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Herb and Jamaal, 2/23/10

Today’s Herb and Jamaal is so bizarrely phrased that I almost think the AJGLU-3000 is moonlighting. “Do you recall your playing days in the NBA?” Herb asks, apparently worried that Jamaal’s years of substance abuse could wipe out huge chunks of his memories without warning. And indeed, Jamaal’s response seems to indicate that he does in fact suffer from serious cognitive deficits, as it makes little to no sense. “Green” is supposed to imply a lack of experience, but “didn’t even make that shade” sort of implies old-fashionedness. It’s all so puzzling that I almost wish that “anymore” in the last word balloon were bolded; it’s not as if the final-word-bolding in the other panels conveyed any sort of parsable semantic content, but it at least provided a sort of arbitrary structure I could hold on to in this sea of incoherence.

Gil Thorp, 2/23/10

I wouldn’t worry too much about a Cassie-Steve love connection, mom, as Cassie’s so embarrassed at just saying the word “janitor” that she has to stage-whisper it to you, hiding her mouth in case someone nearby can read lips and find out she’s been consorting with the lower classes. But just in case, mom has donned her Roman centurion uniform in panel three, determined to shield her daughter from the handsy attentions of the twentysomething set, just as the Legions defended Rome’s empire from marauding bands of barbarians.

Mark Trail, 2/23/10

Oh, God, is Mark, the worst husband ever? I’m assuming that Cherry’s panicked “MARK” comes not from seeing the banner headline “SENATOR BEATEN BY THUGS; NOTED OUTDOORSMAN CAN ONLY WATCH,” but because she’s always convinced, based on long experience, that Mark is in grave danger wherever he goes. And indeed Mark is holding back vital information. “I just wanted to call and tell you how much I miss you! I’ll be home as soon the vigilante rabble I’m assembling finishes dishing out brutal mob justice!”

Phantom, 2/23/10

I’m sure that I would be pretty depressed if I were a kid and experiencing what Kit and Heloise are going through — mother presumed dead, father blinded by grief and wandering the world without me. That having been said, there are few things that would have excited middle-school-aged Josh Fruhlinger more than meeting the Speaker of the National Assembly — any nation’s National Assembly, really. I was a profoundly dorky youth.

I also would have been pretty psyched to hang out with someone so relentlessly committed to proper dress that he wears a morning coat even to eat breakfast at home. Still, his wife is dressed awful casually, which sort of ruins the effect. One man can not preserve a lost world’s formalities on his own, Lamanda, even if he is the president.

Apartment 3-G, 2/23/10

Sounds like business-savvy Martin Magee has taken a “Negotiating to Yes!” seminar lately. “Look, Margo, I don’t care if I have to foxtrot, or samba, or maybe give you some money, or what. What I want most of all is for you to love me, but for me not to really have to put a lot of effort into it. If I can work a dancing metaphor of some kind in there, that’d be great.”

Judge Parker news! A little birdie (named bourbon babe) tells me that she’s heard from the folks at King Features that (a) Eduardo Barreto has definitely decided to retire (boo) and that (b) the new permanent artist will be Mike Manley, who starts on March 15. You can see Mike’s blog here; you can find samples of his comic book work around the Internet, none of which is really of the soap opera style. It will be interesting to see how it looks! UPDATE: Just saw on the previous thread a link from faithful reader Dave to some work by Manley on Secret Agent X-9, a King Features adventure strip. Check it out!

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Archie, 2/2/10

There are a number of unsettling objects that have spilled out of Jughead’s locker. It’s probably actually not unsettling to see that Jughead owns at least one spare crown-hat; I had (I think with some justification, based on his character) assumed that Jughead only owned a single hat, which was by this point frayed and stained with years of hair-grease. Any points gained for this are instantly lost, however, by the sight of that sandwich, which despite its many layers is cohering together as a single, immutable unit as it tumbles across the rubble, possibly due to its condiments having long ago congealed into a binding more powerful than concrete. And, of course, the less said about the tiny scale model of Archie as a double amputee the better.

Crock, 2/2/10

Wow, if you had asked me who Crock’s chief gag artist saw as his avatar in the strip, the loathed and incompetent leader of the Lost Patrol would not have been anywhere on my list. But I can sort of see the connection.

Marmaduke, 2/2/10

Ha ha, some namby-pamby liberal judge thinks that Marmaduke can be restrained from his usual horrors by an electronic ankle bracelet! At best, the device will merely offer the authorities the means to create a real-time map of his swath of devastation.

Mary Worth, 2/2/10

Even Wilbur is getting bored by the tales of his romantic failures, and so he decides to liven things up with a hearty Black Power salute. Soon afterwards, someone comes by and gives him a soothing scalp massage, if what I’m seeing in panel two makes any sort of sense in the Euclidian space-time continuum that I’m accustomed to.

Phantom, 2/2/10

So, it appears that the Phantom is going to use his presumed widowhood to go around boffing all the ladies who ever had eyes for him. We begin with Captain Savarna, who made eyes at him during the Crocco Adventure (no, really) that happened last year, and is now wooing him with her butt-sculpting “uniform” pants and strokeable phallic torpedoes. Later, our hero will presumably finally make the Jungle Patrol gals’ dreams of seducing their Unknown Commander come true. We’ll eventually find out how well the “But honey, I assumed you were dead!” approach works as a justification for infidelity, especially when the unfaithful partner doesn’t bother to do much legwork to actually confirm his widowed status.

Momma, 2/2/10

Based on what I’ve learned from Apartment 3-G, I’m guessing Momma is showing up for her weekly sex-for-pills appointment. The pinched look on her face indicates that she’s past the point of even pretending to enjoy it.

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Curtis, 12/21/09

IS NOTHING SAFE FROM THIS BLASTED RECESSION? The one thing that has kept all of America going in this blighted recessionary wasteland was the knowledge that, if we could just make it to December 26, we would have the annual Curtis Kwanzaa Fable to enjoy. But now we learn that this year’s tale won’t involve awesome drug-induced mayhem like giant telepathic otters and bat-winged bears, but will instead merely consist of the last few employed Americans being hit up for money.

Slylock Fox, 12/21/09

Let us pass over today’s sordid crime with only a passing nod of approbation for the perp’s amphibian insouciance, and instead focus on the TERRIFYING DEVIL-THING casually trying on shoes. Those ears aren’t shaped properly for her to be a fox or even the demon Queen of the animal hell Slylock inhabits; I must therefore assume that she’s some kind of lesser Dark Angel, trying on some spiky heels for grinding into the faces of damned souls down in her subterranean punishment realm.

The Phantom, 12/21/09

As a longstanding fan of the Phantom’s saucy narration boxes, I’m bit unsettled to learn that our host for the strip is actually an aged, bloated Billy Dee Williams, so desperate for work that he’s willing to cram an ascot into his collar and spout cheeky nonsense.

Gil Thorp, 12/21/09

Wait … but .. basketball? Milford sports tend to be more or less mutually exclusive, so this seems to indicate that football season is over. But wasn’t the football team actually kind of good this year? What about the playdowns? It bothers me that I’m more tuned in to the championship picture in the Valley Conference than I am to the fortunes of any of the real-life NFL teams for whom I ostensibly root.

And what about Duncan Daley’s simmering drunken rage? I certainly hope that he interrupts Milford’s first game by wandering onto the court, confused and belligerent, with that case of beer still hoisted on his shoulders.

Mary Worth, 12/21/09

Thank goodness the creators of Mary Worth finally realized that America simply couldn’t take any more strips featuring Wilbur typing in front of his computer; any more excitement along those lines and there would have been riots in the street. Today’s strip is still pretty good though, with Adrian and Dr. Jeff making goofy facial expressions and hand gestures (what’s Adrian playing peek-a-boo with, I’d like to know), and Mary disregarding basic kitchen safety by attempting to simultaneously open the oven and lean over the pot on the front burner (with its handle sticking out into the walkway, no less!) to stir whatever’s boiling in the back. In other words, while Wilbur is eating lonely white-bread sandwiches and agonizing over his past mistakes, the Corey Clan has been helping themselves to the “medicinal” pot brownies someone brought Scott.

Apartment 3-G, 12/21/09

Every once in a while, the characters in Apartment 3-G talk like actual New Yorkers. For instance, it makes total sense that a proud Manhattanite like the Professor would bobble his head in shock as he blurted out “Ruby has friends in Queens?!” I’m assuming he’s emphasizing that last phrase just as he would if he were saying “…on Mars?!” or “…in hell?!”