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They’ll Do It Every Time, 11/22/06

“Douglas Iannuci” is a distinctive name; having seen it fairly often in the comments section of this blog, it immediately caught my eye at the bottom of the TDIET. So take a bow, Douglas, from down there in the balmy Virgin Islands! I hope for your sake that the Pestina in your life doesn’t actually fly into these sorts of Scadutized rages over old flames.

For me, the best part of this cartoon is that Pestina is giving Fignewt the third degree about his prom, which, from all appearances, must have happened about thirty years before.

The Phantom, 11/22/06

The Ghost-Who-Walks has a whole bevy of tricks that work on two-year-olds. “See, he’s right there … GASP! OH MY GOSH, THE ONLY THING I CAN SEE THERE NOW IS AN OBJECT THAT IS LARGER THAN HE IS! WHERE COULD HE POSSIBLY BE???”

Gil Thorp, 11/22/06

You know, if I were Liz Ritter’s mom, I’d care less about some imagined defects in Stormy Hicks’ character and more about the fact that he’s a whiny little brat. “Waaah, everybody is paying attention to me and judging me all the time, waah waah waah.” If you haven’t been following Gil Thorp, words cannot even describe how uninterested I am in telling you how we got to this point. I mostly wanted to point out the dude half-heartedly doing the robot in the first panel, and say that “Liz Ritter all but forces Stormy Hicks to go to The Bucket” may be the greatest sentence every constructed in the English language.

Hi and Lois, 11/22/06

Since Lois is a classic cartoon stick figure, I’m not even going to get into the horrifying body issues going on here. I’m more intrigued by the fact that Hi is sitting unshaven, unkept, and decidedly unattractive on the bed in his old man pajamas, while Lois is parading around in what appears to be a football jersey over a slip. Presumably it’s the uniform of the local high school quarterback, who she’s banging on the side because her schlub of a husband can’t satisfy her.

Mark Trail, 11/22/06

Oh, man, say what you will about the interminable buildups in Mark Trail, but once the action starts, it does not disappoint. Check out the flying strands of mullet in panel two. It almost makes up for the semantic nightmare of a sentence coming out Mark’s mouth in panel three.

Mary Worth, 11/22/06

Ye cats, Mary has expressed a genuine human emotion! It’s only in thought balloon form, of course, and it’s evil, but it’s a start. Still, it’s kind of condescending of her to offer to run errands for Ella right after Ella makes a point of saying that she’s not an invalid. Maybe Mary will grab “Citizen Cane” (so awful, yet so awesome) as she heads out the door to make sure the new biddy knows who’s boss.

Yeah, that’s real funny, smart guy. I can’t wait to come back hours from now, when you’re still holding that balloon up in the air like a jackass.

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Hi and Lois, 11/14/06

Wow, I’m pretty sure I didn’t know that Hi’s boss was named “Mr. Foofram.” That’s, um, wacky. Note to humor professionals: wacky does not equal funny.

I note a lot of energy has gone into depicting the angry blobs of saliva emitting from Mr. Foofram’s mouth and portrayed on-screen at Casa Hi and Lois thanks to the wonder of the Internet. Disgusting also does not equal funny.

Mary Worth, 11/14/06

“Tuna casserole? I love tuna casserole! But what does that have to do with this tray of kitty litter you’re shoving at me?”

Momma, 11/14/06

When someone who can’t really draw people very well tries to depict an especially attractive person, I find it particularly sad.

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They’ll Do It Every Time, 9/26/06

The main gripe in today’s TDIET is ludicrously pointless (contractors sometimes overextend themselves and take longer to finish things than you think they will oh no oh no whatever shall we do) but I’m intrigued by one of the comments from the peanut gallery at the right of the frame: “Those are the same two guys who built the pyramids.” What on earth is this supposed to mean? That they’re immortal and unimaginably old? That they’re sinister Egyptians? That the pyramids, like this Long Island in-law addition, were vast projects that took years to complete and were intended to house mummified corpses?

I was going to rely on my ancient history master’s degree and, more importantly, my repeated viewings of the Ten Commandments to work out a riff about how the pyramids were actually built by tens of thousands of slaves who could just be whipped into submission if they tried anything funny like this, but I decided to quickly check the relevant Wikipedia article, which, since it’s written by thousands of know-it-alls with lots of free time, cannot be wrong, and I found out the following:

Two major theories surround the construction of the pyramids of Egypt. The first theory, suggested by the Greeks, posits that slaves were forced to work until the pyramid was done. A more widely accepted theory in the modern era, however, suggests that the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built by hundreds of skilled workers who camped near the pyramids and worked for a salary or as a form of paying taxes until the construction was completed.

Soooo, um, no whippings, I guess. Still and all, I imagine that none of these skilled workers ever lipped off to pharaoh about how the Tyrians wanted some Ba’al temples built, and the Nubians have this irrigation system they need overhauled, so they’d be back in a few days. But I don’t think we should lose sight of the larger picture here, which is: the little kid is making cracks about the pyramids, what the hell.

Judge Parker, 9/26/06

I continue to enjoy new artist Eduardo Barreto’s work on Judge Parker, but I also wish he’d pick a lettering style and stick with it. This one is an improvement over the previous font, though the fact that it seems to all be in italics makes it looks like everybody is shouting all the time. Which, who knows, maybe they are. All the dialogue seems to end in exclamation points, anyway.

Katherine Harris Parker may have gathered 1,500 signatures, but she managed to obliquelly bring up once more what appears to be Randy Parker’s Achilles’ heel in the bizarro-world that is Judge Parker: his unmarried status. At least Reggie Black has a wife, you … you … not-the-marrying-kind-if-you-know-what-I-mean-nudge-nudge-wink-wink! In real life, of course Randy’s family situation and sexuality would be irrelevant in his bid for the bench, but he would be unable to project the gravitas needed to be judge because everyone would be snickering about his being named “Randy.”

Hi and Lois, 9/26/06

For the record, the most recent changes to the MPAA rating system were the introduction of the PG-13 rating in 1984 and the changing of the X rating to NC-17 in 1990. OH MY GOD STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF!