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Herb and Jamaal, 8/23/10

For years I have criticized Herb and Jamaal for being hilarious and ludicrously non-specific, but perhaps all this time I’ve been on the wrong track. Perhaps the strip is lousy with overlong descriptions of items and concepts not because of a horror of the concrete, but because of an aversion to brevity, with the author suffering from some strange compulsion to write each sentence in as many words as possible. Thus, Herb can’t just say “I hate the way women gossip”; he has to bump it up to “I hate the way this show typifies the way women gossip,” even though doing so makes it seem that Herb is really upset about misogynist representations of women’s communication styles in mass media, thus making him an inappropriate target for his wife’s righteous ire. I notice that there’s actually room for another line of text in that first-panel word balloon, so I’m surprised we didn’t take things out to another level of abstraction. Maybe we could have gotten into some metacognition, like “I’m really surprised by how strong my hateful reaction is to the way this show typifies the way women gossip” or something.

Marmaduke, 8/23/10

“Yes, nothing makes our evil dog hunger for human souls more than the mention of his greatest enemy, God. But since God is all-creating, He created Marmaduke; doesn’t this make Him unworthy of our worship?”

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Mary Worth, 8/22/10

I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of “most consistently hilarious depiction of drunkenness in a comic strip” Reuben Award, and Mary Worth is gunning for it, hard. Lonnie began his drunken day with a jacket and pants of different colors — obviously, the hard drinking has destroyed the fashion centers of his brain. (That’s why he only wears grey now.) But once he’s got a real bender on, we can see the true horror that booze does to a man. Did Lonnie unbutton and then drunkenly try to rebutton his shirt? Probably! Because that’s what alcohol does. It leaves your wispy stomach hairs visible for the world to see. Is this what you want for yourself? Turn away from the drinking, before it’s too late!

Apartment 3-G, 8/22/10

I’m pretty sure that Lu Ann’s stylist is supposed to be some sort of sassy gay artiste. Unfortunately, as depicted, he looks more like the answer to the question “What if Mr. Clean were a supervillain who was also a resurrected undead king from ancient Sumer?” This is a question that I’m pretty sure has never been asked, ever, and even if it were I would hope that the character so described would not be saddled with the name “Mister Mojo.”

Funky Winkerbean, 8/22/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because Funky can’t feel joy, due to his crippling emotional problems.

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9 Chickweed Lane and B.C., 8/22/10

So it turns out that both humans and insects become disgusted and/or terrified when informed of the circumstances of their conception. But is their disgust and/or horror itself amusing enough to serve as the punchline of a syndicated comic strip? Based on these examples, I am going to go ahead and say “no.”

Shoe, 8/22/10

On the other hand, neither 9 Chickweed Lane nor B.C. tried to get a laugh out of bird anuses.