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Six Chix, 8/24/11

When I was a teenager, I saw a movie on the Lifetime Channel about the serious problem of bulimia, and the two scenes in it that have stuck with me are (a) one where two teenage girls are in a van in the woods, and one teenage girl, who is initiating the other in the joys of eating disorders, says “I call it scarf … and barf,” and (b) one where the mother of the second teenage girl opens a closet and finds all the jars of vomit the daughter’s been secretly hoarding, and immediately staggers back in shock and horror, which I found surprising because, really, could you honestly say that you’d be able to identify at first glance a jar filled with puke that resulted from a binge-and-purge cycle? Anyway, recently one of my nieces claimed that she was shown this film in a health class, which I found surprising because … squirreling away jars of vomit isn’t something actual bulimics do, is it? Please tell me that it isn’t.

Anyway, this comic brought up some memories of that film, for obvious reasons! Also, it made me feel like a cranky old person who mourns the coarseness of modern life. After all, if the actual comics are going to make baby-bird-food-is-vomit-even-for-anthropomorphized-birds jokes, how am I supposed to stay relevant making those exact same jokes on my “edgy” blog?

Apartment 3-G, 8/24/11

Oh, look, Apartment 3-G is proving that “Hoboken” is an inherently funny word as it coins its second Hoboken-themed catchphrase of the year. “He’s from Hoboken, Margo, not the moons of Jupiter!” isn’t quite at the same level as “Too fancy for Hoboken and too hot for church,” but it’s still pretty good.

Beyond the fine phrase-turning, though, I have some issues with the dynamics at play here. For one thing, we’re now more than 20 years into the marketing of the western shore of the Hudson as the “Gold Coast,” within a quick PATH or ferry commute to New York; a denizen of Hudson County is at least as likely to be a stockbroker as a piano mover, though I concede that Margo’s snobbery is probably pretty accurate in terms of how arch-Manhattanites feel about the place. More importantly, though, the idea that Lu Ann is some kind of urban sophisticate who could never find happiness with a simple working man from New Jersey is completely laughable to anyone who’s actually read the strip. Heck, even if this were the one and only Apartment 3-G you’d ever seen, you might still question the idea that the cowering blonde in the all-white shirt with the old-timey collar would be too cool to be romantically involved with anyone.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/24/11

Will this pair of lovelorn widows with unnaturally sharp features find love together? All signs point to yes, despite the clownish vibe that the couple will give off, due to their freakishly bright hair!

Blondie, 8/24/11

What if you developed a sexual obsession with a television personality, an obsession that occupied your every spare thought, an obession that, for obvious reasons, you could never discuss with your wife, the person with whom you shared all of your other most intimate secrets? That’s a dilemma that would manifest itself in some pretty weird ways, I’ll bet.

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I normally don’t promote other people’s stuff here, but … this is a very cool project. Dave Kellett, a Webcomics artist who draws Sheldon and Drive, is helping make Stripped, a documentary about the history and future of comics, consisting of a series of interviews with a pretty incredible collection of contemporary newspaper and web comics artists. Here’s the trailer video! (IS THE FIRST INTERVIEWEE JEFFY KEANE? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!)

The trick is, in order for the movie to be made, it needs cash, as movies are insatiable money pits. They’re trying to raise funding for the movie on Kickstarter. If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, it’s a way to crowdsource funding: lots of folks give small amounts, and hopefully it adds up to enough to make the movie. The filmmakers have set a lofty goal, and your credit card is only charged if they collect enough pledges to actually meet that goal (this is the magic of Kickstarter). And, unlike some bloggers who offer no reward other than self-satisfaction from a contribution, the producers of Stripped have lots of goodies for you if you help them make the movie. You could just treat this as an opportunity to pre-order the DVD, or, if you have five figures to drop on a whim, you could convince the filmmakers to fly to your hometown and give you a private showing. (There’s some stuff in between those two possibilities, too.) Check it out!

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Crankshaft, 8/23/11

One aspect of the Funkyverse that is correctly only dwelled upon by a limited number of comics obsessives involves the question of intra-universe chronological continuity: what happened to Crankshaft when Funky Winkerbean jumped forward 10 years? I say “correctly” because really the timelines of all non-Doonesbury non-FBOFW comics, which generally run for years and years and yet the characters never get any older, is totally mucked up, so really, there’s no point in dwelling on it. The fact that the Funkyverse strips are permitted by a morally bankrupt comics industry and a loving God to continue spreading soul-killing gloom via the last few remaining newspapers is a Funkyverse dilemma that is incorrectly only dwelled upon by a limited number of comics obsessives, but that’s neither here nor there.

ANYWAY, for those of you who care, today’s Crankshaft confirms what we’ve all suspected, which is that Crankshaft’s universe never got time-jumped, and so the action in his strip is taking place about a decade before the current mopery in Funky Winkerbean. Here we see future Les romance victim Cayla, still sporting an Afro and still probably capable of experiencing joy. What event in the next decade will reduce her to the straight-haired, Les-proposal-accepting broken shell of a human that she is to become? Will it be because of something terrible Crankshaft is about to say to her this week? Yes, let’s go with that, it seems like a pretty safe assumption.

Spider-Man, 8/23/11

Another thing that’s only of interest to comics obsessives: changes in comics lettering style. More often than not this indicates that one of the dwindling number of holdouts who still hand-letter their strips have finally given up and start using a computer font. You can spend a bit of money and get a font based on your own handwriting that is almost indistinguishable from it, or you can make like Spider-Man and use the font that’s one step up from Comic Sans. Today our cyberletterer clearly was having so much fun playing with italics and bolded italics that they neglected that other great digital advance, the spellchecker, which probably would have helpfully noted that “copsin” is not a word in standard English.

Archie, 8/23/11

I actually completely love the middle two panels of this strip; Archie and Reggie’s mirrored angry faces together make a minor pop art masterpiece. The same could not be said for the hideous shirt that’s the source of the disagreement, which lends the whole dispute a certain air of absurdity.

Gil Thorp, 8/23/11

Guys, if you don’t find Kenny’s “‘Course not, mom. You were bombed!” response to his weeping, emotionally shattered mother hilarious, then I’m not sure if we can be friends anymore.

Marvin, 8/23/11

At last, the strategy behind Marvin’s constantly filthiness is revealed! By establishing an ever-expanding sphere of poop-stench centered on his person, he is marking his personal space.