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Zits, 7/8/05

You know, a few months ago, Jeremy said he was going to grow his hair out for the summer. As near as I can tell, he’s actually doing it. I mean, obviously I know he’s not a “real” person, but he’s being drawn with shaggier hair.

Really, that’s it. That’s my observation for the day. I think it’s interesting when a comic strip acknowledges change, no matter how slight.

You should be careful, though, Jeremy. I tried growing my hair out once, and that’s when this happened.

Anyway, I also have an entry for the “Does the writer of this comic read this blog?” file. From today’s Curtis:

Remember, if you can’t run for higher ground, it helps if you have a friendly dog to drag you there. Higher ground will also be helpfully labeled as such.

Now that I think about it, based on my theory that the creator of Curtis is a 75-year-old white man, I suppose he’s more likely to read Mark Trail than my blog.

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Curtis, 6/12/05

We’ve of course seen plenty of egregiously unhip fake “rapper” names used in Curtis, but I believe this is the first instance of egregiously unhip fake “rap” lyrics. Let’s take a moment to savor them, shall we?

Den ah snuffed ‘im!
I snuffed ‘im! Woo!
He looked at me wrong,
so ah snuffed ‘im!

Yeah! Woo! I put quotation marks around “rap,” of course, as an homage to Curtis’ tendency to put quotation marks around “rap,” along with almost anything else, including, in this strip, “complaints” and “Bullet-Wound’s” (and what’s with the hyphen? Is he an 18th century rapper or something?). Bizarrely, the word “spanker” in panel four is left unquoted.

The question that really gets me in this strip, though, is: how old is Barry supposed to be, anyway? I mean, Curtis may be about three years too young to be listening to the ultraviolent stylings of Bullet-Wound and Fortyounce and what have you, but I have Barry pegged at about three years too old to be shouting “yay” at the choo-choos and the teddy bear town and all that sugary crap. And incidentally, the top two panels of this strip were cut off by my paper, so I was severely traumatized when I downloaded this strip and actually saw Charlie Chipmunk in the flesh. If I had a little brother who insisted on watching this, I might have a very strong urge to, well, snuff ‘im.

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Curtis, 5/2/05

Much as cruelly mocking Curtis has become part of my schtick here, I must give “props” where they are due and admit that I do love the strip’s vocabulary of hyper-exaggerated facial expressions. Take this installment, for instance. Curtis’ bug-eyed, dilated-pupil look might say “trippin’ on ‘shrooms” to the casual observer, but long-time Curtis readers (of which, God help me, I am one) recognize it as the strip’s symbol for “I’m assuming an extra-nice appearance to cover up something bad I’ve done.” The I’ve-swallowed-my-lips manuever in panel three makes Curtis look like a Warner Brothers cartoon character who has swallowed “Alum” (whatever that is), but in fact it’s Curtis visual shorthand for panic and distress. And it may look like Curtis is drooling for no reason in panel two, but … um, actually, I think he’s just drooling for no reason. No, scratch that, I guess he’s sweating. Most of us usually don’t do so much sweating in the mouth region, though.

Nice kicky beret on mom in panel one there, by the way. And lord knows where that sock is flying in from in panel four. It’s crazy chaos over there in Curtisville!