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Mary Worth, 5/23/11

There are a few signs that maybe you have spent too much of your life writing blog entries about the comics! One is when you get a mysterious email that says “How are you today? I see that you own the domain name: joshreads.com. I am writing to let you know that the domain name rhinospeed.com is for sale. I am contacting you to gauge possible interest in this exceptional domain name” and you think HOLY GOODNESS WHAT IS THIS ABOUT HAVE I DROPPED THROUGH THE RABBIT HOLE? but then you remember that you actually wrote a blog post about how fast a rhino can run, five years ago!

Another sign is when there’s a flashback in Mary Worth and you remember the events being flashed back to and then you think to yourself, “I don’t think this is an accurate depiction of this long-ago and hilarious episode,” and then you look it up, because of course you have this very comic, three and a half years old now, on your blog as well, like you’re running some sort of alternative to the microfiche machine down at the library (do they still have those?).

ANYWAY! Let’s pretend that flashback panel two in today’s strip isn’t just cobbled together from misty memory by the Mary Worth creative team (because that would mean that I have better recall of Mary Worth and/or better access to archives than they do, which is kind of horrifying to contemplate) but instead represents Dr. Drew’s memory of the events. If we think about it from that perspective, a side-by-side comparison becomes rather interesting!

You’ll note that Drew remembers rather precisely a number of minor details — what color shirts he and Dawn were wearing, and the colors of the coats of the horses, for instance. But there’s one quite striking difference, and that’s Drew’s face. One assumes that the earlier strip, on the right, shows how Drew would appear to an objective observer — with a rounded, boyish face — whereas the panel on the left shows his own self-image, in which he’s square-jawed and manly with impossibly sharp cheekbones. How vain we all are, in our minds!

It’s also worth nothing that, in Drew’s memory, his non-Dawn girlfriend Vera has terrifying melting nightmare eyes, but the less said about that the better.

Gil Thorp, 5/23/11

Over in Gil Thorp, the cuts to the school district’s budget are proceeding at high speed! But haven’t they already economized enough? The Chicago font on that sign indicates that it was probably printed on the district’s only computer, a Mac SE/30 purchased in 1991 or thereabouts.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/23/11

Oh, hey! Have you been wondering what’s up in Rex Morgan, M.D.? Well, what’s up is that Rex and June are apparently talking themselves into cashing in Berna’s lottery ticket and then fleeing the country.

Hi an Lois, 5/23/11

In non-soap news, today will be remembered as “the day Hi and Lois left Trixie outside to die of exposure.”

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On a more serious note, thanks to everyone who let me know about the death of Crock cartoonist Bill Rechin at age 80. I’ve been pretty savage with Crock here but he was by all accounts a really sweet guy and is a big loss to the comics community. In the grand tradition of syndicated cartooning, the strip will of course be carried on by Rechin’s son Kevin, a phenomenon that I can’t even work myself up to rage against anymore. It’ll be interesting to see what Crock 2.0 is like.

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Crankshaft, 5/22/11

A linguistic phenomenon I’ve always found quite interesting is the so-called euphemism treadmill, a process by which taboo concepts are denoted by euphemistic phrases that eventually become so strongly associated with the taboo concept that they lose their euphemistic quality, which means that a new euphemism is required. Take the phrase “toilet paper,” for instance. “Toilet” is itself a euphemism — it originally referred to a lady’s dressing table, and thus was used obliquely to refer to other things that might go on in a room where the lady dresses. Now, of course, the word is intrinsically associated with a porcelain bowl that you poop and pee into, so we need new ways to talk around it. Thus we now have “bathroom tissue,” or, as the sign I noticed in the supermarket today would have it, “bath tissue,” a phrase that would make zero sense out of cultural context because, really, who would use a tissue in the bath? It would get all soggy and clumpy! While this is a topic I’m interested in, this has all largely been an attempt on my part to ignore the fact that today’s Crankshaft features the strip’s title character complaining about the chafing on his tender anus, but I’m going to have to admit to myself now that this attempt has not worked out.

Apartment 3-G, 5/22/11

As usual, the Sunday A3G offers no new plot information, but does provide a slightly different take on the week’s events. Surely we’re all glad to have seen the fourth panel here, in which a wild-eyed Paul holds the bouquet in a strangling grip and proclaims his intention to take it to his grave.

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Dick Tracy, 5/21/11

I’m sorry to say that the current Dick Tracy plot is kind of OK on atmospherics but in general low on overall insanity. Isn’t Dick Tracy supposed to be some high-grade supercop? Doesn’t having him chase after cocaine smugglers seem like a waste of his talents? But maybe fate has conspired to bring him in contact with the Plentys’ monstrous baby, seen here in the background using its inhuman strength to cause its father permanent brain damage. If there’s any character in the comics pages who’d be willing to kill a baby that needs killing, it’s Dick Tracy.

Dennis the Menace, 5/21/11

One of the more jarring and hilarious things about Dennis’s ongoing de-Menacification is that Mr. Wilson’s contempt and loathing for him has been ratcheted back not at all, making him less a put-upon elderly gent and more a hateful sociopath. Today provides a particularly laughable example. “He’s bringing over a neatly wrapped anniversary present for us? HOW DARE HE!!!!”

Marmaduke, 5/21/11

You guys, can you seriously doubt that Marmaduke is the most terrifying kind of demon? He has literally stolen something from God and refuses to give it back! HIS POWERS ARE UNFATHOMABLE! No wonder the other dogs surround him in a worshipful pose.