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For Better Or For Worse, 7/2/06

I admit it: In addition to being a judgmental bastard, I’m a capricious bastard. How else can you explain the fact that I found Grandpa Foob’s last sexual fantasy sequence horrifying and distasteful, while I was mildly charmed by this one? Maybe it’s because instead of hoping to be rubbed down by nubile slave girls, he’s imagining relatively innocent pursuits, like dancing at arm’s length, holding hands in the general vicinity of pert young rear ends, or sharing incredibly phallic ice cream cones. Maybe I’m impressed that he’s daring to dream about a blonde-brunette three-way, or at least about driving to one. Maybe it’s because the strip dramatically illustrates the fact that, no matter what our age, we’re always young and virile in our own minds, our chins firm and manly, with only a slight cleft pointing the way to their scrotum-like future.

Meanwhile, in Rex Morgan, M.D., Rex is wearing a kind of gay robe.

Going over my old posts, I’ve noticed a trend with me and Rex Morgan: I get all excited about every new storyline and inevitably have fun with it for the first few weeks; then suddenly the air goes out if it and I lose
interest. The last few weeks in this strip have involved a punk-haired girl killing Harry and taking over the blackmailing biz and … a partial fingerprint … and … something about arthritis … damn, I can’t even work up the energy to write a summary. But I offer Rex in his classy robe here as a reminder of happier times.

(Speaking of robes, what the hell is June wearing? At first I thought she had one of those little trays that hook over your neck, like an old-timey cigarette girl, which she was pretending to be in a desperate and doomed attempt to get Rex’s attention. But I suspect she’s just wearing a robe festooned with the exact same cheesy pattern as the top underneath it. More troubling is the hand at the bottom of the frame, which appears to be protruding from her torso.)

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Sorry I missed a day yesterday … all that Finger Quotin’ left me exhausted. But there’s a-doings a-transpiring in many a soaper, so we need to cover at least the high points…

Judge Parker, 6/22/06

Oh, snap! If you’re not following Judge Parker, this is Raju, junior-high-age Sophie’s Internet-recruited Indian “personal assistant,” who travelled to America thinking that she was a college student and hoping to woo her into marriage. There was a loathsome installment earlier this week where he weepingly told her that he had thought that she and he might make “little Rajus” together, but I think this strip, where she insults his teeth, is a lot funnier.

Spider-Man, 6/22/06

Yeah, because expressing jealousy towards someone is iron-clad proof that you planned to kill them. Way to use your relative jumping-to-conclusions ability of a spider, there, Parker.

Admittedly, sitting around your mansion watching films of your failed auditions with your creepy manservant is a little strange. A little strange and lot ripped off from Sunset Boulevard.

Mary Worth, 6/22-23/06

Oh, man, Mary’s little golf-cart-drivin’ Jeff fantasy is yesterday’s strip is just too, too delicious. But the narrative tension caused by the arrangement of the panels in today’s strip, combined with the look of grim resignation on Dr. Cory’s face, implies that there’s rough waters ahead for our senior citizen lovers. Is Jeff going to tell Mary that he’s leaving town to be with a seventeen-year-old girl he fell in love with on MySpace? Or is just upset that she demanded he wear that nice paramecium golf shirt she bought him for once? At least they’re not going to be twinsies if he shows up at this party today.

For Better Or For Worse, 6/23/06

God damn, Paul the Mountie will grab anyone’s ass.

I’m mainly posting this just to acknowledge that yes, you aren’t crazy, the strips on the FBOFW site really are blinking at you and yes, it plumbs depths of creepy that I didn’t even know existed before.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/23/06

I don’t want to say that this Funky Winkerbean plotline, in which the hot popular girl repeatedly throws herself at the dorky kid for no real reason, is some sort of wish fulfillment fantasy on the part of the artist, but … OK, actually, I guess I do want to say that. Dorky kid has been pretty freaked out for the duration, so I assume we’re going to learn a Valuable Lesson about high school chicks who go too fast and the nerds they terrify.

Mark Trail, 6/23/06

Man, this Mark Trail plot is turning out to be pretty awesome, and we haven’t even got to the tiger penises yet. I love how Kelly just lies around her pink bedroom in a slip lovingly copied from Liz Taylor’s Butterfield 8 get-up, plotting out loud and giving a look of evil sexiness to no one in particular.

One Big Happy, 6/23/06

It’s not a soap opera, but One Big Happy has been running with the same plot all week, which is sort of unusual. Can I just say I love Earl the vacuum cleaner fetishist a lot? You live that dream, Earl. You live it.

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For Better Or For Worse, 6/14/06

Oh, c’mon, Jim, forget this “dividing your ashes” stuff: why not just dig up Marian, bring her back to Ontario, get a place with Iris, and then: yowza! Posthumous three-way!

OK, that was in poor taste. But I had to do something to distract myself from Iris’ grim, death-like visage in the final panel. I mean, Jesus, it looks like she’s ready to drag him off to the underworld right now.

Family Circus, 6/14/06

Ignoring the weird jingoism of this panel for the moment, I have to ask: what the hell are these two watching? Is it the Pictures Of Rocks Against A Blank Background With A Little Folded Index Card For A Label Channel? The ticker across the top of the screen would seem to indicate that they’re watching a cable news station of some sort, but surely there’s an attractive white woman missing somewhere that could preempt this crap.

Anyway, Billy, you just wait until Operation Martian Freedom is launched sometime in late 2007. Then you could can buy your space rocks without adding to America’s trading deficit, because we’ll own Mars’ shiny red space ass.

Shoe, 6/14/06

Holy crap, did the crazy roller-skating bird from Shoe just get propositioned? I’m so stunned by this development that I can’t even work up the energy to feel sorry for him because he screwed it up.

Get Fuzzy, 6/14/06

See, this is why we all love Satchel. Because when he wants you to be appear on a game show that he invents, he hand-delivers a formal invitation. In a sealed envelope.

I’m intrigued by Rob’s claim to be a “grown-up.” I’m not convinced, based on the evidence I’ve seen.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 6/14/06

TDIET takes time out from its usual fare — which is to say the insane, petty rantings of octogenarians — to illuminate the deep structural problems in America’s health care system. This is material so politically charged that usually only Rex Morgan dares to handle it, but TDIET discusses the crisis in its own trademark fashion: by ending with “Oh, yeah!”