Post Content

In honor of Cassandra Cat’s recent appearance, I thought I’d share a couple lovely pics of that extra-special Bob Weber, Jr.-designed Cassandra Cat merchandise. First up is three-month-old Emma Parsnip, daughter of faithful reader Frank:

But despite what this and other merchandise pics might imply, Cassandra Cat-themed clothing is not just for infants! Adults can wear it too, as faithful reader littlefox demonstrates:

Make like these two and get Cassandra Cat stuff of your very own!

Post Content

For Better Or For Worse, 10/15/07

It’s here! Michael’s horrible, soul-killing abomination of a book, Stone Season, is here!! Oh happy day! Robin, the reason the book is so heavy isn’t because it lacks pictures. (Isn’t a picture as heavy as a thousand words, anyway?) It’s because the book contains a greater suck-to-page ratio than any book ever published before in the English language. You be careful with it, because it could collapse into a black hole of awful at any moment.

(By the way, you may think I’m being unfair and saying Michael’s book is crappy based only on some kind of generalized anti-Foob feeling; but if you’re saying that, you haven’t read the excerpts on the FBOFW site. Go on, find them in Michael’s letters … if you dare.)

It’s good to see that Deanna, who has long been consigned to child-raising and house-maintenance duties, has accepted her position as a mere employee in Michael Patterson’s Wonderful Life and has agreed to wear a name tag. Hey, wait a minute — Deanna’s a plugger! It’s the next logical step in the downward spiral of degradation.

Gil Thorp, 10/15/07

Ah, the anti-Cully hate is rising; I expect a torch-wielding mob to have formed by the end of the week. Only the student at right in panel two seems to be having second thoughts. “Gee, what happened with Cully was an accident! How can this school be so closed-minded? Now I’m afraid of what will happen if they find out I wasn’t born a biological female!”

Mark Trail, 10/15/07

GAH, WHY WON’T THIS STORYLINE STOP? At least Thomas is becoming amusingly intoxicated with all the attention he’s getting for his do-gooderism. Soon he’ll go completely over the edge, running around the forest desperately looking for a cute animal to hug.

Marmaduke, 10/15/07

His appetite for bones becoming ever more insatiable, Marmaduke has somehow convinced “Ace” to exhume a mass grave.

Post Content

Slylock Fox, 10/14/07

Hey, everybody! Cassandra’s back! She’s dressed sexily but still fairly demurely in her pedal-pushers and sensible sandals (though of course you can buy a t-shirt with her in a much groovier get-up). Today’s Cassie adventure reveals only the depth of Slylock’s total obsession with her. The poor cat’s barely gotten to the point of filling out her police report paperwork and the Fox has already broken and entered into her place, no doubt predisposed to ignore her plea to help. He probably moved the dust around just to spite her. And the “bad housekeeping” jibe is just cruel. She’s a sexy cat about town with a full social calendar, detective. Just because you have tons of free time to dust your place while fantasizing about gorgeous she-felines that no jail can hold doesn’t mean her life is snoresville.

Anyway, I hope that kids read this and learn how to perpetrate a successful insurance fraud. I also hope Max is enjoying his time staring at Cassandra’s ass.

Apartment 3-G, 10/14/07

Oh my God, Tommie made a funny! Mark your calendars, everybody!

I’m pretty much in love with everything about this strip, even though exactly nothing happens in it. I love Tommie’s little joke, I love the fact that Lu Ann and Tommie are fully dressed while Margo is just crawling out of bed (it’s probably 3:30 in the afternoon), I love the forceful period, a tiny black singularity of disgruntlement, at the end of Margo’s “fine” in panel six. I also love how damn happy Lu Ann is. She apparently is no longer concerned about her brain damage and resulting memory loss, although it’s possible she’s already forgotten about it. Based on her outfit, she’s also forgotten that she’s a big old prude as well.

Family Circus, 10/14/07

The self-referential causality loop that this strip is locked into is already a bit of a mind-bender, but what really pushes it over the edge is the little signature conversation at the bottom right. Daddy and Jeffy are having a nice little condescending put-down of moronic big brother Billy (who’s based on respected Disney animator Glen Keane). And then they use his joke anyway, while still pointing out that it sucks. It’s philosophical and dysfunctional all at once!

Spider-Man, 10/14/07

The world of journalism was shocked when Peter Parker, a virtually unknown freelancer, won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his “The Other America” series. But nobody who saw those photographs of the people standing in line to receive their unemployment insurance checks doubted that he deserved it. The range of expressions in the photographs — running the gamut from hopefulness to grim determination to despair to fear — was captured tenderly in what one critic called “an emotional tour de force.” So why, when Parker got on stage to accept his award, did he conclude his short speech by thanking J. Jonah Jameson? The pictures hadn’t run in the Bugle. Nobody at the awards dinner could understand it, though those sitting near the flamboyant flat-topped editor reported that he bit down particularly hard on his unlit cigar when Parker said it.

Crankshaft, 10/14/07

Hey, look, it’s Crankshaft’s ass! That’s what America wanted more of, apparently. Who knew?