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Luann, 10/27/09

I spent more time than I’d care to admit trying, really trying, to make sense of the final panel in this strip in terms of fiber’s well-known effects on the human digestive system. Do the bran muffins separate people because said people need to scurry away from each other to take a dump? Or is there farting involved, which also can reduce people’s tolerance for proximity? Or … but then I realized that I was expending valuable brain energy on figuring out a damn Luann joke that wasn’t ultimately going to be very rewarding, and dwelling on tasteless ass jokes to boot, so I stopped.

I blame Marvin for the poop joke fixation.

Anyway, I’d like to point out that anybody who actually implements Papa DeGroot’s community-building idea will find his house pelted with eggs, toilet paper, and puzzle pieces in short order.

Herb and Jamaal, 10/27/09

Fortunately, today’s Herb and Jamaal has required no such overthinking process. Ha ha, Herb’s mother-in-law has dumped an entire pot of scalding chili on his genitals! Oh, how it must burn! Ha ha! Note that, thanks to Herb’s total commitment to awkwardly setting up lame jokes over multiple panels, he’s heroically cagey enough to leave the payoff for the end, even as his flesh sizzles.

Crankshaft, 10/27/09

The worst thing … wait, no, that’s not something I think that can really be quantified. Let me start again: One of the terrible things about living with Crankshaft is his unapologetic racism. Pam can’t have any of her friends of Celtic extraction over to visit, because she knows her father will lurk about, muttering audibly about “filthy potato-eaters.”

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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.

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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?