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Luann, 2/17/06

Curtis, 2/17/06

Ladies and gentlemen, here on the last day of this Valentine’s Week (yes, it’s a whole week now, didn’t you get the memo from Hallmark and Cathy?), we have a battle royale between two comics love stories that just … won’t … end!

In this corner, in black and white, we have the eternal Brad-Toni-Dirk triangle. See the teasing! The sullen glares! The violation of restraining orders! The gratuitous use of the word “Chunkboy!”

And in this corner, in living color, we have the latest chapter in the Curtis-Michelle love-hate dipole. See what happens when the boy who can’t say “no” meets the girl who won’t say “yes”!

I think we have to acknowledge Curtis as the clear winner here. I’m getting real sick of Toni’s coy little sidelong glances and unnaturally pouty lips. From an artistic point of view, she’s got nothing on Michelle’s hilariously disgusted facial expression in panel three: eyes bugged out, lips curled in disdain, sweat balls flying, motion lines tracking her escape route and a well-placed elbow ready to jab her wannabe paramour in the throat if it comes to that. And while Brad’s wide-eyed, dot-mouthed horror in panel three of Luann is evocative of his new awareness of his own romantic ineptitude, it doesn’t convey bleakness the way Curtis’ lonely, underdressed blizzard trek does. Mostly, though, this Curtis promises to at least end the Michelle nonsense for a few weeks, whereas I have a sinking feeling that the Brad romantic hijinks will continue on indefinitely.

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Curtis, 1/9/06

Are Curtis‘s Kwanzaa storylines loopy, meandering, and incomprehensible? Yes. Do they generally last for days or sometimes weeks after January 1, the actual end of the holiday? Yes. Do they almost always take place in some sort of pre-modern Africa, despite the fact that the holiday was developed specifically for African-Americans in the 20th century? Do the storylines generally speaking fail to dovetail with any of Kwanzaa’s principles? Yes and yes.

On the other hand: do these Kwanzaa stories provide Curtis with an opportunity, generally lacking in this strip, to depict frickin’ awesome bat-winged bear beasts? That is a definite, hearty yes. Rock on, bat-winged Kwanzaa bear, rock on.

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Beetle Bailey, 12/6/05

Curtis, 12/6/05

Egads! Not one, but two comics today revolve around foul aromas arising from the bodies of their title characters — and yet there’s a complete absence of stink lines! Curtis is admittedly emitting visible anger radiation waves and a couple of Cathy-style sweatballs for good measure, but it’s not enough for me. I want stink lines! Give me stink lines!

The trio of uniformed soldiers, their identities effaced by those soulless, dead-eyed gas masks, seem to me to be not so much “jovially teasing Beetle about his smelly feet” but rather “creepy as hell.” They look like they’re part of some surrealist anti-war performance art piece, or possibly back-up singers for Devo. I’m pretty sure the guy on the right is Killer. I was trying to figure out the other two when I suddenly realized that I was spending time and energy determining the identities of gas-masked characters in Beetle Bailey, briefly had a serious moment of contemplation about the direction of my life, and then stopped.