Post Content

Gil Thorp, 5/10/07

As part of my cantankerous mission to defend the indefensible, I’d like to speak up for the art in Gil Thorp. I won’t attempt to justify the baffling action sequences, or claim that a reasonable person can tell who the hell anybody is. But if there’s one thing that Gil Thorp does well, it’s smug. I draw your attention to the Central slugger in the first panel and invite you to imagine his internal narrative. “Ah ha! Another snail-slow meatball of a pitch from Jim Gross that I’ve just blasted over the far fences! I think I’ll stand here and follow its trajectory into the next county for a bit, then let the bat slowly and casually slip from my fingers before I begin my stately trot ‘round the bases! La di da!”

For a previous instance of Thorpian smuggery, I urge you to check out this post from two years ago, when I was still new to the ways of Milford athletics. This post prompted the following hilarious comment from faithful reader Incident, which still makes me chuckle:

What really makes this strip is Von Haney’s crazy diagonal smug leaning pose. I know in my heart he’s going to keep doing it throughout the entire game, ergonomics be damned, because he’s JUST THAT HARDCORE about being smug. Sally Forth is his bitch.

(Speaking of funny things other people are saying about Gil Thorp, I’m pretty sure I’ve already linked to This Week In Milford, but if you aren’t already reading it, you really should be.)

Blondie, 5/10/07

Speaking of smug, panel one of today’s Blondie screams “I’m white, middle-aged, and self-satisfied, how ya doin’?” so loudly that I sort of want to smack Dagwood, and I’m not even a particular fan of hip-hop. Fortunately, in the rest of the strip he makes a quick and gratifying descent into insanity.

Mark Trail, 5/10/07

Yes, sexy Sam the sexy biologist just couldn’t get rid of all the birds — not even with a constant series of controlled explosions (scroll down a bit) — so she just DESTROYED THE WETLANDS WHERE THEY LIVED! And, as a double bonus, they were able to build a mall on the former swamp! Win-win! It’s a good thing Mark Trail could never ever punch a woman, because otherwise Sam Hill would be in big trouble. In fact, I’m not convinced she is a woman, what with her disturbingly masculine first name. I think she’s a male Mark Trail villain, and her “breasts” are where she’s hiding her facial hair.

By the way, if you think “bird strikes” are only a problem in the funny pages, think again!

Mary Worth, 5/10/07

Yes, after a big blow-out over “some silly matter” (Vera won’t tell Mary anything more, so you just know it was something awful she did), Vera was flung bodily out of the vinyl-sided family mansion onto the lawn! In a driving drizzle! With nothing but her hideous periwinkle and purple outfit and tiny, tiny handbag! And from that day forward, she swore she’d express all her aggressive and negative impulses in thought balloon form! CURSES UPON YOU, VON!

Speaking of curses, I’m still mostly averting my eyes from the horror of Funky Winkerbean, but for those of you who think that the person on the other end the hilarious Lisa-really-does-have-terminal-cancer-after-all swapped-scans mix-up has had all of his or her problems solved, think again.

Post Content

Herb and Jamaal, 5/7/07

I had pretty much written off the constant ambient friction between Herb and his mother-in-law as a true-to-life but still lame-as-narrative depiction of intergenerational extended family dynamics … that is, until today, when we get to see her relaxing over a smoldering cup of something or other and smiling blissfully as she reflects on the deaths of everyone else in her demographic cohort. I’m assuming that she probably killed all of them off one by one in single combat, a là the Highlander saga. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

I’m curious about the implement in her hand in panel two. If that’s supposed to be a toothbrush, I sure hope she can unhinge her jaw.

Sally Forth, 5/7/07

Cinematic foreshadowing alert: At the big banquet that will follow another inevitable losing season for Team Forth, Ted is going to beat his coaching nemesis to death with that bat.

Slylock Fox, 5/7/07

A lot of people hate on the obscure clues in Slylock Fox, but you know what? Not all mysteries are there to make you feel good and clever when you solve them. Sometimes they should challenge your brain, or even introduce you to new knowledge that you can take with you. Kids gotta learn the difference between oil-based paint and water-based paint sometime; why not in this harmless context, rather than during the brutal entrance exams for that elite private preschool you’ve got your eye on?

I’m more concerned about this strip’s relentless class-based hatred. Sure, Shady is nothing but Poor Shrew Trash, as you can tell by his broken window, prominently displayed sock, discarded chicken leg and fish skeleton, and various dark-nook-inhabiting beasties. But hey, he’s trying to get his house as nice looking as his neighbors with his latex paint, all right? The fact that the “good” neighbor is an elephant just makes the strip’s heavy-handed pro-Republican agenda more obvious.

By the way, don’t frogs breathe through their skin? Our aggrieved critter is going to be comically indignant for another minute or so, and then drop dead.

Mark Trail, 5/7/07

Sam Sam Sam Samantha Sam Sam Sam SAMANTHA Sam Sam Sam Sam Samantha Sam Sam Sam Samantha Hill Sam sam (Sam sam SAM HILL Sam) SAM Samantha Sam, Sam, Sam Hill, Sam largest breasts and bust-to-waist ratio ever to appear in Mark Trail Sam Sam Sam SAM.

Speaking of large breast-to-waist ratios: Pibgorn returns May 14th, and will be appearing at gocomics.com (aka the Universal Press Syndicate’s Web site). More information can be found on the Internet — specifically, the Brooke McEldowney’s blog part of the Internet.

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 5/5/07

Oh, poor Lu Ann. We all knew you were boring, but did they really have to rub your face in it with this pathetic display as your boring, boring life flashed before your eyes? For the record, here are the last faces Lu Ann will see before she casts off this mortal coil and is swept up into Albert Pinkham Ryder’s celestial art sweatshop:

• Margo, who has repeatedly failed to check up on Lu Ann when prompted due to laziness and/or self-absorption.
• Tommie, who has repeatedly failed to check up on Lu Ann when prompted due to crippling self-loathing-induced agoraphobia and/or bad cell phone reception.
• Professor Papagoras, who has repeatedly failed to check up on Lu Ann when prompted due to the fact all his time is now taken up screwing a 22-year-old.
• Lu Ann’s cousin Blaze, who hasn’t been sidetracked from checking up on Lu Ann because it never occurred to him to do so in the first place, and who also wears a stupid cowboy hat at all times.
• Lu Ann’s ex-boyfriend Alan, who had a cruel, immature freakout when he learned that Lu Ann had been engaged before he had met her, and who then gave her the keys to the evil haunted studio, and who has repeatedly failed to check up on Lu Ann when prompted due to peripatetic self-hatred. Lu Ann will miss him most of all, echoing Dorothy’s parting words to the brainless Scarecrow.

Figures not pictured in Lu Ann’s death fugue include:

• Her parents.
• Any other family members, including supposedly beloved cousin or niece or whatever Mim.
• Her beloved now deceased husband, Mr. Powers, a fighter pilot shot down over Vietnam years ago.
• Her former fiancé, what’s-his-name the billionaire janitor who went on to marry Margo’s rich client.
• FBI Pete, the boyfriend she stole from Margo, the one with the dyslexic daughter she loved so much.

In fact, Lu Ann’s dying moments have proven a remarkable ability to elide out her former relationships. I guess it will make things simpler when they all aren’t waiting for her in Dumb Girl Heaven.

Momma, 5/5/07

Good lord, but the youth of today irritate me with their twee, retro sensibilities. As if obsessing over vinyl records weren’t bad enough, now they’re all going in for antique cell phones from the mid-1980s, each one the size of a brick and sporting an eight-inch antenna. Damn kids!

Also, note to everybody: STOP THRUSTING YOUR PELVIS AT MARK TRAIL. HE DOES NOT ENJOY SEXUAL RELATIONS. HE WILL NOT RESPOND TO YOUR ADVANCES.