Post Content

Faithful reader Angela Petteys, along with Richard Jones and Brian Parker, whose status as faithful readers I am unclear on, have produced this … this … well, all I’m going to say is that it’s a preview for The Lockhorns: The Movie and it’s hilarious.

This was the product of some sort of student TV show up at Ferris State, where they all go to school. All I can say is that when I went to college, there was a lot more studying and partying and a lot less making fun of the Lockhorns. It’s a brave new world out there, kids.

Also, this is funny in a sort of navel-gazing way. Faithful reader yellojkt, commenting on this Mark Trail, speculated that Rick and Kelly were setting up the camera for pics to be posted on NaughtyNatureLovers.com, then expressed hope that said URL didn’t actually post to a real site … and then, well, then faithful reader Chaz Larson did this. Hope your servers can handle the load, Chaz! UPDATE AS OF JUNE 4, 2010: An archive-diving reader has just alerted me that this link now points to … an actual porn site. It was inevitable! BE WARNED BEFORE YOU CLICK.

Post Content

Baldo, 9/20/06

Baldo is one of those strips that I like enough to read every day, but it’s almost never so exciting that it gets mentioned here. This week there’s some serious oddness going on, though, as the title teen attempts to romance a bottle of conditioner. It was weird enough when it happened yesterday; its recurrence today is starting to freak me out. The fact that Baldo’s hair retains its perfect shape even in the shower may go to show just how intimate he is with hair-styling products.

Beetle Bailey, 9/20/06

One of the odder recurring bits in Beetle Bailey is Beetle’s extremely intermittent relationship with Miss Buxley. Although they are occasionally seen going out together or even holding hands, they seem to be perpetually on a second or third date. This is to my knowledge the first time that Private Bailey has even tried to get to first base with the buxom secretary, and the dialogue around the attempt is particularly bizarre. I myself have never been in the army, but I did go to public school, and so I know a thing or two about old water fountains, and if Miss Buxley thinks that the techniques needed to get water out of one makes a man a “good kisser,” then she’s much, much kinkier than I ever gave her credit for.

Actually, the more I think about it, Miss Buxley is probably not complimenting Beetle for trying to suck her liver out through her windpipe by asking him if he’s a man-whore, but rather saw him coming at her face with his lips ludicrously extended and is trying to come up with something — anything — to say to distract him from his advances. This fits in better with their body language, in which he’s grabbing her by the elbows and she’s bracing herself against his chest, and with the fact that she’s way, way out of his league.

The Lockhorns, 9/20/06

don’t visualize it don’t visualize it don’t visuAAAARRRGGGH MY BRAIN MY BRAIN MY BRAIN

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.