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Family Circus, 4/11/06

Ah, the desperate stab for relevance! See, Sudoku’s all popular now, and it’s Japanese, and … heh. Relevance. You see. Well, as a typical reader, let me assure you: it didn’t work. The Family Circus appears right under the Sudoku puzzle in my paper, but it still didn’t make this cartoon relevant or funny.

Also, this cartoon? Deeply racist. Sudoku means roughly “Single number,” and it’s an abbreviation for a larger phrase that means “the numbers must occur only once” (“Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru”). It is not, in fact, anybody’s name. Keep right on writing those letters to the editor, Sarah Ditmars.

Sally Forth, 4/11/06

This is an awesome meta-moment … but Ces, you tease us. We all know that whatever Ted’s new job is, it won’t be as good as any of these.

In addition: Tan shirt? Just-one-shade-darker tan pants? Electric blue tie? Ted Forth is not gay, everybody.

Gil Thorp, 4/11/06

I think the commentor who suggested that Trey Davis’ t-shirt is foreshadowing has hit the nail on the flat-topped head: Gil Thorp must be determined to match Funky Winkerbean and Doonesbury with a depressing Iraq War storyline of its own. Of more immediate concern is the snoopy reporter in panel three, who is clearly Andy Dick in a bad wig.

Luann, 4/11/06

Hey Gunther, even if she did want you to put on a dog suit, this is girl who you forced to dress up as a giant pen at a comics convention in your doomed bid for fame last year. You might want to dial down the self-righteousness while you’re adjusting the invisible control panel on your forehead there.

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Hi and Lois, 2/10/06

Sally Forth, 2/10/06

B.C., 2/10/06

A recent study has shown that many online arguments start because it’s difficult to convey one’s tone through text alone. Thus, we must pity the poor cartoon character, trapped in a world where all conversation is conducted via written letters floating just above hair level in word balloons. How are they to detect that most important arrow in any post-modern humorist’s quiver, sarcasm? Maybe Chip isn’t being fresh; maybe he has some sort of horrible disease that’s throwing his body temperature out of whack. When Hi is weeping bitterly over his son’s early grave, he’ll no doubt be begging a cruel God to let him go back in time and never spout this little quip.

The Forths over in Sally Forth at least have been given a vital clue for text based communications — the quotation mark, which as we know often indicates sarcasm (especially when it takes the form of “air quotes”). Still, Ted doesn’t pick up on it, proving his dorktacular cluelessosity (as if his peach-colored golf shirt weren’t clue enough).

Finally, if you need someone to take things too far into total incomprehensible insanity, well, you can always count on B.C. How many Nurenberg-level Crimes Against Punctuation are perpetrated in this strip? Panel two at least deploys the correct method of nesting punctuation marks (double on the outside, single on the inside), while panel one uses British-style single quotes for no good reason. Putting that aside, though: are the quotes around “gag rule” meant to “clue us in” that they’re going to be “key” to the upcoming “punchline?” Do we need quotes around “hurling” because otherwise we won’t get that it’s a synonym for “vomiting”? Does “voted-in” need quote marks at all, or for that matter a “hyphen”? These questions will never be answered, but it’s “important” that they be asked.

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Today I atone for posting slack by presenting you with three quickies:

The Lockhorns, 1/10/06

I spent an inordinate amount of brainpower trying to work out if this was supposed some sort of double entendre (involving the words “pussy”, “ball”, or “yarn”), but I think it’s just the typical, straight up, please-God-kill-me-now Lockhorns shtick. I draw your attention to the emotionally deadened faces of the non-Lockhorn half of this foursome. There are no non-Lockhorn recurring characters in this feature; presumably Leroy and Loretta inevitably pull their dinner-theater George-and-Martha routine in every available social situation and never get a second invite.

Mark Trail, 1/10/06

How much of a square-jawed, raven-haired badass is Mark Trail? He’s totally ignoring this heavily armed overalled hillbilly to have a conversation with his dog about how the two of them are going to escape from said heavily armed hillbilly’s animal-napping compound. It’s that sort of devil-may-care attitude that will get him and Andy busted out in no time, or get him shot in the back of the head. Either way, it’ll make for some good readin’.

One Big Happy, 1/10/06

Ah, James, Ruthie’s white-trashy friend: you think you’re hardcore, with your squirty cheese and your squirty desert. But if you’re just balling up a glob of your squirty cheese and popping it in your mouth with a jaunty FTTT, you’re not hardcore, do you hear me? You’re not hardcore unless you squirt that squirty cheese directly into your mouth. I’ve done it, James. Have you? Huh? Are you hardcore, James? Huh? Are you?

Ahem. Apropos of nothing, I would like to direct the attention of all you Ted Forth haters to this post on yellowjkt’s blog. If you don’t come away with newfound respect for the Tedster, you are a lost cause.