Archive: Herb and Jamaal

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Crankshaft, 11/12/14

Everyone knows that Crankshaft rests on twin pillars that I like to call the “two Ms”: malapropisms and misanthropy. The strip’s really been leaning on the former for the past week or so, with “punchlines” that have involved the words and phrases “painted themselves out on a limb,” “battle-ax states,” and “electrical college.” But this I decree to be not up to snuff. “Nasal” derives via French from the Latin “nasus,” and “nose” from the Old English “nosu,” and both of those come from the same ultimate Indo-European root. They’re basically the same word, in other words, with just the vowel shifted a bit, which means this is unacceptably lazy wordplay. The whole point is to mash unrelated terms together! And you’re pointing to your nose! As if we’re incapable of figuring out what “nosal passages” might refer to! Come on, get it together, Crankshaft.

Herb and Jamaal, 11/12/14

“One of those new cashing devices on your phone,” on the other hand, is perfect. It is an amazing example of someone trying to refer to a technological advance who’s heard about mobile payment systems but doesn’t understand anything about how they work and has zero intention of doing any research about them. Never change, Herb and Jamaal. You keep doing you.

Judge Parker, 11/12/14

Oh, boy, that chainsaw-weilding maniac I ordered has arrived, and in just three weeks, which in Judge Parker is a unit of time so fleeting it can only be recorded with the most delicate scientific instruments! I had neglected to order Sam Driver’s washboard abs, but I approve of the gender-inversion of the usual horror movie trope where sexy ladies take off their clothes and then are gruesomely hacked to bits. (This trope will be further inverted when, instead of being gruesomely hacked to bits, Sam will be handed a substantial sum of cash for no real reason.)

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Beetle Bailey, 11/8/14

We all know that Saturdays in Beetle Bailey are for Crushingly Depressing Halftrack Episodes, and while usually these are marital in nature this Amos Halftrack solo outing is a pretty good effort! Isn’t the whole point of drinking yourself into a stupor just to numb all the feelings? Wouldn’t you get the same results staring up into the cold, driving rain, with the added bonus that maybe you’ll develop that bout of pneumonia that finally ends it all?

Herb and Jamaal, 11/8/14

“Boy, it seems like this is a real opportunity for a teachable moment — or a ‘preachable moment,’ hee hee! I should put that on the church sign! But anyway, I could talk to Herb about the potential pitfalls of looking at biblical passages without fully grasping the larger context in which they’re embedded, but I’m on my lunch break, so fuck that noise.”

Marvin 11/8/14

MARVIN: O R I G I N S

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Herb and Jamaal, 10/31/14

It’s true: feelings can be tricky! Like, for instance, you may feel close enough with your best friend to just ask him about his current emotional state with a new love interest: a pretty intimate question! And yet even so, you might be embarrassed to admit that you like to weave elaborate water-metaphors about feelings, and so instead of sharing them with him and risking embarrassment, you just lean on the counter and smile to yourself, imagining those emotional waves crashing over your head. Don’t tell him what you’re thinking. He can never know.

Blondie, 10/31/14

I guess what bothers me about this is that Dagwood thinks he needs to add a jack o’ lantern to this costume to make it Halloweeny. It’s a costume. Costumes are inherently Halloweeny. Dressing in costume is pretty much what Halloween is about these days. You don’t need to gussy it up with Halloween iconography. Just dress up as a sexy slice of pizza and get on with it, already.

Heathcliff, 10/31/14

GOD DAMN IT

MUMMIES DON’T EAT BRAINS

YOU’RE THINKING OF ZOMBIES

YES THEY’RE BOTH REANIMATED CORPSES BUT THEIR MYTHOLOGY AND CULTURAL HISTORIES ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

MUMMIES PUT CURSES ON YOU AND … UH … SHAMBLE TOWARDS YOU MENACINGLY

AND I THINK THAT’S IT?

ALSO THEIR ROTTING FLESH IS COVERED WITH BANDAGES

DEFINITELY NOT THE SAME AS ZOMBIES, IS MY POINT

GET IT TOGETHER, HEATHCLIFF