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Family Circus, 11/12/07

Christ almighty, what is the deal with the Keane kids and their asses? Someone needs to explain to little Jeffy the basics of literal and metaphorical human anatomy, pronto, before he starts complaining about a “broken heart,” “offering up his heart” to his first love, “wearing his heart on his sleeve,” and other scenarios that don’t even bear thinking about it.

When I first saw this cartoon, I thought Jeffy and his mom were looking out the window, and that a spontaneous act of Veterans Day (Observed) flag approbation was going on in their front yard. This could have made Jeffy not just stupid but dangerously stupid, as the gathered vets might have thought that he was bringing shame to the flag with his ass-clutching and decided to beat him up. This of course would have been hilarious, especially if some of the really old guys had taken the lead (imagine him being held down by a couple of 73-year-old Korean War vets while an 84-year-old comes at him with the same bayonet he used at Guadalcanal). However, since they’re actually watching the Patriotism Channel on their enormous flat-screen TV, Jeffy is only shaming his household, which is nothing new.

Slylock Fox, 11/12/07

The sight of Slylock dickering with some kind of smallish mammalian taxi driver (a monkey, maybe?) over cab fare while the as-usual moronic bunnies stare on dumbly is probably the funniest thing I’ve seen today. I would say that the taxi driver’s sudden attack of deafness is less “a mystery to be solved” and more “the driver being kind of a dick.” On the other hand, maybe there’s some history here that we’re not privy to. (“How did Murray Monkey know that he should give Slylock the incorrect change? Solution — Because the cheap bastard never tipped on any of his previous trips to the airport, and his picture is taped to the dashboard of every cab in town.”)

I know that Max is clambering into the trunk to get out the comparatively enormous suitcase because he can’t actually reach it from the curb, but I’d like to imagine that Slylock and/or the driver actually made him ride back there for the entire way. “Sorry, Max, no rodents in the car!”

They’ll Do It Every Time, 11/12/07

Who’ll do it every time? Why, Comics Curmudgeon readers, of course! “Donna Normington” is really none other than our own Mountain Momma. I have to say that I’m impressed by her limber nature — I don’t think I could ring the doorbell with my foot while carrying two bags full of groceries! And I hope her hubby appreciates his buck-toothed caricature.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/12/07

Whoa, check out those tiger-striped suspenders on Lem! Hot. HOTT. This is what happens when the International Male catalog starts delivering to Hootin’ Holler.

And finally, I leave you with a stunning find from faithful reader Jym. In his own words:

On October 10, 1987, I encountered what I recognized as the Rosetta Stone of Mark Trail strips. A young motorcycle hooligan had disrupted a teen-themed outdoor adventure with his infernal racket, but we got some inkling that he maybe wasn’t all bad. This strip showed us exactly what he needed to do to reveal himself as a worthy citizen.

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I know I’ve been busy this weekend, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t diligently choose a COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“Johnny goes through mustache wax like it’s going out of style. Which, coincidentally, it did, about 125 years ago.” –Tweeks_Coffee

And bravo to the runners up as well!

“I fear Judge Parker is leading us to a modern update of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Nuclear weapons are no longer the threat — now Klaatu/Sophie tells us, ‘Your climate is changing’ and warns us to mend our ways. But no, we won’t listen. I give it two weeks before Keith and his idling Hummer are destroyed by a rampaging Gort.” –dbp

“There are so many things out there that harm our youth today: drugs, guns, gangs, pasties flashed during the Super Bowl, Pokemon, that damn rap music … But it was hubris that took down poor Mike Patterson. Hubris, that overweening pride, that indomitable narcissism. Alas, poor Michael Patterson. Today I lay you down in a loamy grave with a foobish shovel. Rest in peace, young hooligan. The living do, indeed, bury the dead.” –Broken Skittles

“Vengeance? After witnessing plugger sex? Don’t be silly. You know full well you’ll be in holding yourself in the corner of a dark, cold room, whimpering softly and crouching in a puddle of your own tears.” –SNF

“‘There doesn’t seem to be any serious damage.’ YEAH, BECAUSE WHEN THERE IS, YOU USUALLY HEAR A KIND OF GRINDING NOISE WHEN I DO THIS TO ITS HEAD.” –SmartPeopleOnIce

“But now, I think [Mary Jane]’s about to emerge as an unexpected supervillainess. There’s a giant exoskeleton hidden under that bulky, unattractive, totally not-MJ sweater. Soon she will emerge as … The Lavender! Or … The Twin Set! Or … some other lame-ass Spidey comic strip type villain.” –Deborah

“You couldn’t find Exit 163B, and it was marked with big green signs. Good luck finding the g-spot, Casanova. Hopefully there’s a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves in the glove compartment.” –Joe Blevins

“The vet is totally putting the moves on Mary. (Ew! Ew! EW!) I don’t know if the funny pages can handle a Mary Worth who’s not having sex with TWO doctors at the same time.” –Meanwhile

“Could Mary Worth possibly be any more virtuous if she tried? She oozes moral rectitude from every pore of her unwrinkled flesh.” –Moss_Moses

“Marshmallows fresh from the back pocket, mmm yum! And their body heat will melt them to the degree they will be flat, sticky, and covered with pocket lint. Lint is like candy sprinkles to a Keane kid.” –True Fable

“At first glance, I thought the Family Circus kids were taking shots. Maybe they’ve invented some new drinking game where every time one of the kids says something banally funny you take a shot … or 12, depending on how much it hurts your soul.” –Chesnut

“I’ve gotta say, the sudden spurt of TDIET submissions based around the hospital leads me to hypothesize three equally depressing, yet equally likely theories: 1) the readership of the strip has a collective perpetual foot in the grave, 2) lonely, miserable, bedridden hospital patients have no better way to wile away their hours than to doodle comic strip ideas on the back of their napkins and sigh about lost time, or 3) the readership of TDIET frequently find themselves in the hospital due to the high blood pressure brought on by complaining about every last damn thing.” –Tats

“Mary’s face in panel two is like Christmas. It’s like her response to ‘All creatures great and small deserve our compassion’ is ‘I am familiar with this technique of saying things you can’t possibly mean in the most obsequiously bland way when you’re really about to wreak bloody, bloody vengeance upon themandohmygod, the vet and dog are GOING TO KILL ME. HELP. HELP. HELP.'” –kitty

“The reason you don’t see Sally’s mom in too many strips: she can’t stop looking at the camera. Notice that as it swoops around the pair from one side to the other, in the second panel the mom leans sharply to her right so her face doesn’t get blocked out. What we’re looking at was the nineteenth take, after the frustrated director walked off the set and the editor had to just pick the least awkward shot.” –Sobek

“I’m pretty well convinced that ‘Mitch’ is actually a young Slick Smitty. They both have the same stupid haircut and the same stupid grin. I keep expecting to see a narration box pop up: ‘Slylock Fox suspects that Mitch is lying through his teeth. What evidence suggests that he is not being honest about the iPod?’ And then an upside-down narration in small print: ‘Answer: Mitch has come to a bookstore for a meal, which clearly demonstrates that he has no understanding of how the traditional commercial system operates because he does all his business on the black market.'” –praepes

“In Bull Malone’s defense, both the kid and his boat are done up entirely in low-visibility marine camouflage and embedded in a dense cloud of waterfowl. Bull might just not have seen him. Avoiding the collision at the last second was plain good seamanship. And when he finds two guys standing on the dock, twiddling their thumbs and watching their precious vacation time tick away as they wait for someone with a boat to come along and take them to a hunting and fishing camp, what is he expected to do — leave them dangling there until Malotte’s kid finally shows up with ‘most of the water’ out of his boat, or extend some customer service and offer them a ride himself? Bull is just showing good business sense, I say. Sorry, Johnny Malotte! The cutthroat, take-no-prisoners environment of wilderness resort competition is no place for the likes of you. Good thing you have so many kids; the strong market for healthy kidneys should keep you going for a while.” –Joe Btfsplk

“Eventually, Wilson & Barreto are just going to spin off a strip called Trudy’s Ass, aren’t they?” –Keg of Curd

“I didn’t think Mary could be any more insufferably full of herself until she decided to award herself a goddamn Nobel Prize for bringing a dog to the vet.” –rhymes with puck

In other news, I’m sad to see Mark Trail Theater come to an end, though it was a fairly exhausting weekend. Faithful reader Little Red-haired Girl and her husband (aka our neighbors Kathleen and Emil) where very kind to bring us roses at the final performance! Here I am showing them off and looking pleased but zonked out:

Yes, I shaved for the performance — after all, I wasn’t playing a villain and I didn’t want Mark to start punching me uncontrollably. And that stick was an important prop! I did get to chat with several faithful readers — Minivet, Susie, and Nellie — at the Saturday shows — lovely people all! Anyone I missed talking to, please speak up in the comments! And now I’ll shut up about it all except to say that it was captured on video, and if all goes well I’ll upload it to YouTube sometime this week, at which time I’ll go on at great further length.

Oh, and before I sign off, I need to direct your attention to the the FOOBiverse Journal, that home for vitriol against all things FBOFWish, where the blogger all last week was none other than faithful reader True Fable, who, if he said anything about it here, I’m very sorry to have not noticed it.

And finally, I must as always throw some love at our advertisers:

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Shoe, 11/11/07

“These are perilous times to be refinancing your mortgage, Cosmo.” Ah, an auspicious beginning to any light-hearted journey into the Sunday funnies! But at least the Perfesser’s encounter with his mortgage lender is fairly straightforward. See, his name is “I. M. Usurious”! Which indicates that he is usurious! Ha! It’s a sharp and subtle commentary on modern mores. He’s also a buzzard, you’ll note. Because banks metaphorically feast on the flesh of the dead and dying, you see! (Or is it metaphorical? The world of Shoe, so much like ours but with anthropomorphized talking birds, always straddles the line between metaphor and nightmare.)

Family Circus, 11/11/07

The post-modern emotional desert in which the Keane kids gasp for sustenance is starkly illustrated today, as they can only interpret mom and dad’s attempt to have a genuine moment of romantic intimacy through the lens of the horrible pop cultural products of late-stage capitalism. A more realistic thing to shout at them might have been, “Hey, no getting frisky, you two! You can barely afford to feed all of us now as it is.”

And, just for the heck of it, let’s check in to see what’s going on over in Rex Morgan, M.D.!

On second thought, maybe let’s not.