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Today’s comics contained something that we all should have expected, but that was nevertheless shocking and, to some, horrifying. Certainly everyone who loves newspaper comics strip is buzzing about it. I’m talking, of course, about today’s Snuffy Smith.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/13/08

Fellas! Of course, we all long to see our inamoratas in the super-classy see-through nighties of the kind found in mail-order catalogs and the Fredrick’s of Hollywood store. They’re hot because you can see your partner’s boobies but she’s still wearing clothes! But isn’t there something that isn’t quite perfect about those garments? Of course there is! They’ve been stitched together from some kind of non-edible artificial fiber, when they could be made out of delicious meat!

Seriously, this is one of the vilest things I’ve ever seen or read.

For Better Or For Worse, 3/13/08

Oh, also, Liz and Anthony are going to get married or whatever. You might think that this foobrosal (in the lovely formulation of faithful reader Gabe) is a bit lackluster; indeed the first three panels seem to merely depict two numb characters recognizing that the machinations of their universe are pushing them inexorably together, and that no free will they exercise could possibly change their preordained fate. But in panel four, said Foobiverse suddenly remembers that Liz is supposed to be happy about this, and you see her eyes glowing with some kind of creepy, supernatural illumination. Then she desperately tries to get Anthony to nuzzle her breasts. It won’t be the first time she fails.

Mary Worth, 3/13/08

Mary Worth’s flashback is finally underway, and we learn that Mary is totally OK with throwing around terms like “broken home” in 2008. We also learn that she was a hungry, hungry little urchin with a terrible haircut. Will this sequence end with young Mary in a back alley somewhere, desperately chewing on the bones of a stray dog that she killed with her bare hands? We can only hope!

Mark Trail, 3/13/08

Speaking of eating dogs, Mark Trail has apparently travelled to the big bad city with an agenda of handing out free puppies to eight-year-olds. I’m guessing that the sort of little kid who would write a passionate entry about pet ownership for a contest is exactly the sort of little kid whose parents won’t let have a dog. I sure can’t see anything going wrong this this plan! Also, since the magazine Mark writes for is named Woods and Wildlife and not Domesticated Animals, I’m hoping the “puppy” will actually be a wolf cub, or maybe a coyote pup.

Luann, 3/13/08

Ha ha! It turns out that when Brad heard his captain say he was bringing Toni to the ball, he meant that he was bringing Tony to the ball! Oh, the Three’s Company-style misunderstanding-derived hilarity!

This could be some sort of vaguely daring attempt to make a totally colorless supporting character in this comic gay; on the other hand, since he’s using the vague term “friend” and the battalion captain is bringing his sister, I suppose Tony really could be just his friend because, hey, they’re modern, sensitive new-age guys, and Tony always wanted to see what a real firefighter’s ball was like (and who wouldn’t)? Or, since Brad couldn’t tell “i” from “y” in speech, Tony Gale could really be Toni Gale anyway. I could get further into this, but I just realized that no matter how much I think about it, it isn’t going to get any more interesting, so I’ll stop.

Family Circus, 3/13/08

For those of you not up on the Shakespearean family drama beneath the surface of the Family Circus (and really, why would you be), Billy is actually based on strip creator Bil Keane’s son Glen, who is in fact an animator at Disney today; Jeffy is based on Jeff Keane, who has taken over the Family Circus from his dad. You could see this is some sort of dig at Glen for being a moron, but really a better way to go about that would have been something like, “Someday when I’m an animator at Disney, I’m going to help make a movie that will lose more than $100 million!”

UPDATE: Going over comments from the last thread, I see that the Spectacular Spider-Brick beat me to the “Foobocalypse now” joke … so a hat tip to the SSB as well!

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So many items of interest to you, the faithful reader, have built up over the past few days that I have bundled them together into a maga-metapost! Perhaps most important: I remind everyone who lives in, or who will be near to, the Tucson, AZ, area on March 7 that you will have an opportunity to meet me! And the lovely and talented Mrs. C.! And Bob Weber, Jr.! We’ll be meeting up at the Kon Tiki lounge at 6 pm (an hour earlier than my initial announcement). (UPDATE: Mrs. C. wanted me to make it clear that we’ll be having dinner.) Here’s the thing: I’m going to be making reservations, so if you plan on meeting up with us, it is imperative that you let me know so that I can make the reservation for the correct number of people! I’m going to make the reservations on Monday, so please e-mail me at bio@jfruh.com before then! Please? Pretty please?

Now, on to the other random bits o’ info!

• Most of you are familiar with the outrageously awesome Reynard Noir, which reimagines Slylock Fox as an ongoing old-school noir film. The site’s creator, Rob MacArthur, was recently interviewed by Kittysneezes.com. A fascinating look behind the scenes! The second part of the interview is where he starts really talking about his site.
• Speaking of Slylock Fox, Bob Weber, Jr., now has his own store at CafePress! I don’t get a cut of any of this stuff, but you should check it out anyway!
• I’ve been hearing rumblings for some time about the coming Luann-based musical, but it all seems to be coming to fruition; apparently there’s going to be a staged reading at San Diego’s New Village Arts Theatre this coming Monday. (Does a “reading” of a musical actually involve singing?) Any faithful readers in the area are desperately begged to attend and report!
• Finally, I’ve been meaning to share this picture and note for a while. Faithful reader Barry encountered Mark Trail himself in the comic strip section of Universal’s Islands of Adventure!

  

  

  “It felt blasphemous to turn Mark Trail’s mighty fist of justice against him,” Barry reports, “but the only way to pose the shot in its rightful Mark-Trail-beatdown-handing-out context would be to have him punching me in the crotch, and Mark keeps his punches above the belt. As any good naturalist should.” Barry also notes that “just up the street was the Spider-Man ride. I tried to stage something there, but couldn’t find any bricks or TV sets handy.”

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Marmaduke, 2/2/08

In the aftermath of the assassination of Julius Caesar, the great orator Cicero became the most important figure in the Roman Senate; after a brief period of political truce, he began a series of increasingly bitter public speeches against Marc Antony, Caesar’s political heir. While these speeches — the so-called Philippics — are regarded as masterpieces of oratory, they also goaded Antony so much that the fragile political peace that held in Rome collapsed; in the ensuing brief but nasty civil war, Cicero was captured and killed by one of Antony’s soldiers. His severed head and hands were displayed in the Roman forum, but legend has it that first Antony’s wife Fulvia berated his head and pricked his tongue with needles as revenge against the invective he had hurled against her husband.

This is a roundabout way of wondering why the hell we can see Marmaduke’s owner’s legs under the table but not Marmaduke’s. My guess is that the family has finally risen up against the tyrannical monster that has ruled their life for so long, and that the matriarch can now say everything she ever wanted to say while he was alive to his enormous, lifeless, detached skull.

Shoe, 2/2/08

I’m guessing Skyler is less than keen to hear about the young, vigorous body you once had, Perfesser. In fact, seeing as I’ve always pegged him as being somewhere in the 10 to 13 range, he probably is less than keen to get bedtime stories from you at all. However old he is, it’s good to see in panel three that he’s already mastered that heavy lidded, life-has-crushed me look that his uncle presents so regularly.

Since we only hear the beginning of this story, the mystery of what happened to Cosmo’s 28-inch waist will probably remain ever mysterious; I wonder if his reluctance to get out of his chair and actually walk to the child’s bedside to read his bedtime story is contributing factor to the loss of his slender middle or a result of the same.

Wizard of Id, 2/2/08

Earlier this week, the Wizard of Id did a particularly egregious variation on its long-running “torture is hilarious” theme, but for some reason I found that less troubling than this strip, in which it’s posited that the best way to end poverty is to physically assault poor people. We can see the unconscious (or possibly lifeless) body of the medieval hobo in the background of panel three, so obviously our brave hero hasn’t taken things to the logical conclusion and eaten him.

Luann, 2/2/08

Well, sure, dad, but you could be terrified and then crushed, which could cause permanent paralysis. Honestly, this is basic first aid that Brad should have learned in his fireman’s training.