Post Content

The Phantom, 12/16/06

I’m not going to lie to you: I love love love the Phantom’s always awesome NEXT: boxes. They can be by turns catchy and taunting. This particular example raises the intriguing prospect of NEXT: boxes that consider the ancillary details of the situation being portrayed. Like if the big purple guy is secretly hitching a ride on a military helicopter to Rhodia, and we get NEXT: What’s the weather like there? Or if the Ghost Who Walks is punching out some ne’er-do-wells as faithful Devil looks on, and we’re confronted with NEXT: Heartworms!

This strip is well known for its love of the interrobang, but Denton’s administrative assistant is so startled by the sight of President Luaga’s muscular assertion of executive authority that she’s just plain bangobanging.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/16/06

You know, I’ve always thought of Herb and Jamaal as, if not B.C.-style theocratic or even Family Circus-style churchy, at least kind of church friendly. That was before today, when we saw that the seemingly friendly Rev. Croom is in fact a money-grubbing charlatan. I look forward to future installments, where the good Reverent is forced into a reparative therapy facility after being caught with a male prostitute and boatload of meth, and his flock mostly turns their back on Christ as a result.

Pluggers, 12/16/06

So, pluggers are Bloods, eh? That’s it, I’m joining the Crips.

Post Content

Herb and Jamaal, 9/28/06

Herb and Jamaal seems to be laboring under the misapprehension that Jamaal and Yolanda are the Ross and Rachel of the comics pages, and that America is on tenterhooks to see how their mutual but repeatedly thwarted romance, which has been drawn out for literally months and months, will turn out. Apparently the climactic moment has arrived in the form of this disturbing double entendre. I’m assuming that the original punchline involved the phrase “I’d toss your salad for you,” but the prudes at the syndicate cleaned it up.

Gil Thorp, 9/28/06

Who are these people? Don’t know. What’s the background to this little incident? Not a clue. Are they blowing up mailboxes? Yes, yes they are. And that frankly is all I need to know to know that Gil Thorp is awesome.

The Phantom, 9/28/06

So our old friend Walker has broken up a little human trafficking ring. Today, the Ghost-With-Stripy-Butt proves that just because you’re a superhero and defender of justice and human rights, doesn’t mean you can’t also be a condescending prick.

Post Content

The Lockhorns, 8/15/06

Today’s Lockhorns is evidence of the feature’s unrelenting commitment to total authenticity. It’s not that one of them is right and the other cartoonishly wrong, you see; it’s that they are fundamentally incompatible, and yet married to one another. I’m not sure that this comic contains a joke per se; rather, Leroy and Loretta in a larger sense illustrate the basic reality that our lives and our interactions with others are fundamentally absurd. They seem preternaturally inured to the hollowness of it all, but it’s often a wonder to me how their marriage counselor keeps from slitting his wrists.

Herb and Jamaal, 8/15/06

Today’s Herb and Jamaal is like a magpie fascinated by a shiny object and unable to divert its attention from it. In this case, clearly the polysemous nature of the word “cell” — you see, it could refer to a cellular phone, or a prison cell! — provided an irony too delicious to pass up, no matter the fundamental problems of narrative that this gag presents. For instance, last I checked, you can’t actually call someone in his cell, because prisoners aren’t allowed to have personal phones. Of course, sometimes corrupt guards smuggle phones in to the inmates, but these are generally — you guessed it — cell phones. There’s a potential joke here about calling someone both in and on his cell, but clearly Herb and Jamaal doesn’t have the stomach for an exploration of the deficiencies of the American incarceration industry.

Anyway, despite the fact that the strip is totally unable to string 50 words in a row without creating a major plot hole, the whole thing is made worthwhile by Herb’s hilarious reaction shot in the final panel, right? Oh, wait a minute, no it isn’t.

Kudzu, 8/15/06

Don’t feel too bad, though, Herb and Jamaal: for all your failings today, at least you didn’t do a can’t-program-the-VCR joke.