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Herb and Jamaal, 2/23/10

Today’s Herb and Jamaal is so bizarrely phrased that I almost think the AJGLU-3000 is moonlighting. “Do you recall your playing days in the NBA?” Herb asks, apparently worried that Jamaal’s years of substance abuse could wipe out huge chunks of his memories without warning. And indeed, Jamaal’s response seems to indicate that he does in fact suffer from serious cognitive deficits, as it makes little to no sense. “Green” is supposed to imply a lack of experience, but “didn’t even make that shade” sort of implies old-fashionedness. It’s all so puzzling that I almost wish that “anymore” in the last word balloon were bolded; it’s not as if the final-word-bolding in the other panels conveyed any sort of parsable semantic content, but it at least provided a sort of arbitrary structure I could hold on to in this sea of incoherence.

Gil Thorp, 2/23/10

I wouldn’t worry too much about a Cassie-Steve love connection, mom, as Cassie’s so embarrassed at just saying the word “janitor” that she has to stage-whisper it to you, hiding her mouth in case someone nearby can read lips and find out she’s been consorting with the lower classes. But just in case, mom has donned her Roman centurion uniform in panel three, determined to shield her daughter from the handsy attentions of the twentysomething set, just as the Legions defended Rome’s empire from marauding bands of barbarians.

Mark Trail, 2/23/10

Oh, God, is Mark, the worst husband ever? I’m assuming that Cherry’s panicked “MARK” comes not from seeing the banner headline “SENATOR BEATEN BY THUGS; NOTED OUTDOORSMAN CAN ONLY WATCH,” but because she’s always convinced, based on long experience, that Mark is in grave danger wherever he goes. And indeed Mark is holding back vital information. “I just wanted to call and tell you how much I miss you! I’ll be home as soon the vigilante rabble I’m assembling finishes dishing out brutal mob justice!”

Phantom, 2/23/10

I’m sure that I would be pretty depressed if I were a kid and experiencing what Kit and Heloise are going through — mother presumed dead, father blinded by grief and wandering the world without me. That having been said, there are few things that would have excited middle-school-aged Josh Fruhlinger more than meeting the Speaker of the National Assembly — any nation’s National Assembly, really. I was a profoundly dorky youth.

I also would have been pretty psyched to hang out with someone so relentlessly committed to proper dress that he wears a morning coat even to eat breakfast at home. Still, his wife is dressed awful casually, which sort of ruins the effect. One man can not preserve a lost world’s formalities on his own, Lamanda, even if he is the president.

Apartment 3-G, 2/23/10

Sounds like business-savvy Martin Magee has taken a “Negotiating to Yes!” seminar lately. “Look, Margo, I don’t care if I have to foxtrot, or samba, or maybe give you some money, or what. What I want most of all is for you to love me, but for me not to really have to put a lot of effort into it. If I can work a dancing metaphor of some kind in there, that’d be great.”

Judge Parker news! A little birdie (named bourbon babe) tells me that she’s heard from the folks at King Features that (a) Eduardo Barreto has definitely decided to retire (boo) and that (b) the new permanent artist will be Mike Manley, who starts on March 15. You can see Mike’s blog here; you can find samples of his comic book work around the Internet, none of which is really of the soap opera style. It will be interesting to see how it looks! UPDATE: Just saw on the previous thread a link from faithful reader Dave to some work by Manley on Secret Agent X-9, a King Features adventure strip. Check it out!

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Mary Worth, 2/12/10

Ha ha, look at Dawn’s face in panel one: she can barely contain her joy as this wave of class hatred washes over her. Lies and deceit? A father who never lived up to his responsibilities? A son who was rejected by his blood relatives because he came from the wrong side of the tracks? Whatever! Wilbur is HERS HERS HERS HERS again! It’s like Christmas! Thanks, spiteful and terrible old drunk lady! Dawn will never forget you!

Herb and Jamaal, 2/12/10

Wow, Herb and Jamaal has taken on an interesting new idea: making everyday sayings hilariously concrete. Either that, or Eula has finally decided to get rid of her hated son-in-law once and for all, by using a fast-acting muscular paralytic.

B.C., 2/12/10

Johnny Hart’s grandson Mason Mastroianni is less than three years into his gig as B.C. artist and already he’s gone mad with power, imagining himself as a wrathful God who keeps His creations quaking in constant terror.

Pluggers, 2/12/10

This is possibly the most depressing Pluggers every produced. Damn you, pluggers, I don’t care that your bodies are so ill-maintained that the mere thought of vigorous activity, sexual or otherwise, has you reaching for some kind of muscle-soothing unguent; I for one plan to take my clothes of for recreational purposes when I get old.

Of course, it’s possible that pluggers don’t have anything against sex per se, but simply find the combination of sex and nudity morally distasteful. Thus, they only get it on when their worn, greasy pajama pants develop holes in suitable locations.

Mark Trail 2/12/10

“Yeah, my doctor, he said, ‘Senator, you can’t just go around slapping people who irritate you, because one of these days someone’s going to beat the crap out of you and then you’ll probably die, you miserable old prick.'”

SAD AND DEPRESSING JUDGE PARKER UPDATE: Several readers wrote to tell me that it looks like Judge Parker artist Eduardo Barreto is gravely ill from meningitis and is unable to continue his duties on the soap strip. While I and others have poked fun at his, er, voluptuous ladies, I think we all appreciate his work on the strip, which is really unlike anything else on the comics page (with the possible exception of the art from his friend Graham Nolan on RMMD). I sincerely hope that Barreto’s health improves, and I know that it will be very difficult for King Features to find a replacement who will live up to what he’s done over the past few years.

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Herb and Jamaal, 1/30/10

Herb’s mother-in-law Eula is always depicted as argumentative and unpleasant, perhaps because she’s a stereotypical, lazily created mother-in-law character constantly haunted by intrusive thoughts of death and divine punishment. We already know that she attends a church that has a creepy obsession with the afterlife. In this strip, her thought-ballooning begins with a brief moment of justified self-esteem over her good health; but soon she’s distracted that by the realization that her contemporaries are dying at a rapid clip, followed by paranoia that her dead friends are laughing it up at the right hand of Our Lord over her eternal punishment in Hell. Cheery! Presumably she’s going to take this self-loathing out on Herb, for having the temerity to displace her in her daughter’s affections.

Mary Worth, 1/30/10

As is the case with a lot of modern art, I couldn’t tell you specifically what feelings the second panel of this Mary Worth is supposed to evoke, but I enjoy at a visceral level. If I may venture an interpretation: Dawn’s mind is so aflame with shock over Wilbur’s quick capitulation that she’s on the verge of tearing off her own head to rid herself of the confusion and anguish inside it. Wilbur’s eyes, meanwhile, tell the story of a man grimly determined to not force the issue, someone who fervently and implacably believes that, really, it just doesn’t matter.

Family Circus, 1/30/10

Ha ha, it looks like Jeffy has learned the concept of asking for forgiveness rather than permission! Unfortunately, he’s also about to learn why Mommy calls that blanket “the Smotherer.”