Post Content

B.C., 1/17/14

Here is today’s B.C.! It’s about drugs, and about how when you do certain kinds of drugs, you get the so-called “munchies.”

Momma, 1/17/14

Here is today’s Momma! It’s about the crushing expectations imposed by outdated gender roles on a confused and uninterested younger generation. (It also may be a dick joke? Is “picky” a dick joke?)

Mary Worth, 1/17/14

Here is today’s Mary Worth! It’s about how if you love someone, you should set them free. If they come back, they’re yours; and if you suspect they might not come back, you should surreptitiously unbutton the top of your shirt and let a virile patch of hair burst forth, just to make it clear what they’ll be missing out on.

Post Content

Heathcliff, 1/16/13

IMPORTANT HEATHCLIFF NEWS, EVERYBODY! America’s second-favorite orange comic strip cat who’s kind of a dick is matching arch-rival Garfield by securing a CGI/live-action movie deal, and then one-upping the Monday-hating indoor-only layabout by also snagging a 13-episode animated TV series, both from “family-based production company Waterman Entertainment”. The news is on actual film industry insider blog Deadline Hollywood, so you know it’s true! Where “true” means “a Hollywood shell corporation has acquired the intellectual property rights necessary to create the aforementioned entertainment units, but actual filming is dependent on nailing down funding and will happen sometime between five years from now and never.”

There are definitely narrative difficulties in bringing Heathcliff to the big/small screens, and today’s panel offers a good example. No, not the burp joke; the entire 21st century film industry is built on burp and fart jokes. I refer instead to Heathcliff’s mute nature, which combined with his apparent literacy results in him holding up signs and flying flags inscribed with various messages. How will movie and TV viewers deal with a non-talking protagonists? Heathcliff artist Peter Gallagher earnestly told Deadline, “We want our existing fans to identify with the characters they know while introducing him to an entirely new audience. As a creator I know that [Waterman Entertainment] will be attentive to our lasting vision for the brand and welcome our input, which is very important to me,” which pretty clearly means that they won’t change a facet so central to the strip’s history as Heathcliff’s inability to spehahaha I can’t even finish that sentence because obviously they’ll just get some mid-range actor who needs work to do the voice, like they got poor Owen Wilson to do Marmaduke. Who’s going to voice Heathcliff, do you think? Chevy Chase? Chris Tucker? Owen Wilson again, because why not?

(By the way, all this important Heathcliff knowledge was brought to my attention by amazing Minnesotan comedian Brandi B., whose Twitter consistently breaks important Heathcliff news, like this movie/TV deal thing. She also got beloved The O.C. star Peter Gallagher to go on the record as saying that he is not the Peter Gallagher who draws Heathcliff. And she has a Heathcliff blog, of course!)

Crankshaft, 1/16/14

Oh, whoops, Mary isn’t freaking out because she drank Lena’s coffee; she’s drinking Lena’s coffee because she was already freaked out. I’d complain about the strip just showing us a bunch of people sitting around talking instead of actually depicting the events being described, but, you know, I’m not sure I’d actually want to see a child almost get hit by a car in the comics, so let’s just let it slide.

Apartment 3-G, 1/16/14

Ha ha, it is very romantic, if by “romantic” you mean “a fairly glaring sign that your supposed beloved’s intentions are not what they seem.” Are Tommie and her mom being taken in by a handsome pair of con artists who will win the ladies’ hearts, gain access to their bank accounts, and then vanish into the ether after having spent the bare minimum of time with them? One can only hope!

Post Content

Mark Trail, 1/15/14

All appears to be well that has ended well in Mark Trail! Mark’s good name has been cleared, Jared has gone back to the big house without so much as a punching, and, most importantly, endless piles of flapjacks and maple syrup await heroes and victims alike. A victory without flapjacks tastes like defeat, whereas a steaming pile of starchy flapjack goodness makes victory all the sweeter, both metaphorically and literally (because of the high sugar content in the maple syrup). “Good lord,” says Cherry, days from now, “After endless rounds of binging and purging, I think it’s finally become physically impossible for me to eat any more flapjacks.” “No,” says Mark. “We have to keep eating them. We neet to eat these flapjacks … forever.”

Momma, 1/15/14

It’s good, Momma! It’s very good that your son places you in a conceptual category so different from the one in which he places the women he has sex with that he’s unable to formulate a meaningful comparison between you and them. Now please, for the love of all that’s right, go to sleep and stop thinking about this, I beg you.