pay … ka-ching … lawyer whose picture I can put into advertisements with accompanying copy that reads ‘USE OUR LEGAL SERVICES OR THIS LEGLESS VET WILL STARVE’ … ka-ching …”

Mary Worth, 1/24/08

I like that Drew seems to be hilariously interpreting the cutting-edge catchphrase “talk to the hand” literally in panel one. I like that Drew seems to believe that the key to true emotional commitment is to have one partner take care of all the intimate talk for both people in the relationship. I like the bright orange donuts, or bagels, or whatever, sitting in the display case a regulation two inches apart…

…I don’t think I’ve really gotten the hang of this “being nice” thing.