Well, I must admit, I have never seen 'yikes' used in a cartoon that conveys so exactly and accurately the reader's impression of the panel in which it occurs. I mean, yikes.
One more ad love shout-out needed, due to my own careless e-mail disposal:
Hey there ho there hi there, it’s Monday night and that means COTW time!
“‘What?’, as a response to ‘I quit! We’re joining the Jungle Patrol!’, is the most realistic piece of dialogue ever to appear in The Phantom.” –Francis
And of course runner-up time as well:
“A plugger? With the correct diacritical marks in ‘déjà vu’? I think not!” –Uncle Lumpy
“I can’t believe Mark would ask why anyone would shoot at him. I think the question is: Why doesn’t everyone try to shoot at him?” –Gagott68
“I am starting to like Doctor Drew more and more. The last time we saw him, he was a whiny little tosser. This time, he is one hell of a confident little tosser. I bet that his first thought upon entering the coffeeshop was ‘Who ordered hot stud-bucket? ‘Cause a large serving is coming up.'” –Lord-z
“Oh, Josh! How can you talk about soap opera sex, and not mention ‘We’re still not high enough’ [in RMMD]? You know, to enjoy the sordid anal violations that are about to occur once we warm up by burning a pile of money. It’s all sex and drugs and money and sex and more sex and, and, wow, it’s warm in here NOW.” –Deborah
“I think Dr. Drew is preparing to play himself a jaunty congratulatory tune on his air harmonica. Perhaps it will be an entirely unknown bluegrass version of ‘I’m Too Sexy.'” –Carly
“Look at that grin on Peter [Parker]’s face in the first panel. Turning on the TV is like Christmas, sex, and crack all rolled up into one for him.” –Inspector Dim
“As a young, single woman in New York City, I must unfortunately admit that I do not find the Apt. 3-G girls’ depressing sex lives at all unrealistic. What is unrealistic is that they never seem to end up tearfully describing their loneliness to homeless people in a Papaya Dog at 4 a.m.” –Rizbon
“Phantom: I repeat, this reads better if you assume it’s a musical.” –Bobdog
“I never really understood why Dr. Jeff thought that his son Drew was a smooth operator with the ladies until now. Jeff’s relationship with Mary is, of course, based entirely on grim desperation — he assumes that if he sits quietly next to her and holds her leathery hand long enough, eventually she’ll give it up. It makes sense that he’d mistake Drew’s own outrageously manic desperation for serious game, I guess.” –Trilobite
“What sort of lame bullying big brother puts on boxing gloves and abuses his younger siblings according to Marquess of Queensberry rules? Sucker punches and crotch kicks are not only allowed, they are mandatory.” –yellojkt
“Why do the patients have their eyes closed? HIPAA, simple as that.” –Royal Sampler
“Go ahead and throw yourself at him, Gloria. It’s not like he can dodge you.” –Chief Investigator Tracer Bullet of the Jungle Patrol
“I do love Vera’s playful protest that she doesn’t like surprises; it makes perfect sense that she’d move to Charterstone, where every plotline is telegraphed three weeks in advance and takes twice as long to complete. No one in Santa Royale has been surprised since the Eisenhower administration.” –Tats
“When I saw that throw-away panel in Marvin my first thought was almost exactly the same as the first time I heard Fergie’s ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’: Someone actually sat down and created this and wasn’t horrified enough by what they had done to throw holy water on it and set it on fire.” –Kurdt
“Who the hell is Ryan? No fair bringing in vague sartorially-challenged blonde men we have never met when there already are vague sartorially-challenged blonde ones we have. What is this, A3G?” –Mel
And throwing-love-at-our-advertisers-time as well!
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Curtis, 1/28/08
Continuing on my residual fumes of Curtis-directed niceness, I have to say that I find Chutney’s exaggerated body posture in panel two really adorable. Panel four, on the other hand, disturbs and horrifies me: Curtis’ mouth appears to be sliding around the side of his uncannily ovoid head! Perhaps his mind and heart have finally opened up to the possibility of smooches from Chutney, but his mouth still won’t have any of it and is trying to escape.
Gasoline Alley, 1/28/08
The current Gasoline Alley plot, involving people who have never appeared in the strip before, surreptitious phone camera photography, and numerous end-runs around the grievance procedure laid out in the collective bargaining agreement between the U.S. Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union, is, as you might expect, meandering and dull. But I have to admit that I love love love the exchange in panel one today. Any and all questions lobbed at me that are even vaguely along the line of “You know what your trouble is?” will be met with “The system” — though ending not with some lily-livered question mark but a defiant exclamation point.
Mark Trail, 1/28/08
Mark Trail’s nemeses are in fact just flying around to get a better shot; the fact that Mark is severely overthinking their motivation just goes to show how dumb Mark Trail villains are. Mark’s contingency plan is of course foolproof, since any jurisdiction that would release a suspect with overwhelming evidence damning him as murderer based on outrageously unlikely hearsay from Mark would of course do the same if said outrageously unlikely hearsay was scrawled on a piece of paper attached to a dog that wandered into the police station.
Anyway, I’m mostly posting this because I wanted to share a couple funny graphics sent by faithful readers. First up is this note from faithful reader Daniel:
While my wife asked ‘What are you planning to do today?’ I came up with this. I think it’s the most productive ten minutes I’ve spent since getting laid off last week. I figured people could print this sign out, and place it in their car windows, or at least xerox a dozen fliers and post them in their neighborhood. People need to know the facts!
Ha ha, all fun and games — or so you think. But this note and pic, from faithful reader Gal Friday, will blow your mind!
As seen at Sundance!!! What does it mean?!
It means that folks on future Wes Anderson productions need to watch their backs, that’s what.
Mary Worth, 1/28/08
So it turns out that maybe Vera didn’t summon her ex-boyfriend to this hell cafe for the sole purpose of having her new boyfriend beat him up; rather, she’s just too lazy to make dates in separate restaurants with her various bits of emotional baggage. She also appears to have planned a two-plus hour lunch or something — I’m sure that goes over well with the head honchos at Disturbing Lack Of Affect Ad Agency. Anyway, Ryan’s bizarre way-too-early appearance, combined with his weird neck fondle in panel one, spells C-R-E-E-P-S-T-E-R to me. Or maybe V-A-M-P-I-R-E.
Of course, I’m less and less concerned about these boring humans and more and more interested in the bizarre series of identical bright orange donuts/bagels/round whatevers behind them. When we first saw these sweet (or possibly savory) treats, they at least had shelves to sit on. Today they appear to be simply glued to the back of the display case, or possibly nailed there.
Family Circus, 1/28/08
Dolly’s ultra-smug facial expression shows that she’s feeling that deep sense of self-satisfaction that only reinforcing traditional societal gender constructs can provide.
Pluggers, 1/28/08
I was going to accuse Pluggers of just slapping a new caption on art first drawn for a submission from faithful reader gh, but a quick trip to my archives revealed that said panel actually featured an entirely different drawing of an entirely different human-animal hybrid species, albeit one also featuring polka-dot boxers and obesity. Turns out that the Pluggers creative team just likes drawing huge-gutted furries in their underwear. Who are we to judge?