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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.

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Archie, 4/30/07

I was going to say that coming up with a spoof of the Gap called “the Goop” was the funniest incidental gag I had yet seen in the Archie newspaper strip, but then I realized how very, very low my bar for this feature has been set and I got kind of depressed.

Either the Goop has wowed the fashion world this season with a new line of clothes made entirely out of lead, or the strain of trying to keep Riverdale’s hottest brunette and hottest blonde emotionally and sexually satisfied has sapped Archie’s man-essence and left him a feeble weakling. Either way, Dilton is rightfully horrified.

Mark Trail, 4/30/07

Some commentors seem to think that this supposed to be a response to my claims that Mark is gay; in fact, I’ve never asserted anything of the kind. Rex Morgan? Gay. Beetle and Sarge? Very gay. But Mark Trail? Mark is completely asexual. His desire for physical intimacy with other human beings regardless of gender is either entirely absent or buried so deeply by psychological trauma that he only gets aroused by peeping in on frogs and birds while they do it. Frankly, today’s strip does not disabuse me of this notion. I dare you to imagine Mark’s right hand in panel two as about to do something erotic without shuddering.

Ballard Street, 4/30/07

At first glance here, I assumed that Scooter was imitating his Wall Street heroes’ habit of celebrating business victories with a little nasally-ingested stimulation. I still think that version is funnier.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/30/07

I’m very excited about the potential feedback loop being set up here: Rex stalls Hugh, then Hugh says something condescending that makes him sound like a pompous jackass, which pisses Rex off and makes him all the more determined to delay him. This could go on for weeks, with each strip ending with a sitcom-style muted horn going “Wanh Wahn WANNNH”. Eventually, Rex will just be walking in place somewhere in the bowels of the garage, mime-style, while Hugh berates him.

This isn’t the first time someone’s let lose an aside like Hugh’s within earshot of Rex, though usually it’s in regard to his medical procedures. “I’m sure it’s the kidney … or maybe the liver?” “Well, which one is it man?” “Maybe it’s the spleen!” “Of all the incompetent…”

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Beetle Bailey, 4/29/07

The last four panels of this strip make up one of the saddest and most poignant little vignettes of homoerotic longing you’ll ever see. Denied their one outlet of physical contact, Beetle and Sarge take a long, wordless walk away from the base that defines their lives, through the countryside, through an enormous ice field in the middle of the city, and finally to some incredibly starry place of refuge. C’mon, guys, you’re miles away from anyone. You can at least let your hands touch.

Family Circus, 4/29/07

I am an unapologetically misanthropic bastard, but even I’m not such a sneering, above-it-all crank that I will hate on this cartoon. I will state now and for the record that I am and always have been pro-hugging. However, I do question the “silent performance” selling point of hugs that I’ve highlighted for you above. Is the fact that hugs are relatively quiet really one of their advantages over other forms of affection? Is their silence to be understood as their differentiator from loud, sloppy tongue kissing or boisterous slaps on the back? What if you and your intended hugging target are wearing raincoats, or pleather clothing, resulting in hugs that are squeaky? I’m all for hugs, but I’m just not sold on this angle, is what I’m saying.

Judge Parker, 4/29/07

Cedric is being remarkably blasé about the fact that his wife is a crazy crazy stalking lady, and whoever the word balloon on the right is coming from is way too ready to file her away under “good stalker,” but this cartoon is eight kinds of awesome for Neddy’s “Uh.. define insanely!” line. “Holy cow … I just got here” is a good runner up. “I mean, I was planning on cutting a swath through every married domestic in the Île-de-France région, but 48 hours a little fast even for me.”

Doodles by Mac and Sack, 4/29/07

I’m not going to get into the fact that this stupid damn koala (who is apparently named “Bosco” for some reason) has gotten himself tangled up in yet another larger, meaner beast’s digestive tract, or that, I wouldn’t have chosen Benedict Arnold as an archetypical liar (though I admit that his traitorous behavior probably involved a certain degree of dissimulation), or that what the Lying Lion is doing looks less like lying and more like smugly contemplating how exactly he’s going to prepare Bosco — in a nice white wine reduction sauce, perhaps — before devouring him. No, I want to point out, with disgust and disdain, the “what’s missing” panel, which I won’t even dignify with the name “puzzle.” Hmm, I wonder what’s wrong with this lion? Right number of toes … full, lustrous mane … two eyes … a tail … nope, I’m not seeing it.

Mark Trail, 4/29/07

God, first birds, now frogs. Sunday Mark Trails are a never-ending stream of filthy animal porn. I like to imagine that the formulation “a little romancing” was the end result of lengthy Pibgorn-style battle with the editors over acceptable content.