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Gil Thorp, 8/22/07

So, well, uh, I guess my hopes that this might be interesting, or make any damn sense at all, have pretty much been dashed at this point. Way to hold up under pressure there, Cliff. “I didn’t do it!” “We followed you!” “Aw, hell.” I am pretty impressed by Gail’s look of unbridled rage there in panel three. You do not want to get on the wrong side of the rock and roll Carole King, I tell you what. I guess the real lesson here is that shady dudes with Fu Manchu mustaches and a record of drug offenses are actually pretty cool guys! They sure wouldn’t leave passive-aggressive notes scattered around; they’d just insult you to your face.

(But it still doesn’t add up! With the money he earned touring, Cliff was able to buy a van! A van!)

Mark Trail, 8/22/07

Meanwhile, smack dab in the middle of the future site of the Lost Forest Hot Topic, Homer the friendly construction worker is about to take a stand to protect some baby ducks from the ravenous jaws of your so-called “progress.” It should come as no surprise that our duck-loving bulldozer operator is clean-shaven, while the stench of evil rising from his coworker is as thick as his no doubt matted beard. Fortunately, Mark Trail will soon be on the scene to explain what he learned from Sam Hill: once the developers finish draining the wetlands, birds won’t want to lay their eggs there anymore, and the problem is solved!

Momma, 8/22/07

The following sentence is one that I never, ever wanted to write, but I suppose in retrospect it was inevitable, so here goes: The frank sexuality in today’s Momma is deeply disturbing to me. It’s already been implied that Francis fancies himself a ladies man, much to Momma’s disgust. Presumably she assumes (no doubt with good reason) that Francis’s inability to hold down gainful employment probably indicates that he’s unable to operate a prophylactic, and that she has dozens of bastard grandchildren all over town. You’d think she’d be a little excited about the prospect: grandkids are usually idée fixe #1 of the Mommas of the world; she’s got none to brag about down at the senior center, other than little Chucky, who hasn’t appeared since his fateful trip to the bar with Francis, when he was presumably traded for beer.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 8/22/07

I’m not going to touch the political content of today’s TDIET (“Public education: A necessary institution in an equitable society, or an insatiable money pit?”). Instead, I’m going to outline the lottery-themed TDIET I’d like to see:

Governor Honcho calls a press conference to crow when he busts up Vito’s little numbers racket…

(“Step right in, gentlemen! Why not put a bit of scratch on 17 red? Only 35-to-1 odds! You could … aw, cheese it! The fuzz!”)

…but then who d’ya see on TV trying to get you to put a buck on the Big Payoff Lottery Scratch-Off? Do you have to ask? I don’t think so!

(“Million-to-one odds … and you could be that one! Why not cash your Social Security check to buy more? Every dime goes to education! Etc … etc …”)

Apartment 3-G, 8/22/07

OK, now they’re just fucking with us, with the hair.

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Herb and Jamaal, Shoe, and Six Chix, 8/15/07

Oh, hey, everybody! Did you hear that it’s iPhone day in the syndicated funny pages? No? Well, fortunately, these three team players did. Yes, there’s nothing that will help make the comics relevant to young people like jokes about a hot piece of electronic gear that was released to great fanfare and media hype eight and a half weeks ago. Actually, that’s close enough to what I imagine the comics lead time to be that it makes me think that someone got a look at gadget-hungry types waiting camped out in the streets outside Apple Stores and thought “comedy gold!” And thank goodness we’ve finally got to see the results.

Herb and Jamaal has worked its cutting-edge cell phone joke into a storyline involving a hip young priest who’s been sent to clear out the clerical deadwood from the diocese of wherever the hell it is that Herb and Jamaal takes place. This might be interesting, except that nothing that ever happens in this strip is remotely interesting, so this won’t be interesting either. I like the way that “hip” is signified by the earring and the indoors sunglasses — he’s like Herb and Jamaal’s Coach Kaz! Though with less propensity for violence, hopefully. The strip is pandering to the newspaper comics’ core audience of angry old people by making this fellow as unlikable as possible; presumably he’ll be shuffled off to another diocese in disgrace soon enough, once the altar boys start complaining.

Shoe, meanwhile, manages to make no sense at all in its particulars, though it does manage to reflect the higher truth of its characters’ well-established personalities, since the Perfesser is well known for his food addiction. Six Chix thinks that the “a seashell is like a cell phone” joke somehow becomes funny when transformed into an “a seashell is like a particular, much-hyped kind of cell phone that was recently released” joke. For the record, it doesn’t.

B.C., 8/15/07

Just in case anyone’s wondering, the new, post-Johnny Hart’s death, assembled-from-existing-drawings B.C. is terrible. I’ve never been a huge fan of the feature, and I sort of have been waiting for the new team to find its bearings, but it’s kind of shocking how much worse it’s become. Today’s strip practically boggles my attempts to enumerate criticisms of it; I’ll start with the weird, mangled look of the figures in panel one (is this what happens when the new team deviates from pre-drawn templates?), the actively crude looking baseball and blimp, and the bizarre orthographic choice to end “Lookie, the blimp” with a period rather than an exclamation point. The saddest thing, as I’ve noted before, is that zombie B.C. is occupying space in hundreds of papers that could be used by someone trying to break into the comics business, or, failing that, by a nice ad for an auto dealership that would help the newspaper afford to buy more comics, or pay its copy editors.

Mark Trail, 8/15/07

Check out where Andy’s paw is going in panel three! Ha ha, Cherry, you’ve been rude-synonym-for-vagina-blocked! She knew that her one chance to have relations with her husband for the fifth time since their wedding was to hop on him the moment he got out of the car, while he was still disoriented; fortunately, Mark’s trained his faithful St. Bernard well to save him from the unpleasantness of physical love. Looks like Cherry’s got another night of furious masturbation in store while Mark blathers on about duck innards to her father!

The Lockhorns, 8/15/07

Actually, “Leroy” is French for … oh, you know what, just forget it.

Oh! And! Faithful reader Flipper earned that virtual penny and more with this utterly amazing Mark Trail squirrel montage. Are you ready to have your mind blown?

Also, faithful reader loudfan shares this evidence that Spider-Man is whoring himself out for the postal service. Thrill as he runs errands for Aunt May! Gasp as he surfs the Internet! Boggle as he puts a cold compress over his eyes, for some reason!

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Spider-Man, 8/14/07

You sort of get the feeling that the final panel is taking place in the Shocker’s tiny studio apartment, and we’re about twenty minutes into this. “Wait, hold on … ‘Look out, world — here comes the Shocker!’ Hmmm … no, I think that’s too much emphasis on the name, sounds egotistical. How about this? “Look out, world … heeeeere’s … the Shocker!’ No, God damn it, that’s derivative and corny. Stupid! So stupid! I’m never going to get this right!”

God bless faithful reader Tabby, who a while back posted a link to the Shocker’s character page at SpiderFan.org. Here are some delicious excerpts:

Real Name: Herman Schultz
Known Confidants: None
Education: Unknown, but probably a high school education
Strength Level: Normal human strength
Powers: None
Limitations: The Shocker has had severe problems with self-doubt.

Ha ha! No powers, no confidants, no super-powers, normal human strength, maybe a high-school diploma, and crippling self-doubt! Truly the creative team dipped deep into the reserves and found the perfect villain for the newspaper iteration of the Spider-Man mythos.

Mark Trail, 8/14/07

Boy, the ladies sure can’t get enough of Mark Trail! And who can blame them, what with his rugged good looks, corpse-like pallor, propensity for violence and vigilantism, disinclination to use contractions, and total disinterest in sex? Sam sure is keen to get with this hunky hunk of man-hunk: she’s even willing to go back to Lost Forest to have a three-way with his disturbing-looking wife while his hideously ugly son takes pictures.

By the way, for those of you who don’t remember the beginning of this interminable storyline, “clean up places that attract birds” is, no fooling, a euphemism for “pave over wetlands so that birds can no longer breed there.” Also, I’m reasonably sure that we’ve seen this spread-eagled squirrel before; a shiny virtual penny to whomever can discover him in the archives.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/14/07

OH MY GOD! ALAN HARRINGTON! THAT’S … wait, are we supposed to know who that is? Damn it, what was the point of introducing us to all those loser board members if the suspect wasn’t even memorable enough to remember?

Apartment 3-G, 8/14/07

COMICS COLORING COURSE, FINAL EXAM:

Q. OK, so you’ve got two characters in your soap opera strip. Both are male, white (of course! Ha ha!) 30s/40s-ish. Both are sandy-haired. So far you’ve managed to avoid having them appear in the strip at the same time, but now narrative logic demands that they meet. What do you do, hotshot? What do you do?

A. Yellow! Very, very yellow!

Eric Mills obviously had the same reddish hair color as Alan as recently as two weeks ago, but it’s worth noting that, when he was introduced last summer, his hair was black. Personally, I think that the process of dating (or “dating”) Margo is slowly but surely sucking the life essence out of him. His hair will be completely white by the end of the year.