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Kudzu, 3/5/05

Just in case you were wondering.

Kudzu is the most egregious (but by no means the only) perpetrator of what I like to call Vacation Cloud syndrome. Were you ever forced to sit through the slides or photos of someone’s tropical vacation, where they insist on showing you all 219 pictures they took of tropical skies because “each one is so different”? And, I mean, you could spend the long time in studying the pictures, and eventually you would see that in there are subtle variations in the interplay of light and shadow that give each picture a unique feel. But you wouldn’t do that, because it would be a goddamn waste of time. Kudzu is a little like that: I’m sure that each one of the “Spiritual Weatherman” or “Preacher Dunn Gives A Eulogy” or “Doris The Parakeet Watches TV” strips has its own individual charms, but, really, will the payoff be worth the effort in figuring out the subtleties? Sadly, the answer is no.

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Well, no doubt like many of you, I got swept up in holiday madness last week, and am still playing catch-up in the non-gorging-on-turkey aspects of my life. What with the two Thanksgiving dinners, the Christmas gift exchange with the cousins, the rousing chorus of folk songs from the labor movement, the avant-garde play performed by elementary school children, and the specter of 24 straight hours of uncontrollable vomiting hanging over it all (what, your week wasn’t like that?) I haven’t had time to read the comics so you don’t have to. In both the spirit of the holiday and a desperate attempt to play catch-up, I offer you a week’s worth of comics and corresponding sentence-long things that I’m thankful for.

B.C., 11/23/04

I’m thankful that B.C., having already pissed off both Muslims and Jews, is now going after the Irish, ensuring its departure from the comics pages any day now.

Dilbert, 11/24/04

I’m thankful that public discourse has coarsened to the extent that the phrase “cow’s butt” can now be printed in the comics pages, because I think cow butts are funny.

Beetle Bailey, 11/25/04

I’m thankful that Beetle Bailey has discovered postmodernism, at long last.

Mary Worth, 11/26/04

I’m thankful for Boston, because they rock, man.

Family Circus, 11/27/04

I’m thankful that at least one member of this family is beginning to question the oppressive patriarchal suburban hell in which she lives.

Doodles by Mac and Sack, 11/28/04

I’m thankful that Mac and/or Sack were polite enough to add “please” to their request that I add horns and a bell to the grazing bovine in the bottom middle panel, though I admit that I could have done without the freakish hula-hooping cow above it.

Kudzu, 11/29/04

I’m thankful to Bill O’Reilly, who’s provided days and days of jokes to desperate comic strips everywhere.

B.C., 11/30/04

And now the handicapped. Yep, any day now…

Oh yeah, and one last thing I’m thankful for is this Jonathan Franzen essay about Peanuts from the New Yorker. It’s, like, good and stuff.

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Kudzu, 11/19/04

Ah, Kudzu, never afraid to take on the tough, controversial topics. See, the strip sometimes takes a break from beating up on strawman caricatures of left-wing ideas to poke a little fun at prominent right-wing figures. Presumably this is to kowtow to the all-powerful liberals who run all aspects of this country (except for the Presidency, the Congress, and, coming soon, most of the Supreme Court). Anyway, proving once again that she’s the most pointless and out-of-place character in this strip, the parakeet (whose name I cannot be bothered to look up) manages to baffle America’s comics readership by (a) having a cell phone and (b) somehow, and for some reason, giving its number to Bill O’Reilly. (The fact that Bill O’Reilly wants to talk dirty on the phone to a bird will, sadly, not baffle America’s comics readership.)

Anyway, I thought I’d put this punchline to better use than Kudzu’s making of it:

For more wholly inappropriate Family Circus recaptioning, check out Bob’s Family Circus over at martyz.com.