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Shoe and Get Fuzzy, 7/22/07

If you are a subscriber to the Baltimore Sun, you saw this precise constellation of quasipolitical comics when you opened your paper this morning. Both seem to be aimed at the same problem: making a relatively gentle joke about politics that isn’t actually political, and doesn’t result in dozens of angry letters to the editor. And, while usually I go on about just about everything at great length, the most important thing I can say here is that Get Fuzzy is funny, while Shoe isn’t. Shoe falls into the typical toothless trap of just saying “THE POLITICS AREN’T THEY ANNOYING?”, literally allowing the discussion to be replaced by meaningless placeholder syllables. Get Fuzzy works with established character traits — Bucky and Satchel’s party affiliations have been frequently noted, whereas I don’t believe Shoe and the Perfesser had political beliefs until they became necessary for this cartoon. Plus Get Fuzzy contains actual political jokes that are funny. I love the third-party punchline, but I love “Well, with the proper funding…” even more.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/22/07

“I can assure you, I am not without qualities! I have a certain height, for instance, as well as a certain breadth and depth! I occupy volume in space! I have a certain skin color, and wear clothing, and inhale air and breathe out carbon dioxide! I have quantities, too, if you’d care to hear about them!”

With his constant wavering between unbearable upper-class superciliousness and desperate, raw emotional need, I’m frankly shocked that Hugh has somehow managed to remain a bachelor to this point.

Marvin, 7/22/07

Marvin celebrated its 25th anniversary this past week with a series of painfully unfunny jokes about life in that long-lost age known as “1982.” (Dallas was on TV! Ronald Reagan was president! HA HA! STOP, YOU’RE KILLING ME!) Today, Marvin the baby appears on the set of the Tonight Show to exchange painfully unfunny jokes with Jay Leno. The fact that Jay Leno is, in fact, painfully unfunny in real life does lead one to wonder whether the lameness on display here is meant to be a brutally realistic exploration of what it would be like if a cartoon infant were on the Tonight Show. Frankly, I wish that they had carried on with the “life in 1982” conceit and done the interview with Johnny Carson, though presumably even after his death he has too much dignity to appear in Marvin.

Extremely creepy to me is the way that Jay Leno keeps his mouth shut throughout his unfunny dialog. The fact that Marvin keeps his own mouth shut and communicates with Jay (and, presumably, the viewers at home) telepathically via thought balloons for whatever reason doesn’t faze me at all, but seeing that lantern jaw firmly shut while the usual inane patter floats next to his head in a word balloon unsettles me a great deal. I do like the fact that Marvin’s bottle has been placed completely out of reach of his stubby arms, though.

Mary Worth, 7/22/07

I can totally understand why Dawn was so nervous to offer this revelation up to Drew. After all, it’s totally possible that the good doctor was only on going on this date with her so that he could synchronize his retrochronometer onto her current form and then go back in time five years to date her past her self — wouldn’t it be disappointing if he had gone through all that trouble only to return to the present in disgust? Thank God he’s only interested in dating the beautiful swan Dawn of the here and now. Look at the lovely visage in the final panel — the octogonal face, the bright orange roots. You can see why he wants to “get into the saddle” right away!

Slylock Fox, 7/22/07

OH COME ON, SLYLOCK! We’ve moved from ludicrous acts of deduction to petty attempts to come up with ways that that Cassandra might be committing crimes despite the absence of any evidence. “Do they both have ticket stubs? They might have just torn a single ticket in half! Did they pay for those tickets with cash? They might have stolen that cash from a bank, or an old lady, or an orphanage!” I think we all know why Slylock is harassing this poor woman while she’s trying to enjoy an innocent evening out at the movies with her bovine companion. I can’t wait for the inevitable strip where Slylock uses his infallible crime-fighting skills to avoid the process server with the restraining order.

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Popeye, 6/27/07

So it’s been seven months and two plotlines since I’ve deigned to comment on Popeye’s spinach- and/or mescaline-fueled antics. If you’re not following along at home, I’m not going to give you any context for this, because it’s just all the more delightful as a surreal and horrifying standalone vignette. Olive Oyl laughing so hard that her jaw nearly unhinges as she presses the barrel of the gun to her temple, her breast-sporting doppelgänger laughingly urging her to blow her brains out as she slams her bracelets together with a hearty CLANK!, Wimpy ignoring the horrifying drama to demand more food — WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT IN A COMIC? In three panels, Popeye has managed to be more unsettling that the last 18 months of Zippy the Pinhead.

Six Chix, 6/27/07

On a day that didn’t feature a beloved Popeye character cheerfully threatening suicide, this would surely be the funny pages’ most disturbing comic. “Oops, terrible mixup, we meant to order tanning beds but we bought cremators instead! Wondered why they were so big! Ha ha! So, yeah, we burned your wife to death.”

Mark Trail, 6/27/07

Wow, Crooked County Commissioner #1 sure is looking … distinguished, isn’t he? There’s just something about him that says, “Gosh, this handsome and paternal figure would never do anything illicit; rather, he would be an excellent person with whom to negotiate a delicate land deal involving public funds. And he just might be the right person to be the highly paid head of the county’s new airport authority! I wonder why I feel so simultaneously drawn to and respectful towards him now?”

And, in the first panel … he also seems to be super cool as well! I know, mature and distinguished and super cool in one package? I don’t pretend to understand how he does it. All I know is that the new airport’s gonna be the best airport ever!

Marvin, 6/27/07

Perhaps you’re right, Marvin. But we can pass legislation that forces freaks like your mother — with their grotesquely oversized heads tottering atop their reedy, stick-like bodies in a most stomach-turning fashion — to live out their days in closed institutions where normal people can’t see them. And we will, if the letter I’m about to write to my Congressman has anything to say about it.

Slylock Fox, 6/27/07

The heroine seems a little young to play the part, but everything in this cartoon — the meal of canned tuna and toast eaten right out of the can and toaster, respectively; the filthy house, crawling with rodents; and, of course, the dozens of hungry, hungry felines — screams “crazy cat lady.” But you know what? Once you realize the role you’re born to play in this life, I say, why wait?

Mary Worth, 6/27/07

Wait, what? “Yawnfest?” “Beyond boring?” I think somebody needs to turn around. CANNONBALL! CANNONBAAAAAAALLLLL! It’s never a boring party when people are doing the cannonball. CANNONBAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!

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Marvin, 5/15/07

Remember, kids: HIGH TECHNOLOGY = COMEDY GOLD. Here’s a list of punchlines that would be very similar to the one in this strip, but which fail to achieve knee-slapping hilarity because they ignore the crucial “e-factor” of Internet-related revelry:

• “I think it means mom got me from Christie’s in New York.”
• “I think it means mom paid money for me at a store.”
• “I think it means I was born in a country that doesn’t value girl babies, but does value Western currency.”
• “I think it means mom couldn’t get anyone to have sex with her.”

Mark Trail, 5/15/07

I’m pretty sure that, like George W. Bush’s famous “Bring it on!” line, County Commissioner Sideburns Q. Mustache’s statement that “If Mark Trail is looking for a bird problem, let’s give him one!” will haunt the rest of his political career. Thus it will probably be a blessing that said career isn’t going to last much longer, since Mark will soon show up to impeach him WITH HIS FISTS.

Longtime Mark Trail readers probably thought that last year’s “I’ll use explosives to fake a rockslide so as to convince the county to seize forest land via eminent domain to the advantage of my planned gambling casino” was some sort of apex of laughably unrealistic political skullduggery, but with this “Let’s get people fired up about birds so we can convince them to vote in a new airport on our property,” we move past “contrived” and straight on into Dada. If you managed to convince Karl Rove to drop acid and write a comic strip — and I have to admit that I would support you in such a quixotic effort — this is the sort of thing he’d come up with.

B.C., 5/15/07

Hey everybody! Let’s set the wayback machine for [squints] 1997 and enjoy some classic B.C.! Today, we learn that you shouldn’t go to chiropractors who are deranged mass murderers who build furniture out of the mangled body parts of their victims as some sort of horrific monument to their soulless evil. See, this strip used to be “edgy.”

Apartment 3-G, 5/15/07

FYI, I’m officially boycotting Apartment 3-G until it starts making God-damned sense again.