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Dilbert, 5/23/06

Panel one: Trademark minimalist Dilbert art, straight on. Panel two: Trademark minimalist Dilbert art, at a 30 degree angle. Panel three: Trademark minimalist Dilbert art, through a window. Conclusion: You can dress these drawings up, but you can’t really take them out.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/23/06

For everybody’s who’s been waiting since 1971 for Herb and Jamaal’s take on glam rock-inspired androgyny: at long last, your day has arrived. Note cunning use of passive voice in punchline, maintaining the mystery for all of us, for some mysterious and unfunny reason.

Marvin, 5/23/06

Marvin has spent the last week and half lingering on a “Marvin’s grandfather has become obsessed with Sudoku” storyline so mind-warpingly boring that it makes Gasoline Alley’s DMV-a-thon look like the car chase scene in the French Connection by comparison. (The game has been referred to as “Yunoklu” throughout; I imagine that the reasons for this are trademark-related, because they certainly can’t be humor-related.) Today’s episode does have a glimmer of interest, however, in that blind panic has turned one (and only one) of Grandpa’s glasses lenses blue. If you can explain this, you’re a better comics-explainer than I.

Momma, 5/23/06

Hmm, there’s some odd quoting going on here: “Show biz” is quoted when Momma says it, but not when Francis does. I wonder what Finger Quotin’ Margo thinks of that?

Damn, girl, that’s cold.

Cockroach update: Another freakishly huge representative of order Blattodea in the cat’s dish this morning, leading to a humiliating repeat of yesterday’s pathetic drama. That’s twice in two days; in the 36 months of the food bowl sitting in that exact spot, it had only happened once before that. Are the roaches getting smarter? Are they plotting to rise up against us? I’m disturbed. Anyone have any bright ideas on roach control?

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Momma, 2/22/06

Ah, Francis, hero to layabouts everywhere. Nothing says “I’ve given up on life” like looking at Internet pornography while your mother is right there in the room. I do like the evocative triptych of middle panels, which helps us grasp the flow of time in the strip’s narrative. “Not porn … not porn … not porn … hello!”

Who do you think would be the heavy hitters on “Lady Prime Ministers Gone Wild?” Here are my top four:

Edith Cresson (Prime Minister of France, 1991-1992)

Tansu Ciller (Prime Minister of Turkey, 1993-1996)

Kim Campbell (Prime Minister of Canada, June-November 1993)

Benazir Bhutto (Prime Minister of Pakistan, 1988-1990, 1993-1996)

Yes, I am a huge dork. I admit that for a minute I believed that the strip actually intended us to believe that Francis was looking at “Lady Prime Ministers Gone Wild.” It was like the time I thought I saw the guy at the video store renting a porno called Specs Appeal and I assumed it was all girls wearing glasses but then it turned out that it was just Pecs Appeal and he was gay.

Speaking of hot, hot parliamentary democracy: Holy socialized medicine, everyone, Paul the Mountie just grabbed Liz’s ass!

OK, so I guess technically he’s holding her up by her ass, but there’s still palm-to-heinie contact. I’m not sure which of today’s comics I expected to see grabass in, but For Better Or For Worse wasn’t it. I guess I should be thankful that it wasn’t Momma.

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Momma, 8/3-4/05

If you’re wondering why I didn’t post yesterday, it’s because I’ve spent the last 48 hours trying to wrap my head around the fact that Wednesday’s Momma made me laugh aloud in what most experts believe was the first incident of its kind to date. I mean, it’s not earth-shatteringly amusing or anything, and it continues the strip’s baffling trend of setting the action at the beach for no discernible reason (though the seaside scene is much better drawn this time around), but I like Francis’s casual attitude towards his own sister-comforting incompetence.

The intricate network of assumptions and prejudices that make up my worldview was however strengthened by today’s Momma, which makes no sense and isn’t funny. I do kind of like the single wave of what I presume to be panic radiating out from Francis’s nose in panel three, but everything else about the strip (What the hell is a “Mothers Club,” anyway? And are we supposed to think that Momma considers 22-year-old Francis an “older child”? And what possible interest does she have in laxatives for him? And are we expected to find the “punchline” funny solely because it evokes the image of Francis crapping uncontrollably?) blows. In fact, the strip is so extremely not funny that it has retroactively quashed most of my goodwill towards the previous installment, leaving me disgruntled about Mary Lou’s wildly spewing tear ducts (is she crying so vigorously that tears are actually coming out of her chin and the top of her head?) and, of course, Francis’s tiny buy still unfortunately visible nipples.