Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 1/25/09

I’m having a bit of trouble understanding exactly what the idea is that sassy Montoni’s waitress Rachel is trying to get across in the final two panels. Is it “We cover up our anxiety about the quality of our food by aggressively insisting that you eat it at all and pretend to be enjoying it, even though you’ll probably suffer a massive heart attack about halfway through, because of the grease?”

I am not, however, having a hard time following what’s happening on this date. Apparently, earlier Cayla told Les, in a sultry voice and with hooded eyes, that she “didn’t want to be good anymore.” Naturally, he interpreted this as somehow relating to her diet, so he took her to his artery-busting place of part-time employment. The fact that he thinks he’s impressing her by throwing his weight around at the local fast-food place, where he took an afterschool job not because he needed the money but because he was lonely and wanted to spy on his teenage daughter, tells you everything you need to know the direction in which this date is going.

Phantom, 1/25/09

The current Sunday Phantom storyline has featured Kani, a juvenile delinquent from the mean streets of Mawitaan, being rehabilitated by the Phantom and his cheerful children. Today Kani learns a few lessons that will do him well in the tough, gang-ridden environment where he grew up: that punches with padded gloves will easily best men with guns (this coming from the only superhero I know who carries a pistol), and that when you land a particularly good punch your opponents will remark favorably on your pugilistic skills. Surely if the big purple guy just wanted Kani offed, he could do it more efficiently than this; presumably this is part of some elaborate reality-prank show, where Kani will get gunned down in an alley on his first day back home and then they’ll play a muted-horn wanh wanh WANNNNH.

Slylock Fox, 1/25/09

The main Slylock Fox mystery isn’t particularly interesting to me today (he’s going to eat the fortune? really?) but I am charmed by the puzzle in the strip’s top layer. Presumably, Grandpa has set up this elaborate brain-teaser to make his grandkids feel bad both about their intellectual limitations and about forgetting his birthday. “So you know the birthday cards you get every year with a $20 bill inside? Well, you can forget seeing any more of those. That’s now what I call ‘Grandpa’s bourbon fund.'”

Mark Trail, 1/25/09

Coloring madness during the week (and yes, I do intend to follow up with you nice people who contacted me about it, I swear) can at least be explained by the fact that the Monday-through-Saturday strips are drawn and colored by different people, who don’t necessarily speak to one another. That doesn’t help answer the question of why this Sunday strip features what appear to be pigeons bearing parakeet markings. Presumably next week’s nature lesson will be about wild mushrooms: which are OK to eat and which are OH MY GOD THE COLORS THE COLORS.

Post Content

Mark Trail, 1/24/09

A few days ago, we saw Patty get slapped around by her husband for the simple crime of letting a filthy, disease-ridden deer wander around in their house, pooping everywhere. I couldn’t bring myself to make a funny about domestic violence at the time, but I knew that Mark would eventually be called upon to deliver the righteous punches to Patty’s cruel spouse. And yet today, we see that Mark is in fact equally heartless, though the blows he lands won’t leave marks. “Say, I think it would be interesting to write an article about how bringing wild animals into your house is a terrible idea, for you and the animal! Let’s go take an extensive series of pictures of our idiot friend who did just that, and then run them in the article, with big captions that say ‘MORON’ and ‘ANIMAL ABUSER’! We won’t tell her what the article’s about until it’s published. I’m sure her husband will react positively to seeing her foolishness in print for everyone to see!” It’s about time this strip took on the power-hungry liberal media, represented by Mark Trail, who will stop at nothing to get his pointless stories for his stupid magazine read by nobody.

Gil Thorp, 1/24/09

I was in a creative writing class my senior year of college, and one of the my classmates wrote a story about a girl who was always looking in her bedroom mirror and thinking she was fat, and eventually she developed an eating disorder and died, and afterwards her mother realized that the mirror was bowed outward a bit in the middle, making her look fatter than she really was. We were not kind to that story when it came time for the peer review; and yet, when I moved out of my tiny studio apartment that summer, I discovered that my only full length mirror was in fact bowed outward just as the story described, and while I had not become a desperate bulimic or anything, I had been worried about what I perceived as my encroaching portliness.

My point is that young people are dumb and that this scheme, in which a perfectly healthy Bryce will be flimflammed into trying out for the basketball team against his wishes with Photoshop trickery, is actually halfway plausible. Bryce’s sister just wants him to join the team to make friends and get out of his funk, but I hope she’s happy when he commits himself to a grueling 18-hour-a-day workout schedule and limits his daily meals to a few pieces of diet bread. After he drops dead of starvation in mid-layup, his life story will be dramatized as the made-for-TV film Please, Bryce, Eat! presented as a special event on local public access cable, hosted by Marty Moon.

Dennis the Menace, 1/24/09

Good lord, look at Mr. Wilson’s pants — they’re obviously designed for a man at least six inches taller than he is now. The poor bastard isn’t sad about Dennis’s sub-menacing chicanery; he’s obviously realized that he’s shrinking rapidly, and will soon be no taller than his irritating houseguest, only to subsequently vanish altogether.

Post Content

Family Circus, 1/15/09

I don’t have kids, so I have to turn to pop culture to find out what the quiet little moments of parenting are like. So, a question for you out there who have successfully reproduced: do you like to stand in the doorway of your kid’s room while he’s doing his homework, staring at him for hours while he pores over his multiplication tables or whatever, as you desperately try to will the knowledge into his brain, hoping against hope and all evidence thus far that he isn’t a drooling submoron but actually a vaguely competent person who will be able to earn enough to support you in your old age? And all the while, he’s sitting there, looking at his workbook but not really reading it, thinking, “Really? Are they just going to stand there, looking at me, until I finish this? Don’t they have hobbies? Don’t they have somewhere to be? How on earth am I supposed to concentrate? Maybe if I do some cheesy silent-movie ‘I’ve got an idea!’ move, they’ll go downstairs and watch TV!'” Because if that’s the case, that … that seems kind of creepy, is all.

Crock, 1/15/09

Ha ha, you see, it’s funny, because it wouldn’t make any sense for them to sing about a boat, because they’re in the middle of the desert … er … or maybe they’re on the beach … next to the ocean … where, um, a cow’s skull is floating…

OK, that’s the last straw. This, combined with this, has left me determined to get to the bottom of this coloring nonsense. Who colors this stuff? Do they not speak English? Do they hate their jobs, and/or the comics? I know you comics industry people lurk out there, so: do you draw a comic that gets colorized, or work for a newspaper or syndicate or something where coloring occurs? Write to me! I shall present my findings for the world’s edification!

Marmaduke, 1/15/09

Things are getting pretty bad over at the Marmaduke’s Ownerses. Mr. Owner can only sit rooted to the spot in terror, knowing that the moment he moves he’ll be torn to pieces by his man-killing dog. His wife, meanwhile, can’t even bring herself to say the word “Marmaduke,” terrified that she’ll attract his attention — and his ravenous appetite — if she does.

Mark Trail, 1/15/09

“I think Ken is in the lumber business, but she doesn’t talk about him! But I do often hear her talk about a man named ‘Buck,’ and she always seems very happy when she brings him up. I hate to cast aspersions on her, but maybe she’s having an affair with this ‘Buck’ fellow! Oh, also, did I mention she’s fucking a deer?”

Seriously, Mark Trail, I was going to lay off on the bestiality jokes, but if this is how you want to play, I say BRING IT.

Cherry and Mark, meanwhile, have marital problems of their own. Mark actually admitted to noticing Cherry’s different hair, so Cherry is pushing her luck by wearing her sexy electric blue western wear. This can only end in tears.

Shoe, 1/15/09

“Also, while Olivia and I were playing doctor, she got pregnant!”

(Seriously, I always thought Skyler was a little old to be playing house. I guess it’s hard to establish the ages of your characters when they’re mostly mouthpieces for wry jokes written by and for grownups, and also when they’re birds.)

Oh, and: all your votes did not go for naught! For I am your 2008 Weblog Awards Best Humor Blog winner! Here, here’s an enormous graphic announcing my victory:

I promise I will not harass you to vote for me again! Unless I get nominated for something else. THEN ALL BETS ARE OFF.