Post Content

They’ll Do It Every Time, 3/23/07

See, here’s the thing about the classic “send in your ideas to get them turned into a comic” comics: you never really know what’s going to happen to them after you send them in. They might get through almost entirely unfiltered, except that you end up in a vest or with a bow in your hair or something; on the other hand, you things might get so twisted around that they become completely unrecognizable. For instance, I have a hard time imagining that a “number of wives all over the U.S.A.” wrote Al Scaduto to say, “Ha! It used to be that I would harass my husband all the time for working for a living while I sat around doing nothing … but now that he’s retired, the very sight of him disgusts me! Ha! I guess I’m just a fickle, controlling shrew!” On the bright side, it looks like we’re about to get some hi-larious wife-beating action.

Mark Trail, 3/23/07

Wow, I’ve never seen Mark so depressed, so downcast, so … upset and confused. All because of one little hook from the bottom of a boat. That hook made him feel worse than he did watching his old army buddy drown and die. Maybe it’s his Rosebud, his madeleine, bringing his mind back to a past that’s now lost, a better time, when he didn’t have to live with a dumb girl and her creepy old dad and a moronic adopted son, when it was just him and his vast collection of hooks and screws, and he was happy.

Ziggy, 3/23/07

AUUUUGGGHHH ZIGGY OWNS SAILOR MOON UNDERWEAR MUST NOT VISUALIZE NOOOOOOOO

Post Content

B.C., 3/16/07

Ha ha! It’s funny because his wife talks a lot, and he’s tired of it, even though he presumably knew she talked a lot when he married her, so he’s got her tied up in the basement with duct tape over her mouth!

Wait, did I say “funny”? Because I meant “horribly offensive.” But see, when he calls her some 19th century term of abuse like “magpie,” it’s all old-timey, so we can just ignore it. Ha ha, that Johnny Hart! That crusty old hateful bastard! Ha!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/16/07

Wait, now hold on just a darn minute. Niki might be pretty good at garage cleaning and such, but there is one — exactly one — person in this neck of the woods who works on fence-related issues. One. And I think we all know who that is:

Hopefully, that’s him at the door right now, to set things straight and present a grossly inflated estimate.

(Baffled Rex-Morgan-readers-come-lately should check out this classic post.)

Apartment 3-G, 3/16/07

You know what offends me about Apartment 3-G? It’s set in New York, right? Now, I don’t live there, but I do love the place. It’s one of those cities in the world that has a really strong sense of place: if you’re there, you know you’re there, and nowhere else. Unless, of course, you’re in Apartment 3-G, which could take place literally anywhere that’s full of tall buildings and white people. The Apartment 3-G girls never take the subway, or a taxi. (Even Neddy and Abbey are taking the Paris Métro, for God’s sake.) They never eat at any of the many famous, recognizable restaurants at their disposal. Starving artist Lu Ann never visits any of the world-class art galleries. And Neil is getting great reviews in the “local press.” I think the world could handle the name of one or more of the major New York papers, people. You can look them up on the Internet even.

Mark Trail, 3/16/07

YEARRRRGGGHH HUGE SOULLESS TERRIFYING EYES SCARY SCARY SCARY NOOOOOOOO

Mary Worth, 3/16/07

YEARRRRGGGHH MARY INQUIRING ABOUT SOMEBODY’S SEX LIFE SCARY SCARY SCARY NOOOOOOOO

Post Content

Mark Trail, 3/11/07

Holy smokes, this is one of the bestest “Mark Trail Teaches You About Nature And Crap” Sunday Mark Trails ever! None of the usual “Aren’t animals interesting/endangered/cute” nonsense today; instead, we get a crazed gang of killer elephants, harassing a pair of fleeing stereotypically garbed natives, flinging some red-shirted white dude across the savannah, and molesting a field of innocent sweet potatoes like so many 15,000-pound gophers. Mark himself, who usually strolls fearlessly into the frame to narrate as his chosen beast of the week menaces the nameless extras who are clearly desperate to break into the comics, has wisely chosen to stay safely off-camera when it comes to the tusked menace that is the elephant.

I’m guessing that the strong elephantaphobic slant of today’s strip was made possible from a large check from the International Federation of Ivory Harvesting Professionals.

For Better Or For Worse, 3/11/07

Yes, the whole point of this overcontrived family drama was to make John think that his wife was shaving her nether parts in front of several of her children; and yes, it’s both horrifying and kind of shamefully funny. I mostly want to point the second panel, which would make an excellent LiveJournal icon to sit atop the phrase “Mood: Suicidal”.

The Phantom, 3/11/07

I haven’t been covering the current Sunday Phantom storyline at all, because it’s pretty dull; it has centered some kind of weird temporal anomaly that has allowed the Ghost-Who-Violates-The-Laws-Of-Physics to interact with a group of gangsters from the ’30s who have been trying to stop a thinly veiled Amelia Earhart stand-in from making an historic flight of some sort. I’m kind of intrigued by the last panel, in which the very married Big Purple Guy allows the comely aviatrix to rest a hand on his enormous left pectoral muscle; I guess his logic is, “Hey, it’s 1937, I’m not going to be married for about 50 years, so anything goes!”

(UPDATE: Thanks to several commentors who pointed out to me that “Beryl Markham” is not actually some made-up character meant to avoid a lawsuit from Amelia Earhart’s estate, but a real person who actually lived in East Africa. I never should have doubted this, as the Phantom’s devotion to authenticity is notorious. Also, time travel is real.)

Curtis, 3/11/07

I could point out that Gunk’s “balloons” look remarkably like condoms, or that while “FOOO!” is a legitimate onomatopoeia, “TWIST!”, “BEND!”, and “SHAPE!” are not. My main concern, however, is that Gunk has used his devilish Flyspeck Island powers to create living beings out of inanimate matter, only to force them to end their short lives in a mercy killing and suicide. The face-flop is a usual exaggerated Curtis response to a joke, but here I hope that our protagonist is weeping openly at the sadistic little performance he was just forced to watch.