Post Content

Hey kids! COTW in a moment, but first a Monday Fun Link! Do you like it when syndicated comics artists make fun of other syndicated comics artists? Obviously you do, which is why you should check out last week’s installments of the excellent Watch Your Head, if you haven’t already. Start with Monday’s and then move forward in time with the arrows! DO IT!

And now, your comment of the week!

“At first, I thought Margo was yawning at the news report, which is much more in character. ‘Yeah, yeah, lama, Tibet, whatever. Hmm — Eric Mills? Didn’t I used to know someone by that name?'” –Lawyerbob

And the funny runners-up!

“Let’s be more optimistic. By ‘hit,’ she could mean ‘rob at gunpoint.’ Maybe this is the plugger Bonnie & Clyde. After a succession of daring daylight robberies, they will return home to make love on a pile of stolen swag (beefy T’s, tube socks, giant sacks of peat moss), while being serenaded by the smooth, reassuring voice of Mr. Pat Sajak.” –Joe Blevins

“Pluggers, with an apparent lack of irony, can present the stultifying sameness of suburban consumer culture as if it were a blessing. It’s like they’re suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and their kidnapper was ennui.” –Mr. Majestyk

“Not only is ‘I am the Second Officer!’ the most hilariously braggadocio-filled attempt at intimidation EVER, it would frankly be much better suited to Spider-Man’s strip. Just imagine. Spidey takes a cruise because of the endless food and tons of lounge chairs free for the sittin’, but then must confront the evil Second Officer and his nefarious plan to … eh, whatever. Spidey would inevitably forget he had his suit on under his swim trunks and then have to undergo a week’s worth of wacky hijinks to conceal his secret identity. MJ would meanwhile have to star in the ship’s dinner theater after the lead actress breaks a leg. Then Spidey would defeat the Second Officer by accidentally spilling a mai tai on him. I … kind of want to read this now.” –MsMolly

“Today’s Archie is much funnier if we assume Mr. Lodge was ‘testing’ the water for hepatitis. Those chills are a side effect of their circulatory systems shutting down.” –It’s time to pay the price

“Who am I? I’m fucking awesome, Blondie, and that’s all you need to know. I’m ruggedly handsome yet mysteriously inobtainable. Now are you going to get your boss or do you want to watch breathlessly as I punch some random shit in your office?” –EdgyDC

“My dad revealed recently that he likes Crankshaft. A few days later, he mentioned that his newspaper runs in amongst the obits, which are especially large and numerous. I think this really shows the value of context and location.” –Les of the Jungle Patrol

“In a more audacious comic, this might be a setup for Luann to lose her virginity in a sheep pen. In this one, we’re just sort of left with a vague, lingering suspicion that Gunther already has.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“The smell of the fair is popcorn, crackerjack, wax lips and makeup, cotton candy machines, animal poo, diesel exhaust, and marijuana. There’s no smell like it.” –Jimmyleg Jehosephat

“Um, if ‘there will be no stirring of passions’ then why are you lubing up your knees? Just askin’.” –Judas Peckerwood

“I think you guys are being a little hard on Mary and her ‘temporary bobble in an otherwise sea of calm.’ To me she seems pretty lucid for someone on her seventh tequila sunrise. I’ll bet by tomorrow she’s gonna be all ‘You know what? Delia and Larvance can go fuck themselves! I’m going to astronaut camp! Why don’t you ever love me, Tony?'” –Violet

“Les: [Silence.] Funky: [Silence.] Les: [Polite cough.] Funky: ‘Um, did you just touch my hand?’ Les: ‘Maybe. Did you want me to touch your hand?’ Funky: ‘Maybe.’ Les: ‘Everyone who loves me dies.’ Funky: ‘Please stop touching my hand.'” –idathefossil

“Well, Josh, judging by Gramma’s heavy-lidded expression, I’d say the ‘it’ in question is heroin.” –Red Greenback

“My guess for tomorrow’s Funky Winkerbean is that Les and Funky discover that they’re trapped on the roof. Other characters, numbed by years of being in the comic strip, are unable to respond to the pair’s desperate pleas for help for a week. The next week Les and Funky eat the last pigeon egg from the nest in the clogged storm gutter and begin to hallucinate about dead people who they knew due to fatigue and malnourishment. The week after that, five straight days of folding chair battles and cannibalism.” –Birthmark Hal

“Note the intense concentration Dolly is giving Billy during his lecture. Since she can’t possibly understand what day it is, let alone grasp the concept of ‘tomorrow,’ I’m betting she is simply staring at his single nostril.” –True Fable

“Toby says she hopes Delilah doesn’t stay too long, because she wants her to reconcile with Lawrence. Hold on! Have we just witnessed Toby finally coming to realize that the more time anyone spends in Mary’s clutches, the less able they’ll be to resume any kind of normal human relationships? No wonder she’s taking a sudden trip to ‘Scotland,’ or wherever the deprogramming center actually is.” –BigTed

“I’m pretty sure Mary just put of coat of pink paint on some nuggets of dog crap and is making Toby not only eat them, but praise them and beg for more. I’d say it was all a sick game of Mary’s but is anything ever not some kind of sick game of Mary’s?” –Bryan

“The true malevolence of the seagull in MT can only be recognized when we realize that, with this being MT, the passing bird is endowed with the power of speech and therefore is perfectly capable of following the panel’s instructions for saving someone caught in the riptide by shouting out directions. Yet this flying monster chooses to pass in smirking silence, allowing our bikini’d victim to die horribly, out of sheer spite. I wouldn’t be surprised if the seagull took a moment to defecate on her head, to add insult to fatal injury.” –Nekrotzar

“Santa Royale City Ordinance 09-084: All interior paint, upholstery, items of clothing, and comestibles to be worn, possessed, or consumed by city residents shall be salmon-colored and/or salmon-flavored. Mustard-colored sofas are exempt from this rule.” –wagmore barkless

“At first I thought that the bolded first letters of each tip in this Mark Trail were meant to form some sort of acronym that might help hapless swimmers find their way to safety, but it seems more likely that ‘HHWODHII’ is the sound that our friend in the water is making as the sea claims another victim.” –Gerritt

“Shame on you, Mr. Magee! Although it gladdens our little pink heart that you are civilized enough to put on a necktie for a sixteen-hour airplane voyage, loosening it is worse than not wearing one at all. Where are your standards, sir?” –Fashion Police

I give prodigious thanks to those who put some money in my tip jar — you know who you are! I’d also thank our advertisers … if there were any who bought BlogAds ads, and who thus get thanked every week! Sadly, there aren’t any this week — maybe next week I’ll be thanking you! To find out more about advertising on this site, click here.

Post Content

Marvin, 6/15/09

You know, every time I think that Marvin has reached a new nadir of depravity, I am horrified and amazed anew as a fresh week of filth blights the innocent comics pages. The strip’s title character (aka “Satan’s toddler”) enjoys sitting around in his own putrefying waste, you see. How can he be convinced to join polite society and learn to urinate and defecate in a toilet? Only by animating his potty chair by some sinister magic and having it beg to be defiled. “You see Marvin, I’ve come out here because I want you to pee and poo in my mouth! Isn’t that vile enough to bring a glimmer of cruel enjoyment to your dark, dark soul?”

Lockhorns, 6/15/09

Ha ha, it’s funny because Loretta has killed Leroy by slipping horse tranquilizers into his evening highball! At least he appears to have died happy.

Garfield, 6/15/09

And just like that, the murder-suicide pact is forged.

Post Content

Hey kids, it’s comics education time! You’ve probably seen me refer to “throwaway panels” when I tackle some of the Sunday strips, and it may be that you don’t know what this means! Essentially, most Sunday strips are shipped to newspapers with an extra row of panels at the top, which some (many, in these days of shrinking budgets) papers cut off so that they can fit more comics into a limited space; as a result, the strip as a whole must be able to stand without these panels. There are varying strategies for dealing with the narrative problem thus raised.

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 6/14/09

For instance, some strips use them to present little mini-episodes that stand somewhat apart from the main action. A good example is today’s Dennis the Menace, where we learn that Mr. Wilson would like nothing better than to spray his irritating neighbor with deadly poison.

Panels from Curtis, 6/14/09

Another is today’s Curtis, where we discover that Gunther is sweeping the floor to his barbershop! Ha ha! That Gunther! What won’t he do?

Mary Worth, 6/14/09

Sometimes the throwaway panels change the focus of the strip. For instance, without the top row of panels in today’s Mary Worth, we’d probably manage to ignore those pinkish briquettes that Mary and Toby are gobbling up by the fistful. But with those panels in place, we’re forced to confront the fact that they’re genuine Mary Worth-prepared “salmon squares,” and must kill a little bit of our souls trying to figure out what, exactly, a “salmon square” might be. Has Mary taken moist, delicious, tender salmon and mercilessly baked it until it’s a series of hard, crispy pucks that are easy to pick up without getting your hands oily, and that taste like ashes in your mouth? Is the salmon inside some kind of pink pastry shell, resulting in an awful salmon-flavored Pop-Tart? Was this so-called “new recipe” written on parchment in human blood in the bowels of hell by Satan himself? Probably!

Marvin, 6/14/09

Then there are throwaway panels that alter the entire thrust of the strip. For instance, without the top row of panels, this strip could be summarized as “babies love cookies, and grandmas love giving cookies to babies”; but with them, the message is more “babies and dogs are an awful lot alike.”

Mark Trail, 6/14/09

And sometimes the throaway panels can accommodate differing levels of ambient prudishness across various media markets. Would a drawing of a comely lass in a bikini result in angry letters from comics readers in your paper’s distribution area? Just remove the top row et voilà! You’ll still get a helpful text wall on avoiding rip currents, and a terrifying close up of our naive swimmer dying in terror. That seagull in the final panel doesn’t seem to be helping matters; in fact, I’m guessing that he will soon be dive-bombing our hapless swimmer, so that she’ll drown more quickly and fatten up the fishes that he’ll eat later. Nature is cruel!

Funky Winkerbean, 6/14/09

Unrelated to throwaway panels, but related to dying in terror: does this strip finally settle the “What happened to Wally” question? This being Funky Winkerbean, we should have guessed that he died, probably in terror.

I was going to make a crack about how Becky conveniently arranged the parade to conclude at the cemetery where Wally’s grave was, but in all likelihood in the world of Funky Winkerbean it’s impossible to plan a parade — indeed, it’s impossible to plan a trip of any significant distance — that doesn’t end up at a graveyard.