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Apartment 3-G, 3/15/08

Joe strikes me as the sort who was raised in a more genteel and conservative age, and so I assume that he’s referring to Lu Ann, with “friend” standing in as a euphemism for “that woman you have sex with and yet refuse to marry as the laws of man and God demand.” Sure, it seems weird that Joe would have The View Girl Talk showing on his cafe’s TV at whatever hour Alan is rolling in after a rough night of heroin and whoring, but at least we’ve been warned about her promised appearance in advance. Still, I really hope that, when Alan looks up at the TV, he’ll see the smiling face of the only other person in the strip whom he might consider a friend: Jones the beatnik! Maybe there’s a news story about how he was gunned down by the NYPD in a drug bust gone bad; or, better, maybe he’s the star of a new reality dating show where girls will compete to trade their sweet bodies for his dubious charms.

Mark Trail, 3/15/08

Yay, petnappers! Man, Mark Trail hasn’t seen a good petnapping plot since the delightfully gothic backwoods animal-thievin’ tale that we were privileged to read back in the winter of ’05-’06. These animal-ransoming ne’er-do-wells seem like hardscrabble urban working class types rather than yokels per se, and are significantly less grotesque than the last bunch. Do they plan to steal Woods and Wildlife’s prize puppy before the sick little contest winner can lay her feeble hands on it? Or is this pathetic young dog-lover an entirely fictional construct, cooked up by these thugs to lay their hands on one more innocent little creature that they can sell? And, perhaps the most important question of all: Will some noble soul urge them at some point to “please [not] steal any more pets”?

Momma, 3/15/08

The first two panels of today’s Momma do such a good job of recapitulating the origins of the current housing credit meltdown that it seems petty to point out that “You know what darling? You’re pathetic” doesn’t actually constitute a punchline as such, and that the attempt to draw Momma saying this through gritted teeth has only succeeded in transforming her face into a melting, Dali-esque horror.

Crankshaft, 3/15/08

In Crankshaft, the younger characters have finally decided to kill off the elderly hate-demons who dominate and suck all the joy out of their lives.

Slylock Fox, 3/15/08

And in Slylock Fox, the monkeys have finally decided to rise up against us, as deep down we all knew they someday would.

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Funky Winkerbean, 2/19/08

“So, how come you’re named Funky Winkerbean and not something non-giggle-inducing?”

You know, if I were the writer from Pizza and Calzone Restaurateur Monthly, I’d be less concerned with Funky’s branding strategy and more with his inhumanly broad smirk, which is splitting his cheek most of the way to his ear. He appears to be preparing to tip the top of his head back completely like a Pez dispenser so that he can cram the reporter lady and the photographer down his esophagus in a single gulp.

Reporter lady might be forgiven for assuming that “Montoni” is a whimsical mascot like Uncle Ben or Bob’s Big Boy and not an actual person who once dished out pizza and wisecracks from behind the counter. I believe that it’s been mentioned in passing post-time-jump that he’s retired to Florida someplace. Since this is Funky Winkerbean, he’s presumably living out the end of his life in a cut-rate, urine-scented nursing home, desperately lonely and wondering why none of his former employees or neighbors whose social lives revolved around his restaurant ever come to visit.

Mary Worth, 2/19/08

And now the circle of meddling is … complete. “Drew, your father flew to Vietnam and did some very rewarding work there until it almost killed him and I made him come home! Why don’t you follow in his footsteps? Except in your case, you’ll be dying alone, since we’ve already established that nobody loves you enough to come and rescue you!”

Momma, 2/19/08

I’m pretty sure that today’s Momma is about bird-fucking. I was trying to come up with something funny to say about it, but then I decided it pretty much stands on its own.

Pluggers, 2/19/08

A plugger cares about our natural environment only to the extent that he can chop it up and set it on fire.

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Gil Thorp, 1/29/07

I dare you to try to explain panel two of today’s Gil Thorp without using the words “physically impossible,” “insanity,” or “mescaline.” I dare you. I’m not a big expert on basketball or anything, but I’m pretty sure that “setting a screen” does not entail lunging at the dude with the ball and attempting to karate-chop him so that the ball goes flying up into the air and then bounces off of the featureless void in which you find yourself floating. Seriously, if I were the A-Train, I’d steer well clear of that whole scene too.

Panel three may look like an instance Coach Gil’s magnificent wrath, but in fact he just has to appear to care about his teams for the first few weeks of each season so that he doesn’t get fired. Don’t worry, by the time the playdowns roll around, he’ll have retreated to the bleachers, more than willing to let some hobo offer incomprehensible advice about pick and rolls or whatever.

Six Chix, 1/29/08

Hats off to one-sixth of Six Chix for sharing one of my pet peeves. To expand on this complaint, I offer this piece of advice to expectant parents: In all probability, your child upon birth will already have a perfectly good last name. Why saddle him or her with a second one where the first name should be? Especially to be avoided are last names of former U.S. presidents (e.g., “Carter,” “Madison”) or Canadian prime ministers (e.g., “Mackenzie” and variants).

I note actually that the Chic (Chik?) responsible for today’s Six Chix is in fact Margaret Shulock, who also writes Apartment 3-G. Perhaps this is why, for all their other faults, the bland lookalike love interests of that strip at least don’t suffer from the terrible last-name-as-first-name affliction. Though if Lu Ann’s cousin Blaze is any indication, our quizzical bespectacled lady might be about to say, “If it’s a boy, why not name him after a famous lady stripper instead?”

Shoe, 1/29/08

Who is “Charlie Crone”? Why is January 29th his “day”? Why does Shoe alone among all media outlets dare to commemorate whatever he did or whoever he is? Is he still alive, and if so does he appreciate his name floating aimlessly over a sofa from which a bird-man tells a terrible iPhone joke (like there’s any other kind) to his miniskirted bird-lady therapist? Google has no answers to any of these questions, but perhaps you, my faithful readers, do!

Momma, 1/29/08

Look, I’d like to believe that I’m emotionally capable of dealing with Momma cartoons that allude to the title character’s sex life, but as it turns out, I’m not, so let’s not publish any more of them, OK? It would help, obviously, if there were some kind of joke in the strip, since that would keep our minds from otherwise orbiting helplessly around the words “emptiness,” “fill,” and “stuff.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/29/08

Fortunately, I long ago learned to emotionally deal with cartoons that allude to Niki’s sex life — fortunately because I imagine we’re going to keep on seeing them.

Pluggers, 1/29/08

Wow, it’s yet another Pluggers conceptual repeat, this one harkening back to one of my favorites of all time. So, does it turn out that “a classic” means that this is a new submission of an old idea but we’re redrawing it?

I actually spent a little bit of brainpower this afternoon trying to decide which of the two pawn-shop themed Pluggers was grimmer. On the one hand, in the one from July of ’06, you get a better look at the bankrupt man-beast’s face and can see how depressed he is. On the other, in that older panel Rhino-Man is hocking his tiny TV, which, let’s face it, is a perhaps nothing more than an agent of his couch potato-ization; perhaps having to give it up will inspire him to get out of the living room and take chances in life! Bear-Man’s saxophone, on the other hand, probably represents his only creative outlet, or maybe his long-ago dreams of being something more than a plugger, and now he’s realized that those feelings are for people with self-worth, not for him. So I’m going to have to give today’s panel the win.

Oh oh, wait — what if that’s Bear-Man’s kid’s saxophone? And he’s thinking “Now I’ll be able to afford my next payment on our TV, and I won’t have to listen to that racket!” Bonus points!

Unrelated to any of these but awesome: A few threads back, faithful reader ChattyGenes posted a funny Annie song spoof, which faithful reader mollificent then recorded and posted to YouTube! Hilarious and excellent all around! (Note that the YouTube “video” is really audio only.)