Post Content

The Phantom, 6/17/05

Ces apparently gets racist hate mail for implying that a ten year old might be capable of taking care of herself; thus, I’m sure that King Features is really hearing it about this strip, which involves a latex-suited freak and a cone-hatted pygmy joking about the jungle-roofie-fueled date-rape (er, archaeological-expedition-rape) sequence that’s coming soon. Yuck.

Ziggy, 6/17/05

As C. Montgomery Burns once so aptly put it: “Oh, Ziggy, will you ever win?” I guess some GPs really are sick of dealing with patients without HEALTH INSURANCE.

Family Circus, 6/17/05

Dolly mangles the Pledge of Alliegence, day four: America’s nightmare continues. Remember how much trouble Roseanne Barr got into for singing the Star Spangled Banner off-key? You’d think that Sean Hannity would have called for the Keane clan’s death by now, but no such luck.

Post Content

The Phantom, 5/23/05

Here’s a good example of why it would be incredibly unwise of King Features to cater to my secret desire to take over the writing duties at Apartment 3-G: I’d want to change stuff around, put my own imprint on it, realize my artistic vision. Most readers at home would be horrified. “WHAT? Tommie has a nose ring now? Margo wears high heels? Lu Ann isn’t a total moron? What the hell is this?”

Here’s something that’s been bothering me for the past few weeks in The Phantom: the Bandar have been looking especially short ever since the new artists took over. In fact, before Walker’s plucky African friends made their appearance in this storyline, I didn’t think they were supposed to be little people. Offensive ethnic stereotypes in bizarre hats, yes; actual Pygmies, no. This strip illustrates that they were always supposed to be short of stature, but apparently the previous artists didn’t feel a need to be all in-your-face about their Pygmosity. The new guy (or guys, or gals, or whatever) clearly had a vision for the strip, though, and it involved the Bandar being extra Pygmy-y. And what thanks do they get from longtime readers like myself? Nothing but complaints and disgruntlement and confusion.

Of course, the seven-foot-tall candle in panel two may indicate that the new team is just another tragic victim of Jack-Elrod-Crappy-Perspective-itis.

Incidentally, faithful reader Sue Trowbridge, currently serving as a foreign correspondent for TCC in Stockholm, writes to inform me that the Swedes, or at least the Swedes who read the same newspaper as her aunt, love The Phantom; she promises to scan and send in some Swedish-language Phantom action upon her return to the States. She doesn’t mention any Swedish versions of Hagar the Horrible, but presumably the Swedes’ proud Viking sense of honor, combined with their well-known dislike for Norwegians, precludes them from following his adventures.

Post Content

The Phantom, 5/3/05

So it turns out that the Phantom is not going to defeat his enemies by shooting them in the back of the head. Instead, much more humanely, he’s going to avail himself of non-FDA-approved “Bandar medicine” to brainwash them, leaving them with shattered Manchurian Candidate-style psyches and glimpsed half-memories for the rest of their miserable lives.

The men at least are lucky: they’re just going to be dragged off to a filthy hut somewhere, be injected with the essence of God knows what quasipoisonous tropical root, and have their minds cleansed in a quick and business-like fashion. Mina, however, seems destined to first be brought (blindfolded, natch) into the Phantom’s waterfall-shrouded Love Cavern. Trust the Ghost-Who-Puts-The-Moves-On: no one will be harmed, but someone might have to listen to R. Kelly’s Chocolate Factory and deal with some scented candles.

A new artistic team recently took over The Phantom, and it’s good to see that they’re sticking to the strip’s proud tradition of baffling punctuation marks. Most people would have been satisfied with some wacky onomatopoetic noises in panel three, but I like the fact that they’ve rendered Sputt! as an exclamation, but Blubb!? as a question. “Blubb!?” Yes, Mina: blubb.