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Crankshaft, 7/18/07

Ha ha! Crankshaft’s prostate is grotesquely swollen, making every waking moment a torture for him! Ha ha! Oh, the hilarity!

Adding to the funny, of course, is the revelation that the dickery that the ’Shaft displays pretty much every day is part of a majestic chain of misanthropy that spans the generations. At least Crankshaft Senior has some actual annoyance to overreact to, since presumably one didn’t send children off to stadium restrooms on their own, even in the sepia-toned days of yore. Since our hero does not require assistance to toddle off to the john in the present day, I guess Crankshaft III just wants to make him feel bad about being old and decrepit.

Actually, now that I think about it, I guess that’s supposed to be Crankshaft’s son-in-law, not son, since he’s the one with the unspeakably hateful Ukrainian mother. Pretty much everyone in this strip is a loathsome human being, is what I’m saying.

(Hey, isn’t the ’Shaft supposed to be a WWII vet? If he’s 70, that would have him going through his basic training at the ripe old age of 7. Of course, it’s possible that the ’Shaft-in-law just uses “70” as his synonym for “I no longer bother to keep track of how old you actually are, fossil.”)

UPDATE: As several of you who are clearly smarter than I am pointed out, the little tot in the sepia-toned first panel is a girl child, which means that the horrible, horrible adult human being next to her is the ’Shaft himself. Let this be a lesson to you about not altering the facts to fit your grandiose “cycle of hate” thesis. Presumably said pigtailed tot is in fact the wife of the non-’Shaft dude in panel two, and thus he’s dishing out a little payback on her behalf.

Apartment 3-G, 7/18/07

“Yes, Nora, in my experience, there’s nothing an impoverished Oriental peasant respects more than a white man in an electric blue suit waving hard currency around and offering him the chance to choose between selling centuries-old pieces of his cultural patrimony and starving to death. The little buggers adore me.”

Something is seriously awry with Nora’s shirt in panel three. “God damn it, if I show him my left boob, will he stop nattering on about my dead husband and the filthy foreigners he forsook me for?”

They’ll Do It Every Time, 7/18/07

Curmudgeon dominance of TDIET proceeds apace: today’s entry is from faithful reader Damian Penny, who sent this entry straight out of m************ Newfoundland, before he up and moved to Halifax. It may be the first TDIET to end in a twisted pile of steel and flesh — but not the last, I’m hoping.

HONK-A is an amusing but not outrageous variation, but I dare you to find a horn that can produce a sound like HONK-K. On the other hand, I really like the way the trucker’s wordless curse symbols are all tiny-like and entirely contained within the cab.

Mary Worth, 7/18/07

You get the feeling that Drew starts a lot of his sentences with “I love talking about my”.

Sally Forth, 7/18/07

So, long story short, that’s why everyone at Splash Land died of cholera.

Finally, I offer the latest in an extremely occasional series of potential LiveJournal icons from the comics, this one from today’s Crock:

It should correspond to “Mood: Incontinent”.

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Apartment 3-G, 7/14/07

“I found the legendary Marg-Po idol in a monastery high in the mountains of Qinghai province, just like the old man at the museum said. The monks said that its mystical power was the only thing that could defeat Margo. It seems crazy, but I think it’s our only chance.”

Mary Worth, 7/14/07

Welcome to phone sex, Mary Worth-style. That means it’ll take a year and a half, will take place at impossible angles on hideously colored sheets, and everyone will lose interest about a quarter of the way into it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/14/07

Man, I could just watch hungover Hugh stand absolutely still and blink very gingerly all day. It’s kind of hypnotic. The next three weeks of this strip could just be Hugh blinking as the storyline is advanced by word bubbles coming from off-panel. They could call it The Angriest Hungover Brit in the World.

Shoe, 7/14/07

Possibly the most depressing Shoe ever. I think they’re finally figuring out that if they’re going to have Roz responding to punchlines with huge-eyed horror, they need to make those punchlines truly horrifying.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 7/14/07

Wow, Hekkie held one set of attitudes as a child, but decades later as an adult holds a different set of attitudes entirely on a number of subjects!

That … that is something they’ll do every time, actually.

Boring technical update: Apologies to everyone whose comments were eaten by the new spam filter over the past few days. I know it’s really frustrating, but believe me when I say it’s also been really frustrating for me to try to figure out how and why it’s happening and how to fix it. I switched back the other filter program; hopefully it won’t cause the site to grind to a halt again or start eating comments like it was doing last week. (For those of you who are computer nerds: I had switched from Spam Karma 2 to Akismet and now back to SK2. If you have any words of advice, I will appreciate them.)

On thing that will definitely increase your chances of getting caught in any kind of spam filter is adding a bunch of links to your post. So, I’d advise you not to do that.

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Pluggers and Slylock Fox, 7/12/07

Pluggers are xenophobes. Hungry, hungry xenophobes.

I feel like there must be something of this dynamic going on in today’s Slylock Fox six differences, too. Why does Buzzy McFlatop harbor such simmering resentment towards the pizza delivery fellow? Presumably he rages inwardly because his children can’t get enough of that ethnic food imported to this great country by unwashed papist immigrants from the filthy Mediterranean countries. If only he could get decent, wholesome American fare delivered, like … um … venison? Turkey? I’m kind of at a loss.

Gil Thorp, 7/12/07

YEAH, BABY, I’M DIGGING MY GIL THORP SUMMER OF TOTAL INSANITY! Why won’t she give you a little kiss? Maybe it’s because she doesn’t feel like smooching the smooth, featureless skin on the front of your head, you no-faced freak. Fortunately, Walter Cronkite is here to come at you at a spatially baffling angle and smack you right in the spot where your mouth should be.

Blondie, 7/12/07

“Also, the front and the back are entirely different colors. Trust me, it’s all the rage this year. The Japanese have been wasting their time on lowering gas mileage, but Detroit’s been investing in the two-tone look.”

Mary Worth, 7/12/07

“Or, to put it another way, what can I do to you … with my penis? Wait, did I say that last part out loud?”