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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.

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Beetle Bailey, 5/3/07

Sarge’s attempts to avoid attachments with women while remaining ambiguous about his own preferences are becoming increasingly heart-rending. Even his faithful dog is trying to get him paired off into safe, Army regulation-approved heteronormality.

Archie, 5/3/07

You’re close, Archie-Laugh-Generating-Joke-Unit 3000, but the punchline is only funny if Archie is actually doing something positive for Mr. Lodge, albeit accidentally. Otherwise it’s just a baffling nonsequitur, or an implication that Archie is a Christ-like figure with mystical healing powers, neither of which are ideal.

Family Circus, 5/3/07

Oh, they start them young with the arbitrary gender markers in the Keane household, yes sir.

Blondie, 5/3/07

Speaking of gender arbitrariness, I’m sure Blondie is just thrilled that Dagwood’s chronic narcolepsy suddenly means that she has to cook breakfast for three. I imagine she’s just getting that pan nice and searing hot before she starts braining people with it.

For Better Or For Worse, 5/3/07

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Wait, that’s not really fair. It’s hard to work yourself up to ask someone out, and … no, hold on, I was right the first time. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Also, Mark Trail has consisted of a lot of nattering about birds and airports and crap like that for the last few days, but I thought you’d be interested in a certain similarity of body language between today’s final panel and a strip from last week:

Damn, everybody wants a piece of this handsome outdoorsman!

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For Better Or For Worse, 5/1/07

Actually, I’m pretty sure I can’t say it any better than I did on the previous metapost: AAAAHHHH NOOOO THE MUSTACHE NOOOO.

The dialog in the first couple of panels is a little hard to parse, but it seems to be implying that Elizabeth is a bridesmaid, yes? That’s nice, considering that Shawna-Marie last appeared in the strip more than two years ago (at which time I quite gratuitously called her a “Québécois hillbilly”), and then appeared only as a vehicle to talk shit about the Mustache’s wife.

I also like the quote marks around “cream.” That way we know she’s really saying “slut.”

Archie, 5/1/07

Ah, Archie-Laugh-Generating-Joke-Unit 3000, someday you’ll pass that Turing test! But today is not that day, my bleeping mechanical friend. Obviously, the teacher’s gist is not hard to follow, but apparently the ALGJU 3000 was given some kind of upper limit to the number of words to its punchline, since the joke has been compacted into a sentence no human would ever utter.

It’s a good thing the word balloon was kept small, though, as otherwise we wouldn’t be treated to that vast expanse of empty wall.

Gil Thorp, 5/1/07

Surely Clambake’s “home remedy” will involve some ungodly country-style poultice made out of cornstarch and crawdad juice, but I’d love to see him say, “Here’s my home remedy: get the ball over the damn plate, kids. Now go get Clambake some whiskey.”

Judge Parker, 5/1/07

Here’s my new nickname for Cedric: He’s the butler who shared too much. Cedric, I know you’re all young and hip and a “new generation of domestic servant” or whatever, but the whole point of being a butler is that you completely fade into the background. No sign of your personality should be evident to those for whom you buttle (note: “buttle” is an actual verb). If you must have a sex life, it should revolve around service to your employer, as Groves’ does. At no point should a simple heavily-armed back alley rescue-and-extraction devolve into an animated description of your various kinks and/or fears about mortality. With this kind of attitude, you’re going to remain a temp forever.

And now, a couple of jokes about Cedric’s freaky-looking right hand in panel three.

Joke one: I’d be worried about growing old too if the arthritis in my hand were as bad as Cedric’s!

Joke two: In panel three, Cedric is flashing the sign of his gang, the “Cradle Robbers.”

Mark Trail, 5/1/07

Poor Rusty doesn’t understand that he’ll never be able to go anywhere with Mark. That’s why there’s the electric fence around the cabin: so that nobody in the outside world will accidentally look upon his hideous, misshapen face.

Marvin, 5/1/07

You know what would be funnier? If this joke were used in Momma!

See, Momma is often about an old woman and the old men who try to woo her and …

OK, you know what? That was probably over the line. I apologize. Carry on.