Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 9/23/06

Ah, Eric Mills, engaging in a little art discussion with Lu Ann! Say, is something looking a little … different about this art impresario and Hat Man since last we saw him?

I know, I know, it’s the coloring mules’ fault, but I prefer one of the following explanations instead:

• Eric Mills realized that he’s got to stay “young” and “hip” if he wants to get involved in the New York avant-garde art scene. Signing Lu Ann and her faux-Victorian fern drawings is a good start, but if he wants anyone in the art world to take him seriously, he’s got to dye his hair blonde. Unfortunately, he’s too cheap to go to a salon and tried to do it with nobody’s help but Miss Clairol, which resulted in that sort of orangey color that really dark hair gets when its been inexpertly dyed.
• Eric Mills is a chameleon shapeshifter. His hair changes color to match the tresses of whatever young lady he’s trying to bed. Today’s strip indicates that Lu Ann and Margo’s fight over him is pointless, as he’s really after Tommie.
• Eric Mills has “mood hair.”

Anyway, Margo is sure not winning any points with her ludicrously petulant behavior. What with her pouting, her bossiness, her demands for attention, and her lack of the sort of social skills that most of us learn in kindergarten — well, she’d better hope that Eric Mills is into four-year-olds. Wait, that came out wrong.

Mary Worth, 9/23-4/06

Now … now see here, people. Aldo is not dead, OK? He … he can’t be dead. I’m sure he’s just … terribly injured. Terribly, terribly, passive-aggressively injured. When the jaws of life pulled his shattered body out of his smashed, smoldering car, I’m sure the first words out of his mouth were “Mary … Worth,” which is why the cops called her. His second words were “Where’s … my … booze?”

Saturday’s strip also offered a revealing look at the home life of Professor and Mrs. Chinbeard. Grading papers, snotty putdowns, bumper sticker quotes, endless hair brushing to avoid getting into bed with that smug bastard … it all goes a long way towards explaining Toby’s emotionally deadened look in Sunday’s final panel.

For Better Or For Worse, 9/24/06

This made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.

Post Content

Mother Goose and Grimm, 9/22/06

Grimm is about to euthanized.

Slylock Fox, 9/22/06

This adorable bunny is about to collapse from thirst and then be killed by a poisonous snake bite. Afterwards, its corpse will be eaten by vultures.

Mary Worth, 9/22/06

A drunken Aldo Kelrast has gone careening off an extremely ill-placed cliff. His body is about to be shattered, as is his bottle of liquor, which he seems to be desperately trying to protect.

Mark Trail, 9/22/06

Molly the bear and Andy the dog are about to either drown or tumble over a waterfall. Meanwhile, Hoyt demonstrates that he lacks the charisma necessary to hold an angry mob together for very long.

(Of course, we all know that Molly and Andy are going to be fine. It’s interesting to note that, as near as I can tell from people’s comments and my own reactions, Molly has engendered more of an emotional attachment among Mark Trail readers than any human character this strip has ever seen.)

B.C., 9/22/06

Clumsy Carp cannot afford the medicine upon which his life depends. The prehistoric caveman pharmacist looks on smugly.

(And wow, I never thought I’d be saying this about B.C., but: Hey, Pluggers! If you want to make this joke, only actually kind of funny, this is the way to do it.)

Post Content

Mary Worth, 9/19/06

While we can’t really tell that Aldo’s car is in motion here as he chugs down his bargain-basement booze, I think you and I both know that it is. And while some square lame-os will tell you all that this makes him a bad person, I think you and I both know that it actually makes him totally awesome. If there’s one thing that can make up for the bowl haircut, the late-70s ‘stache, and the dorky polo shirts all in one deft move, it’s tipping back a bottle of hooch with one hand as you try to navigate Santa Royale traffic with the other. Aldo’s willing to smear himself along the side of a school bus for our amusement, which is more than any of those so-called “responsible drinking” advocates can say. It certainly trumps Gil Thorp’s Marty Moon, who just drank himself into a stupor in a parked car like a little wussy.

Garfield, 9/19/06

I haven’t really changed my opinion about the slightly retooled Garfield of recent weeks: yes, it suddenly has other characters, and yes, it’s slightly funnier, but it still pretty much blows. Today’s strip actually supplies something of a metaphor for this, visually. When you first look at it, it looks like, in typical hack fashion, the same drawing has been photocopied and reused three times. But if you look at the final panel more closely, you can see that Jon’s upper lip is protruding out a bit more than in the previous two, so obviously some redrawing work has gone into it. So, I can appreciate that effort on a theoretical level, but in a larger sense, why bother putting in the work in the service of this gag, which manages to hint at something unspeakably perverted and yet actually just be dull and lame? The difference is noticeable, but ultimately not important. Which is in the end how I feel about the changes to the strip.

Pluggers, 9/19/06

You’re a plugger if nobody in the world would rather be you.