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Kudzu, 12/14/05

The Lockhorns, 12/14/05

Ah, marriage! When it goes well, how sweet it is! How it fills both partners with joy and helps bring two souls together as one! And when it doesn’t … well, then it’s delicious fodder for laughs, laughs, laughs! As if the last few weeks of Mary Worth divorce drama hasn’t been enough to prove that, we’ve got not one but two marriage counselor strips today. This Lockhorns panel isn’t “funny” per se (unless we’re talking about the oblate spheroid that is Dr. Pullman’s head, which is funny, but not ha-ha funny), but at least it stays true to the strip’s overarchingly bleak tone and subject matter. Look at Loretta’s face. A lesser comic would have had her smirking triumphantly at the fact that she always gets the last word, or have her brow furrowed with rage that her foibles were being aired in a public forum. But the Lockhorns never feels a need to step back from the brink of the abyss, and so Loretta’s face is just one of numb depression: she and her husband can’t communicate, her marriage is killing her, and the overpriced, bald-headed sub-Freud across the desk isn’t going to say anything that’s going to fix it.

Similarly, today’s Kudzu is true to that feature’s usual M.O., which is to say that it’s perfectly happy to cast aside even its wafer-thin sense of internal cohesion in order to follow some half-assed joke idea to its not-funny conclusion. I mean, why are they … that is, what is it supposed to … or, why should we … oh, forget it, just forget it.

One thing I and millions of comics readers will never forget is this little gem from today’s Judge Parker:

Watch it, April, he’s just going to show you “the claw” later himself — and he hopes you’re going to like it!

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Kudzu, 12/2/05

So, what do you suppose the joke in this Kudzu is supposed to be about?

• Christian Scientists, who often refuse modern medical procedures in favor of spiritual healing practices.
• Some pharmacists’ refusal to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception and birth control pills on “moral grounds.”
• Some sort of bird-eating-bird cannibalism reference.
• Kudzu is an entirely humor-free medium, and thus has no needs for “jokes” that “make sense” or are “funny”.

Discuss.

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Gasoline Alley, Herb and Jamaal, and Kudzu, 10/5/05

There’s nothing that brings out humor better than the interplay of two opposing minds! Yes, it’s the back and forth between two different points of view, and the zingers that well-formed characters can throw back and forth at one another when they’re versed in each other foibles, that really form the core of sparkling wit — nay, heart the comedic enterprise itself.

Or, you know, you could just have three or four panels of some character talking or thinking to herself, with nobody else in sight. Your call, cartoonists!

The saddest thing about this Herb and Jamaal is that, since Mrs. Herb here (I forget her name … Peaches?) spends half the comic mentally rehashing what her husband said, the comic could just as easily been written with the miserly Herb speaking for himself. And maybe Mrs. Slim (I forget her name too … Jim?) is showing some sort of meta-awareness of her soliloquy by reminding us that we’re never really alone, what with the omnipresent LORD always listening in on our conversations. As for Doris the Parakeet … well, I’ve always found it to be a good policy to say as little about Doris the Parakeet as possible.