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Curtis, 9/6/06

OK, COMICS, WE GET IT! WE REALLY DO! SOMETIMES YOU GO TO THE STORE TO BUY JEANS, AND THERE ARE JEANS THAT ARE ALL BEAT UP! AND YET THEY COST MORE THAN JEANS THAT LOOK BRAND NEW! AND THAT’S CRAZY! BECAUSE WHY CAN’T YOU JUST BUY A NEW PAIR AND THEM RUN THEM THROUGH THE DRYER A BUNCH OF TIMES OR HIT THEM AGAINST A ROCK OR SOMETHING? SAVE YOU SOME MONEY, YOU KNOW? BUT THE KIDS TODAY! WITH THE FASHION! THERE’S NO REASONING WITH THEM! WHADDYAGONNADO? IT’S CRAZY! NOW WILL PLEASE STOP HARPING ON THIS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN?

Ahem. I find most of today’s comics unworthy of comment, but I do think you all need to see this. What we have here is three comic geniuses acting out a month’s worth of Mary Worth comics from 1998. The actors, portraying Mary, Ian, and Toby, are more or less frozen in the positions presumably held by the characters in the original comic strips as they recite the dialog for each panel. The gentleman playing Professor Cameron is particularly good: not only does he capture Ian’s massive level condescending bloviosity, but he went the extra mile and grew a chinbeard. The whole thing is filmed in grainy black-and-white and has eerie atonal music playing in the background, giving it the feel of one of those slightly cheesy but still awesome British horror movies from the early 1960s.

If anyone smarter than me can put this up on YouTube, I’ll be happy to post an embedded version here.

Update: Almost forgot to give credit where credit was due: this was pointed out to me by faithful reader/commentor Laura.

Upudate 2: The promised YouTube version, provided by faithful reader iburl:

Also, there are apparently four more parts! If anyone knows these people, please have them contact me! Though egotistically I’m sort of surprised that anyone who would go through the troubles of making those films isn’t already a reader of this site.

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Curtis, 7/30/06

Here’s a good candidate for the “When Ambitious Artistic Gambits Go Bad” file. Ma and Pa Wilkins are having a nice little bedside chat, gazing lovingly at each other in their bedroom mirror. It’s an interesting technique that establishes the mood well and offers a different angle on what could have been a typical scene. Unfortunately, the fact that Mrs. Wilkins’ word balloons seem to be emanating from her reflection, while Mr. Wilkins’ come from off-panel in the direction of his actual body, make it look like there’s a third person in the room doing the talking. The effect is deeply, deeply unsettling, at least to me.

To note: Mr. Wilkins’ spiffy mustache in the flashback panel. Best not thought about: the egregious “barking dogs” imagery in the throwaway second panel.

Mary Worth, 7/30/06

Look at Aldo’s reflection in the final panel: while his actual face makes him look grimly determined to get his stalk on, his reflection looks nervous, timid, and unsure. Perhaps we’re looking at a dichotomy like the Green Goblin’s in the first Spider-Man movie, where the real-life Aldo plots evil and nefariousness, while the mirror-Aldo represents his conscience and tries to prevent him from killing and dismembering yet another grey-haired morsel who won’t submit to his advances. At any rate, this may be the first instance in any visual medium in which a man puts on a bow tie to presage his murderous intentions.

Throwaway panel item of note: the Charterstone homeowner’s association has apparently approved the construction of some sort of bamboo Great Wall, no doubt to keep the riffraff out. The presence of the evil Mr. Kelrast illustrates the folly of such measures.

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Sally Forth and Curtis, 7/24/06

Ah, yes, summer’s here, making the decaying flesh of commuting zombies all the more pungent, so this confluence of jokes seems obvious. At least Ted’s loopy Ted-ism is supposed to not make sense. Curtis, on the other hand, goes from biting his lower lip in anticipation of zombie carnage to making the universal face from Warner Brothers cartoons caused by swallowing alum, which is supposed to represent — well, I don’t know, exactly. Either it indicates that he’s taken his father’s caustic comment to heart, or that he realizes his dad has, like Ted, gone around the bend. Fortunately, Hilary is grooving to her iPod and can’t hear her dad taking the next step in his slow descent into madness.

Crock, 7/24/06

This strip would be a lot funnier if Crock’s artist were capable of accurately drawing a pretty girl.