Post Content

Blondie, 10/19/06

I think this may be a first for this blog, but I have to say that I really like the job the coloring drones did in today’s Blondie. The color of the leaves, with the red gliding into yellow, is quite lovely, and a nice change from other instances where the coloring seems to be done by people who don’t know that fall exists. Unfortunately, the colorer was so keen on the yellow that it got slathered all over the car, too, leaving it a hideous mustard. With colors, it’s all about context.

Question: Does Dagwood (or Herb, or what’s-her-name) ever drive in the carpool, or is it always glasses guy? Isn’t the point of a carpool that you rotate the driving duties? Jeez, he’s late all the time and he never offers to drive. Plus he often dozes off in the back seat, snoring and drooling, and probably smells like sandwiches. What a hump.

Popeye, 10/19/06

For longer than I care to remember, Popeye has been following a bizarre “generation gap” storyline whereby Sweet Pea (the Sailor Man’s adopted charge, who is capable of normal adult speech despite being incapable of walking upright) left home after a spat, finding his way back after many tedious adventures. Today, however, things perked up when Olive Oyl violently turned her years of suppressed sexual frustration on the hapless child. A brutally honest look at how having a baby can affect your relationships with other adults, or just deranged insanity? You be the judge.

Mark Trail, 10/19/06

The Perils of Molly just got more gut-wrenchingly perilous! As Mark and Officer Exposition continue their grindingly slow witty banter, the awesomely named Jake and Snake prepare a grim fate for our favorite bear. What puzzles me is that the rhyming duo seems to only now be waking up to the possibilities inherent in the lucrative overseas bear-organ market, yet they still took the trouble of putting a collar on her and keeping her in a pen rather than just killing her for their sick kicks the moment they found her. Maybe even for low-lifes like Jake and Snake, you have to be in the mood to murder a lovable bear in cold blood — like, you have to watch a bunch of bear-baiting videos first or something.

For the faint of heart, I’d just like emphasize that MOLLY IS GOING TO BE FINE. Mary Worth may have killed off Aldo, but the world of Mark Trail is too relentlessly Manichaean to allow evil (in the form of a mustachioed mullethead and his orangey friend) to triumph over good (in the form of a fuzzy, adorable bear who is so incapable of hostility that she can’t even understand it when it’s directed at her). The only question is, who is going to save her? Mark, dishing out patented Right Hooks of Justice? Hoyt and his dogs, redeeming himself for his chicken-kicking crimes? The giant talking duck, pecking out Jake and Snake’s eyes with his razor-sharp bill? I vote for the duck, personally.

Post Content

For Better Or For Worse, 10/11/06

Is there anything grosser than Anthony harkening back to one of his and Liz’s furtive almost-certainly-didn’t-get-to-second-base teenage make-out sessions as Liz describes what it felt like being overwhelmed by the flood of memories of her near-rape? Well, maybe it’s the fact that just before said flood of memories arrive, we get that patented icky FBOFW close-up, where an ostensibly pretty girl looks like she’s been daubed with layers of makeup in preparation for a mall-studio glamor photo. Anyway, to summarize: Ew.

Dennis the Menace, 10/11/06

The first thing that entered my mind upon reading this strip, as I’m sure was true for all of you as well, was the immortal quatrain that concluded Ice Cube’s 1993 classic, “It Was A Good Day”:

Drunk as hell but no throwin up
Half way home and my pager still blowin up
Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K.
I got to say it was a good day

Ah, Dennis, so many opportunities for adventure your beeper opens up to you! All of which involve drugs. Because pretty much everyone other than drug dealers has gone in for cell phones now. Cell phones, Dennis the Menace scribes. Take a note. They’re like these little phones that you can take around with you wherever you go. Been pretty omnipresent since the late ’90s or so. No, no need to thank me.

As Dennis continues to be less and less menacing, his constant companion and foil has been consistently portrayed as even feebler in order to leave the impression that Dennis still has something of an edge. Has poor Joey ever looked readier for the short bus than he does here today?

Mark Trail, 10/11/06

People say that Jack Elrod can’t draw people very well. I say that never has the majestic American mullet been portrayed with the attention to detail and depth of feeling on display here.

I’m deeply intrigued by the suspense built up by the nonspecificity of “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Yeah, let’s do it!” Here’s my idea for the missing fourth panel: Molly is wearing an adorable bonnet and drinking tea out of a tiny cup, sitting at an itty-bitty table with a bunch of stuffed animals, all of whom also have teacups in front of them. Orange Shirt and Mullet Head stand nearby, taking pictures for their novelty Web site and squealing in girlish delight.

Mary Worth, 10/11/06

Sometimes in a strip you see the gears begin to shift and new directions begin to open up, and you have to ask yourself if you’re willing to go down the new trails that are about to be forged. So if you’re wondering if I’ll still love Mary Worth if it becomes less about Mary meddling in the lives of others and more about Ian saying wildly inappropriate things sotto voce in delicate situations, the answer is: Yes. Yes I will.

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 10/10/06

Even the visible-stage-direction-happy artists at Apartment 3-G can’t figure out a way to show that Lu Ann’s lips are moving as she reads Alan’s letter, so they’ve decided to just have her read it aloud to an empty room.

Ignoring Lu Ann’s tendency towards single noble tears, I’m sort of intrigued by the sentence structure of Alan’s missive. It could be read as “I hope it’s not too late to say, ‘I love you, Alan.'” Then, when she reads that part aloud, Alan could jump out of a closet and say “Ha ha, you do love me! You admit it! Sucker!” and head out to go have sex with one of his barely-legal art groupies, laughing all the way.

Mary Worth, 10/10/06

So, due to crappy coloring, it took me a minute to figure out what’s going on here: That little soliloquy in the second panel is of course emerging from Ian, and you can see the stem pointing from the word balloon at his big fat head just above Toby’s tresses. But somehow another balloon stem seems to be emerging from the tree upon which Wilbur is resting one of his hairy mitts. The effect implies that Dr. Cameron, failing to get his accomplices to join in with him in a four-part harmony of condescension, has chosen to co-bloviate with the local flora.

Mark Trail, 10/10/06

Wow, remember when this storyline was about poachers and tiger penises and Kelly Welly’s unquenchable sexual urges? Now it’s all about the wacky adventures of Molly, the lovable bear … with an nose for trouble! You just know she’s going to wander off and, I don’t know, maul a baby or something, and then not understand the hostility towards her, and then Mark will have to bail her out of trouble and everyone will laugh and say, “Ho, ho, that’s our Molly!” And then there will be scenes from next week’s episode, with special guest star Tim Conway. I’m totally OK with this change of focus, you understand, but I’d sort of like to be informed of when Kelly gets tired of Ranger Rick and casts him aside, a broken man.