Post Content

Herb and Jamaal, 10/3/09

So Herb and Jamaal spent the entire last week engaged in a wholly unaccustomed but not actively offensive behavior: a multi-day storyline. Herb and Jamaal went hiking and Herb was supposed to be guiding them but he got lost but didn’t tell Jamaal for a while, ha ha, and then on Friday he indicated that he did pack one bit of wayfinding gear: his comically oversized cell phone! WOKKA WOKKA WOKKA!

But here’s the thing about doing a multi-day storyline, Herb and Jamaal: If you’re going to do one that lasts for five days, you really ought to just add one more installment, because otherwise the Saturday strip feels out of place. And if you’re going to do Saturday as a standalone, you really shouldn’t include just enough elements from the Monday through Friday story (Herb is lost, Herb is talking on a brick-sized cell phone from 1991) to make it seem like it’s sort of part of the work week’s story, because otherwise your readership will think that, say, Herb lured Jamaal deep into the woods to kill and eat him, before driving back home and engaging in hilarious banter with his mother-in-law on his enormous mobile phone.

Judge Parker, 10/3/09

It’s true that my love affair with Judge Parker has cooled a bit of late, as I’ve found myself unable to work up much enthusiasm to analyze either the abuse-of-power-tastic celebrity vs. paparazzi plot just completed, and the return to the thinly veiled Bernie Madoff revenge fantasy isn’t looking that much more exciting. But I will say this for today’s strip: it features Sam Driver wearing a tie that, somehow, is actually narrower than its own stripes.

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 9/9/09

Margo is definitely intrigued by the Powers family’s “keeping feelings to yourself” idea, as it would certainly cut down on the idle chatter she has to endure. You might think that such a policy would place restrictions on her own behavior, but she doesn’t recognize the spectrum between “irritation” and “killing rage” as representing feelings any more than a fish recognizes water.

Fun question: if Lu Ann never told her parents about Alan’s death, does that mean she spent her poorly documented time in South Dakota answering questions with increasingly elaborate lies about his continued existence? Or did she never tell them about her relationship with Alan in the first place? Did she even mention to them that they have a daughter named Lu Ann?

Herb and Jamaal, 9/9/09

Oh, she hasn’t visited in six years, eh? Is that your story, Herb and Jamaal? Well, what if I present you with evidence — incontrovertible evidence — that in fact Herb’s mother visited NOT FOURTEEN MONTHS AGO? Ha, Herb and Jamaal, I have torn your filthy web of lies to shreds!

Of course, it’s possible that that older comic portrayed a visit Herb made to his mother’s home, but I refuse to dip into the Chronicle archives to find out. Just searching my own site to find this strip damaged my dignity enough.

Marvin, 9/9/09

After starting off the week berating his mother for her sexually provocative clothing, Giant Fantasy Marvin-Monster has moved on to engaging in some sort of ritual humiliation-based bath-time play with his father. My point is, we need to start doing research to see what changes in international law are required to put this comic strip on trial for war crimes.

Phantom, 9/9/09

Or — and it’s just a suggestion — you could tell Diana! I mean, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job as an irritatingly cryptic jungle seer, but … maybe tell Diana?

Post Content

Herb and Jamaal, 9/8/09

Perhaps stung by allegations of rampant nonspecificity, Herb and Jamaal has decided to go the political cartoon route and just start labeling the crap out of things. For instance, while Herb’s coffee mug has long been designated as such by a label that reads Herb, Herb’s mother-in-law has traditionally drunk her morning pick-me-up out of a mug decorated with a triangle-ish shape that looks vaguely like the Star Trek logo. However, it seems that, having gotten tired of people asking her if “that’s the logo from the science fiction TV show first broadcast in the ’60s that everyone’s talking about,” Eula has traded her old mug in for one that simply has “STAR TREK” written on the side of it.

Alternately, it could be that her name is actually Star Trek, and Eula is just a nickname, a shortened version of what she said to her parents when she finally got the nerve, which was “You lunatics named me ‘Star Trek’?”

Family Circus, 9/8/09

Boy, Billy and Dolly sure look depressed, don’t they? And the reasons are obvious: they have to dress nicely and troop off to school for the day, but, as we can see from Jeffy’s appearance, if they got to stay home they could just wander around in their underwear, covered with filth.

Mark Trail, 9/8/09

I’m not some kind of big expert on killing and skinning alligators, but I question the utility of that tiny little knife that sideburnsy #1 is brandishing in panel two, unless he’s planning on tickling the great thick-skinned beast.

Mary Worth, 9/8/09

Isn’t this what we all hope for when we pop the question to that special lady? That she recoil from the shock, and cover her mouth so that she doesn’t splatter you when she vomits in terror?

Gil Thorp, 9/8/09

So these are the protagonists of our Gil Thorp football-season adventure: a kid who’s learned that he doesn’t need alcohol to have a good time, and a marginal athlete who likes to come up with nicknames for himself. Pretty thin material to work with, but things should get more exciting upon the arrival of the invasion fleet of spherical alien spacecraft that you can see in the background of panel one. Once Milford’s inhabitants have been rounded up to toil in the Zyrgt mines back on Planet Nebulon VI, there’ll be all sorts of interesting dramatic possibilities.