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Shoe, 9/14/11

Actually, some newspapers are considering giving tablet computers preloaded with their apps away to their subscribers, as a way to keep a hold of those readers in a digital age! Also, the U.S. Army under Custer had a number of Native American scouts and allies during the Battle of Little Bighorn, and having more of them might have improved Custer’s chance of victory. Oh, wait, no, sorry, iPads are hilarious, ha ha!

Spider-Man, 9/14/11

Noooo, Mary Jane, don’t tell Peter the secrets about the people of the Magic Picture Box! They’re his only friends!

Family Circus, 9/14/11

“Can I sit here and breathe in the sweet, rotten miasma of failure that hangs over you at all times? Can I, daddy? Can I?”

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OK, so here is my excuse as to why I was late with the first few days of this week’s comics, which is that I was in scenic Orlando, Florida. While in America’s #1 Central Florida tourist destination, I stopped by the Universal Islands of Adventure, and while maybe I was mostly interested in Harry-Potter-related activities, I was also keenly aware, thanks to a steady trickle of photos sent to me by faithful readers over the years, that there was a real live Mark Trail diorama to be found. And when I spotted it, it was all I had hoped and dreamed of … and more!

Yes, here we have Mark and Billy Keane interacting, for some reason! And what the pictures I had seen couldn’t convey was the fact that this display has an audio component as well! As I stood nearby and pretended to menace Mark with my feeble fist, his soothing voice was piped in from a speaker above his head, informing us that he works for Woods and Wildlife Magazine and loved nature. For reasons I cannot comprehend, Mark is the only character in the whole Toon Lagoon area who gets to speak! Do you think that any of that makes sense to anyone who visits the park, other than the soap opera strip obsessives who read this blog?

There were other characters on display there, and a weird grab-bag they were. They certainly weren’t the most popular characters, but they also weren’t from any one comics syndicate, which means we can rule out corporate synergy as a basis for the character choices. For instance, there’s this Shoe display! Kids love Shoe, right?

You also have the opportunity to stand directly under Marvin’s no-doubt poop-filled diaper:

And you can get some ice cream, if you aren’t scared off by Cathy’s looming crotch.

In summary, the Toon Lagoon section of the Islands of Adventure is a good place to spend a few minutes of ironic bafflement before moving on to actually fun parts of the park. (Although the Dudley Do-Right log flume ride is pretty great. I had forgot how completely pun-tastic that show was!)

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Crock, 9/13/11

Usually it’s difficult to impossible to get more than basic plot information out of most of the squiggle-things that make up your average Crock, but I have to admit that the facial expression in panel two of today’s installment really sells the joke for me. Sigfried (side note: did you know that the librarian in Crock is named “Sigfried”? I didn’t! It’s always a joy to realize that the comics still has hidden gems like this to discover) looks genuinely stricken as he confesses his hatred of reading. His hypocrisy must really tear him up inside! It’s either that or, as near as I can tell from the relative heights of the characters in panel one, he’s in agony from standing on his knee-stumps.

Ziggy, 9/13/11

Hello, luddites across the world! Is there piece of modern-day technical wizardry that baffles and terrifies you? Don’t worry, the offending inscrutable character-sequence will be clumsily integrated into a Ziggy joke, for your amusement. Ha ha, take that, “http://,” whatever the hell you are!

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