Post Content

Mark Trail, 1/30/09

Uh-oh! Looks like we’re going to be getting to the punchery much sooner than anticipated! Obviously, the world of Mark Trail does not conform to our simple linear Earth-logic, but there are a few things going on here that are laughable even by this strip’s standards:

• It’s laughable that any adult human — even one as demonstrably dim as poor deerophilic Patty — would require photo-taking instructions so basic as to make it seem that she’s never encountered one of these so-called “cameras” before. “And you promise that this won’t actually put you and Bucky inside the little box, right?”
• It’s laughable that someone would be jealous at discovering Mark alone with his wife, as anyone who’s exchanged two sentences with the man would realize that sex baffles and terrifies him.
• It’s laughable that anyone would be able to clench his hand into a fist within half a mile of Mark without Mark hearing the tell-tale crinkling of palm-flesh and instantly being on the alert. WATCH OUT, KEN!

Marvin, 1/30/09

“Hmm, I seem to have written a joke that requires the grandfather character to be asleep without the reader realizing it until the third panel! This is tricky because, according to my research, most people close their eyes when they sleep, and eyes are something I draw when I do cartoons. Hmm, let me think, let me think … I could have him wear sunglasses, inside for some reason … no, that doesn’t make sense. Or, I could draw his regular eyeglasses such that you can’t see his pupils. That is at odds with how I’ve drawn him every other time he’s appeared in the strip, but, as I think I mentioned, I already came up with the joke, so it’ll have to do.”

Crankshaft, 1/30/09

If there’s one thing guaranteed to shock and disgust Crankshaft, it’s a sincere expression of human affection.

Post Content

Dick Tracy, 1/29/09

Dick Tracy is well known for such stunningly pointless narration box scene setting as “In another room” and “Elsewhere,” but I have to admit to being somewhat intrigued by “Much later”. By using qualitative, not quantitative, terms, the strip sets up an intriguing narrative tension about exactly when the third panel is supposed to be taking place. Are we meant to read it as “Much later, after Dick’s gruesome, nine-hour ‘enhanced’ interrogation of Professor Noll, at the end of which he described the secret project he was working on, confessed to a number of crimes he couldn’t have possibly committed, and then was shot ‘trying to escape’?” Or as “Much later, after the human race has evolved into a species with no pupils, shiny black skulls, truncated, pointy breasts, and a tendency to name people things like ‘Driller’?”

Gil Thorp, 1/29/09

Of course, Central has an incredible home-court advantage. Playing basketball on a court with four-foot ceilings does limit the number of home fans who can come and cheer, but for teams unused to such conditions, the stooped, simian lope that they make necessary can be a real distraction — one that the permanently hunched over Bobcats can exploit.

I’m not sure what the two clowns standing behind Marty are up to — trying to get their faces on the radio? That’s not how it works, guys — but I sincerely hope that the blond-haired glasses-wearing dude is making the universal jerk-off motion with his left hand, as he appears to be.

Blondie, 1/29/05

I strongly disapprove of the set-up for this joke. Dagwood can’t possibly be much older than, say, 50; obviously anyone born after 1960, when asked by a child if some common, century-old device were available during their childhood, would respond not with “Yes, and yet I’m also going to offer a description of an archaic technology that will make me seem even more wizened to you,” but with “JESUS CHRIST ELMO HOW OLD DO YOU THINK I AM,” followed by some serious soul-searching and a series of inappropriate and regrettable music and clothing purchases.

Mary Worth, 1/29/09

“Yes, before I came to visit you, I never imagined the hatred and despair that lurked just beneath the besequined surface of this beautiful sport! Now every time I see a coach talking to a skater on TV, all I’ll be able to think of will be the many ways that each has been able to wound and disappoint the other over the years. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to finish my glass of blood as soon as possible and get the hell out of here before this little papered-over truce you’ve established inevitably collapses in tears and acrimony and slashing blades.”

Post Content

Dick Tracy, 1/28/09

I spent longer than I care to recount staring at the final panel of this cartoon, trying to figure out what Dick was getting at. Was there some other way to pronounce “perfume” that would cause this apparent play on words to make some sort of sense? “Especially because you’re making perfume for my wife. Or is it per-foom-ay? Just like your house went a-boom-ay? Wait, no, hold on a second…” Eventually, I figured out that the final word panel should be read as “Or is it perfume?” I don’t want to single out Dick Tracy, because Random Bolding Syndrome is an affliction that strikes virtually every comic ever created, though some more than others (*cough* Mark Trail *cough*). Here’s a helpful tip for comics artists: try reading your dialogue aloud, adding emphasis, before committing it to word balloons, OK?

I did not, however, have to think very long to figure out what Dick was getting at with “Just want to know you better” in the first panel; obviously it involves electrodes, sensitive body parts, pleas for mercy, etc.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/28/09

I can’t even begin to tell you how unsettled I am by panel two Rex, with his pursed, fleshy lips and suddenly beady and lizard-like eyes. Maybe he’s trying to cut his usual condescending tone to his wife by feigning a sympathetic and concerned facial expression, but he has no real idea what that would look like, so he’s just flexing his face muscles at random and hoping for the best. Meanwhile, in panel three, Rex and June look less like they’re discussing the abstract possibility of some little boy they don’t know being lost, and more like they’ve been given some terrible, devastating piece of personal news, like “Little Sarah didn’t get into that elite pre-school because they found her uncanny and creepy” or “Honcho Magazine no longer has home delivery.”

Crankshaft, 1/28/09

It’s good to know that the ’Shaft occasionally feels a frisson of remorse for his many monstrous crimes.

Apartment 3-G, 1/28/09

“Love! Happiness! The giddiness of a new relationship! I … I … does not compute! Should I just slit her throat now and make a run for it?”