Post Content

For Better Or For Worse, 7/4/07

Hey, kids, didn’t your mothers ever teach you to either say something nice or not say anything at all? Well, I’m going to say something nice. I profoundly respect Liz an’ Anthony’s decision to flee in terror at the prospect of being forced into a conga line. That’s just good common sense.

On the note of their kissing and simul-thought-balooning, well, I … uh … BLAARRRGGGGGH.

There, it’s not saying anything if it’s vomiting.

Mary Worth, 7/4/07

Aw, yeah, it’s a CAT FIGHT FOR DR. DREW’S LOVE! Dawn Weston, who I believe (despite the evidence of her baby blue high-waisted slacks) is supposed to a college student, will have the advantages of youth, but I predict that those will not be able to stack up against Vera’s tightly-wound rage-filled nature. More entertaining will be the proxy battle for meddling supremacy between the two young people’s respective champions. Wilbur “Ask Wendy” Weston has, one must assume, always harbored a resentment against Mary, since his newspaper column yenta persona is clearly a pale imitation of the puppet master with whom he shares a condo complex. They’re both looking their best — Mary has finally managed to find a cravat the exact same color as her shirt, and Wilbur has gotten those five strands of hair to lay across his scalp just so — which will make it all the more satisfying when they tumble into the pool, hands locked around each other’s throats.

Gil Thorp, 7/4/07

“So, kids, the history lesson you learned this semester was: People who appear to be helpful, friendly authority figures are in most cases desperately needy frauds.”

Rex Morgan, M.D. 7/4/07

Oh, really, Rex, this isn’t right. Your wife saw him first. He’s just a simple teenage street hustler for New Orleans; he’s used to doing what he has to do, getting his money, and getting out. He isn’t emotionally prepared for the horrifying snake pit that is the Morgan marriage. Being caught in the Rex/June web of sexual spite is going to make him long for the comforting arms of FEMA.

God only knows what the good doctor is doing with that tennis racket. Presumably he found it next to the tackle box and thinks it’s part of the fishing equipment.

Family Circus, 7/4/07

The social worker had seen a lot of awful things in his years working for Child Protective Services, but there was something about this case that he just couldn’t get out of his mind. After a child’s agonizing death from salmonellosis, you’d expect the mother to be pretty rattled. But all this one kept saying — at the investigation, and later at the trial — was “He asked for it. It was what he wanted.” That was bad enough, but it was her little half smile that the social worker kept flashing back to while he was trying to fall asleep. Spookiest thing he ever saw, by God.

Post Content

Once again, I intended to skip over the days I missed when out of town … once again, I cannot resist their siren song! (And again, since I only skimmed the comments from while I was away, apologies if I’m repeating funnies here…)

Popeye, 6/30/07

In case you’re wondering, Popeye: still a horror show. While Olive Oyl’s manic suicide threat turned out to be the lead-in to some kind of baffling surrealist prank, we now have a sideburned thug threatening to stab Wimpy to death. GOOD FAMILY FUN.

Some commentor months ago said that the current Popeye strips are actually reruns from the 1990s. Can anyone confirm or deny if we’re seeing this disturbing tale a second time? Also, did Popeye really stuff spinach into his pipe and smoke it in one of the cartoons, or am I misremembering that?

Spider-Man, 6/30/07

With the sudden appearance of Badly Drawn Larry King, Spider-Man hits its highest pitch of excitement in months.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/1/07

Saparmurat Niyazov, who died last year, was the longtime dictator of Turkmenistan. His country was ground down by one of the most outrageous personality cults in history, the most obvious aspect of which was the inescapable omnipresence of his image. Photos, monuments, and statues of him were every where, including, most memorably, a gold-plated statue atop the Neutrality Arch, which rotated automatically so that it always faced the sun. “I admit it,” he said once, “there are too many portraits, pictures and monuments. I don’t find any pleasure in it, but the people demand it because of their mentality.”

Meanwhile, the battle for the heart (or something) of Niki begins! This fishing expedition should be an absolute hoot, as Niki, a tough kid from the mean streets of New Orleans, and Rex, an effete suburban doctor whose main hobbies are golf and petulance, attempt to bond by emulating crappy Hollywood movies about male bonding written by, directed by, and starring people who also have never fished in their lives. Look for Rex to flail about in disgust at the prospect of touching a live worm, and then accidentally swing the hook right into Niki’s eye. Rex’s dad looks down from heaven, still unimpressed.

Slylock Fox, 7/1/07

We Cassandra Cat fans enjoy the sight of our feline filcher staring lovingly if prematurely at her haul, but I have to once again take issue with the solution to the mystery. In a world where mice wear bowlers, foxes solve mysteries, and squirrels own jewelry and vinyl-sided houses, why couldn’t the kiwi have just walked into the house and stolen the ring? It could have just gone up the conveniently placed stairs.

Crankshaft, 7/1/07

Unless our unhappy family is parked directly above a tiny but still unimaginably powerful black hole, I’m going to have to call foul on the downward-bending light beam coming out of that car’s headlights. Perhaps it’s meant to be a metaphor for Crankshaft’s tragic erectile dysfunction.

Mark Trail, 7/1/07

“So you see, Rusty, sometimes you waste your entire life working on things that will ultimately be destroyed without a trace! Also, women like men with big ‘claws.'”

Panel from One Big Happy, 7/1/07

The advantage of having a character who generally speaks in unfiltered streams of quasi-nonsense is that you can slip in things like this and most people will barely notice.

Apartment 3-G, 7/2/07

Some might feel that this comic portrays Margo in an unflattering light, but you have to understand the context: yesterday was Lu Ann’s turn to cook, so she hasn’t eaten in nearly 48 hours. Naturally she’s a little irritable.

For Better Or For Worse, 7/2/07

Shawna-Marie’s wedding, week four: Canada’s nightmare continues.

It is of course obvious that Liz’s parade of suitors is being torn down one by one — too drunk, too distracted by their jobs and leering, too not white cheating — to make the inevitable pairing with Anthony vaguely palatable, since he has no actively redeeming qualities. The last few candidates at least had some kind of vague history in the strip, though; now we’re just being introduced to new potential mates solely so they can be eliminated. I look forward to the gap between the meet-cute and the unmasking getting shorter and shorter (Panel one: Liz meets handsome Joe! Panel three: Joe kicks a puppy!) until eventually a charming, attractive man comes upon Liz and says something punny and then tries to rape her in the same panel.

Gil Thorp, 7/2/07

“It’s not my job to do anything about it, though, obviously. Heck, what with you doing most of my job for me, my job mostly consisted of cashing the checks! So thanks, you lovable old fraud!”

Post Content

Archie, 6/29/07

When I was a little kid, one of my favorite comic series was Richie Rich. I loved how ridiculously and cartoonishly wealthy he was; there was one particularly memorable sequence in which Richie and his family wandered through a wing of their freakishly huge mansion that they had forgotten existed, and found among other things a bathtub full of jewels. Archie’s Lodge family’s plutocratic status never quite reaches that level of caricature, but sometimes it comes close. The enormous gap in wealth between Veronica’s family and everybody else in Riverdale does lead one to wonder about the community’s economic structure: perhaps it’s all a company town owned by Mr. Lodge. The absence of a community of fellow-billionaires at least explains why Veronica goes to Riverdale High with the plebes: there aren’t enough rich kids to sustain an elite private school, and education at home with a governess has sadly fallen out of style.

At any rate, you’d think that the Lodges could at least afford a secluded private beach that wasn’t within binocular-viewing distance of the grubby seashore where the masses hang out. From the looks of it, they can’t be more than a hundred yards or so from the public beach; maybe there’s just a velvet rope separating the two or something. The weird target thing in the background might explain the proximity, though: perhaps the Lodges like to pick off plebian beach-goers with a high-powered rifle for sport. Since Riverdale law enforcement consists entirely of Lodge hired goons, they can hunt this cunning human prey with impunity.

The little girl at bottom right, who is at most knee high and yet appears to be about eight, is freaking me out. MAKE HER STOP STARING AT ME!

Gil Thorp, 6/29/07

The immature among you will no doubt latch onto the phrase “I pumped you full” and have your jollies at the thought of ol’ Clambake sodomizing the student-athletes of Milford. Maybe you’ll even use it in your own classless double-entendres (“Yeah, I’d like to pump her full of misplaced confidence, if you know what I mean!”). For my money, though, the funniest thing in this strip is the narration box in panel three. If I had my druthers, every single Gil Thorp strip would include a panel that contained the phrase “Also down on himself: [Insert name of indistinguishable Milford resident here].” Soon the strip will be so consumed with self-loathing that it’ll make Funky Winkerbean seem like an Ecstacy-fuelled rave.

Family Circus, 6/29/07

Since PJ is the fourth child, if we were being realistic his baby book would actually contain his crumpled-up birth certificate stuck between two random pages and nothing else. The kids seem to have the right idea, as they clearly think of him as one of the pets.