Post Content

For Better Or For Worse, 8/8/07

I guess I’m supposed to be saying something about FBOFOW’s mini-flashback this week, huh? Uhhhh … well, I support the strip’s bold decision to use a Pulp Fiction-style fractured, nonlinear narrative. Really, when we heard about the “flashbacks,” we had no idea that they’d be jumping willy-nilly through time, enriching our understanding of the themes with foreshadowing of future events and filling in the details later on. I’m really looking forward to seeing how avant-garde the Foobs can get! Maybe it’ll even surpass Gil Thorp.

I also like the fact that Thérèse is now responsible for everything that is evil and wrong and dark in the world. Global warming? Thérèse’s fault. Cancer? Thérèse’s fault! The mustache? THÉRÈSE’S FAULT! Soon we’ll find out that Kortney and Howard were both Thérèse wearing very clever disguises, and that Thérèse was lurking beneath the stream back behind the Patterson house wearing SCUBA gear, just waiting to drag Farley to his death.

Apartment 3-G, 8/8/07

There are lots of reasons to love Blaze, but the top one, as far as I’m concerned, is that he’s the only young adult male in the strip who’s actually easy to identify on sight. Almost everyone else in the strip with a Y chromosome between the ages of 20 and 45 falls into one of two templates: the blandly attractive dark-haired guy (e.g., FBI Pete, millionaire janitor Scott Gaines) or the blandly attractive sandy-haired guy (e.g., Eric Mills, Alan). Blaze has his own style going on. Admittedly, this style involves a slightly shaggy haircut and a khaki shirt and black cravat that he puts on every morning before he sits down to eat his off-brand corn flakes. I’m not exactly sure what it’s supposed to signify. I’d say “gay” but that doesn’t seem right; perhaps it’s “gay, as drawn by someone who doesn’t actually know any gay people but who sometimes reads about them.”

The Lockhorns, 8/8/07

Usually the Lockhorns is about as subtle as a restraining order, but I have to admit that I’m puzzled by this one. Does Leroy have a heretofore unexplored love of modern art? Does Loretta have a heretofore unexplored hatred of modern art, and Leroy spent good money on this portrait just to spite her? Is the fact that the portrait isn’t strictly representational supposed to be some kind of visual shorthand for “bad”? Is it creepy that the hair in the painting appears to be an exactly cut-and-paste version of the hair on Loretta’s head, flipped 180 degrees? I know the answer to the last question, anyway (it’s “yes”).

They’ll Do It Every Time, 8/8/07

Hey, everybody! GH is none other than faithful Comics Curmudgeon reader … gh! It’s fun to imagine him in his impeccable suit surrounded by shlubby shlubmeisters in four-inch ties, but you should always remember that dress-down Friday doesn’t mean don’t-shave Friday. gh was also one of only two Curmudgeon readers to have an entry accepted by Pluggers, making him a potent double-threat. Can anyone else go for the bifecta?

Blondie, 8/8/07

Tune in next week for another exciting adventure of Dagwood Bumstead: World’s Shittiest Union Organizer!

Post Content

Cathy, 7/31/07

It’s possible that the Cathy powers that be have decided that we need to be distracted from the loathsomeness of Cathy and her parents and have thus created a family that is even more hateful. Or they may believe Cathy’s family to be a perfect little group and that this is the depths required to register on their awful-o-meter. Either way, the point is that Irving’s family are terrible people, which has been the thrust of the “jokes” in Cathy throughout this family reunion plot, which has been going on for … well, I haven’t been keeping track, but it seems like about a year and a half. Today’s different, though, because we actually get to see the other members of Irving’s clan all in a row, and learn that they’re all terrifyingly identical Hillman-Bots, presumably just released from the factory. The fact that they all look like either Irving’s mother or Irving’s father indicates the unseemly amount of inbreeding required to produce these grinning, dead-eyed clones. Hopefully these abominations of nature are being lined up against the wall so they can be shot and this horrible perversion of science ended once and for all.

Mary Worth, 7/31/07

Mother of God in heaven above! After reading your comments, I thought I was prepared for the awful hideousness of Dawn’s outfit, but now I know that no human could ever be ready for this. I think what disturbs me most is the obvious care she’s taken to match find a pair of bike shorts and an extra-long t-shirt in precisely the same offensive shade of purple. The appliqué of a two-headed kitten sitting in a stewpot is just the revolting icing on the repulsive cake.

The Phantom, 7/31/07

“Maybe I should just start appearing out of thin air! With my gun! Um. Gun. Yeah. First person who asks what kind of ghost needs a gun to fight bad guys gets shot, by the way.”

At least faithful reader Bootsy will be placated by today’s featured stripey ass presentation.

For Better Or For Worse, 7/31/07

Must … not … make … joke … about … a person … being … inside … Becky …

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 7/26/07

I know you’re not supposed to think about Apartment 3-G too much, but I can’t help it; it’s what I do. So I’ve been thinking, and I’ve got some questions. Here are the starters: Did Lu Ann and Alan rekindle their love on the adjustable bed in her shared hospital room? Does Lu Ann not realize that Alan’s the one who set her up with the poorly ventilated studio in the first place? Did Alan do it deliberately because he likes his girlfriends dumb, and somehow pre-carbon-monoxide-poisoning Lu Ann wasn’t dumb enough? Was Ghost Albert Pinkham Ryder, whose phantasmagorical svengalisms we had to endure for months and months, entirely a product or Lu Ann’s oxygen-starved brain cells? Are we going to have to endure some kind of carbon-monoxide-poisoning-awareness storyline for months and months? Will there be a telethon? Will Margo plan the telethon? Is “Yay, you may or may not have permanent brain damage” the most gruesome theme for a party ever? Is that why Margo looks so chipper in panel one?

Speaking of Margo (and God yes let’s speak of Margo instead of Lu Ann “Cascade of Noble Tears” Powers), in panel one you can sort of see around Lu Ann’s addled head that our favorite bun-headed brunette is being sized up by cousin Blaze. In a storyline from several years ago, back when she was pretending to be a publicity agent in an attempt to meet a rich man instead of pretending to be an event planner in an attempt to meet a rich man, Margo was supposed to be doing publicity for an off-off-Broadway play Blaze wrote or was directing or producing or something (yes, he’s not just a moron who wanders around wearing ludicrous cowboy clothes, he’s also involved in the legitimate theater!). Only Margo got distracted by something — I don’t remember what, it was probably a rich man or a shiny object or her reflection in the mirror — and she completely forgot to do any publicity at all, and the play flopped. Naturally Blaze was somewhat peeved. Presumably Margo has now completely forgotten who Blaze is, but I’m hoping he’s is sitting there in a state of cat-like readiness, awaiting the perfect moment to lunge and strangle her. And then the noble tears will really start flowing.

B.C., 7/26/07

I don’t believe that fruitcake actually exists. I suppose there are still physical fruitcakes here and there, but I think those real-world manifestations of this traditional holiday treat are hugely outnumbered by jokes about their inedibility, told by and laughed at by an audience that for the most part has never seen one. I accept that ritualized jokes like these, ones everyone gets even though they’re several steps removed from the thing being joked about, are part of the landscape of humor, but in this case part of the ritual is that you make the joke at Christmas time, not in the last week of fucking July.

See, this is why zombie B.C. pisses me off much, much more now than it did when Johnny Hart was writing it and reminding me that I was going to hell. At least then I could say, “Oh, it’s the idiosyncratic output of a somewhat deranged old man who’s been doing this so long he’s in his own little world.” Whereas now I have to imagine the current team saying, “They’ll run this crap for decades no matter how nonsensical the jokes. Ka-ching! Tee time, everybody!”

For Better Or For Worse, 7/26/07

Helpful tip to MCs everywhere: if you have to explicitly tell everyone that the event you’re MCing is great, it’s probably not actually great. (This does not apply to hip-hop MCs, since boasting of one’s own greatness is an well-established convention of the genre.)

Given the strip’s recent unsettling obsession with bathroom matters, I’m a little anxious about the “#2” on the wall in the third panel. Hopefully Gerald has not just interrupted April in the telethon’s poopatorium.

Gil Thorp, 7/26/07

Coach Kaz is going to jump at the chance to switch careers; after all, he’s a coach at a public school, and they have all these liberal namby-pamby rules now that say you’re not allowed punch your students in the face. Since he’s being hired for a delicate and sensitive position based entirely on his proven ability to hand out savage beatdowns, I look forward to the shocking climax of this storyline, in which “Thorpstock” becomes synonymous with “Altamont.”

Mary Worth, 7/26/07

For a brief moment, Wilbur demonstrates that he’s well aware of the thick, choking layer of anguish that is the atmosphere of Planet Weston. But he’s so used to life at the bottom of the well of despair that he sees even the tiniest flicker of happiness as a threat that must be brought to light and then destroyed.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/26/07

Ha ha! Snuffy Smith got mauled by a bear! Good times.