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Gil Thorp, 3/20/07

Some days, when I’m having a busy day, like I did today (I’m guest-blogging at Wonkette all week, by the way, and trying to get Mary Worth restored to the Washington Post in the process), I see dozens of comments come in about a particular strip before I see the strip itself. Sometimes all the build-up is more than a strip can bear, but panel two of today’s Gil Thorp was all I had been led to hope for and more. The sight of Tyler beating himself in the back of the head in some suburban alley — with the baffling motion lines turning the scene into an Escher-esque impossibility, and with the tiny moon floating behind him, making it look like he’s dislodged one of his own eyeballs — well, it’s pretty much the best thing I’ve seen today. I’d like to think that we’re seeing smack number four here.

Mary Worth, 3/20/07

Mary Worth was of course almost as entertaining, with her creepy finger-touching. It’s like she’s measuring Vera to make sure she’ll fit in the apartment. Or, actually, it’s like she’s Judy Davis in a straight-to-Showtime movie called “Suburban Madame,” and she’s checking out the new meat to arrive at her peaceful condo complex/brothel.

Apartment 3-G, 3/20/07

This is why Tommie and Margo need Lu Ann back so badly: it’s her well-meaning idiocy that holds the trio together. Never has the contrast between the two been so apparent as in the last panel: Margo, very, very high, vibrating like a tuning fork and popping out nonsensical questions because she can scarcely be bothered to focus enough to have an actual conversation, and Tommie, collapsing inward into her mopey core, looking like she’d be glad to slit her wrists if the prospect of failing even to do that right wasn’t so embarrassing.

Pluggers, 3/20/07

The plugger’s number two rule: Oh, just buy the semi-rotted fruit. You don’t deserve any better.

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Slylock Fox, 3/19/07

Another day, another insanely dementedly wonderful Slylock Fox. While it’s usually the visuals that wow me in this strip, I have to admit that what I most love here is the phrase “transfer the brilliant mind of Slylock Fox to the soft innards of a ripe eggplant.” Not that the visuals aren’t awesome, of course: you’ve got Slylock’s usual sang-froid cracking just a little as he contemplates the purple prison that will soon entrap his very soul; you’ve got Max Mouse hiding out in what appears to be a mouse-sized coffin; you’ve got the slavering vulture, no doubt giddy in anticipation of feasting on Slylock’s empty husk; and, most poignantly, you’ve got the earlier results of the same fiendish procedure, languishing in a jar and, in what seems to me to be an insult added to injury, submerged in water.

Shoe, 3/19/07

Another sad example of the problems with working backwards from the punchline. Clearly this “joke” was thought up in advance, and the “healthcare plan” was shoehorned in later as a generic phrase that stands in for “Senator stuff.” Because honestly, while healthcare policy can cause a great deal of heated political debate, the only way his healthcare plan would actually cause havoc and pandemonium would be if it could boiled down to “free amphetamines for everybody.”

Marmaduke, 3/19/07

Ha ha! Marmaduke ate something that wasn’t edible, and now can’t pass it through his digestive tract! He’s ill and might die! Ha ha!

Normally I hate cartoons that depict animals in pain, but I might be willing to make an exception for Marmaduke.

Crankshaft, 3/19/07

Is it wrong of me want something terrible to happen to this child, whom Crankshaft is apparently throwing off of his bus onto the side of the road in the middle of nowhere? Perhaps if he gets kidnapped, just for a little while, before being found (unharmed, of course) in the trailer of some drifter on the outskirts of town, then Crankshaft will finally be seen as the monster that he is, with the ensuing media circus forcing him to leave town along with his resentful family.

Normally you get bumped off of an airplane because it’s full. By kicking this kid off of what appears to be an empty bus, Crankshaft earns extra asshole points. Not that he needs them.

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Without further ado, I present … the comment of the week!

“Even more disturbing is that Gerald and Apes are apparently CHEWING ON EACH OTHER’S CHEEKS. If they plan on going roadside, I see heartache, disappointment, and chafing.” –Gabe

And of course, the rest of the best:

“I am baffled by Curtis’s reaction to the scene he has just witnessed. If I saw a young boy bring to life two balloon golems that subsequently danced around until their demise by murder-suicide, the floor would be covered in my poop.” –Analyzer

“Margo needs to break up with him because before Eric, we just had angry caustic bitch Margo hanging around the apartment giving the other airheads what-for. It was awesome, or at least as awesome as a boring comic like A3G can aspire to. Now that she’s boinking Eric, we have to watch her constantly shifting between three possible emotional states (jealous rage, angsty insecurity, or goofy joy), and that’s lame. Put plainly, Margo and insecurity just don’t go together, and I don’t think anyone can make a convincing argument for why Margo should ever be happy.” –Trilobite

“Word of advice to the Home Shopping Network’s booking agent: Name ‘Shady’ + Tattered Clothing + Single Tooth = Crack Dealer.” –Hambone

“I’m sorry, but I have trouble believing such vivid daydreams are emanating from someone as clearly sedated as Tommie is.” –Tats

“I look at those hipster outfits at Affect Ad Agency and can’t help but wonder what year it is. It looks like they’re all moon-walking out of a ‘Where’s the Beef’ campaign brainstorming session.” –Shiptic Canker

“Man, you’ve got to love those trademark Pluggers puns: ‘A Plugger often deliberates among several fast-food restaurants. Also: soul-crushing poverty.'” –Z. D. Smith

“The comic Spider-Man can’t handle a single brick falling five feet — of course, maybe it hit a vulnerable spot, his Achilles skull.” –Dean Booth

“It really bugs me that EVERYONE in the new MW storyline appears to need to touch their own or neighboring genitals at least once per strip. Unless New Girl is doing the pee-pee dance there — who knows how long Ben has had her cornered there talking about Ha Ha stuff? Weeks? Months?” –AndreaD

“I’m over here silently praying that Margo’s latest snub puts Tommie over the edge, so our mousy redhead challenges our blustery cokehead to a sex-off.” –Cranky

“Very disturbing male stripper audience vibe from the soccer moms in the last panel [of Crankshaft]. They seem to be thinking, ‘I wonder if he drives in bed like he drives that bus?’ But, that way lies madness.” –Chubby Haggis

“Not sure if I’m a plugger. I’m lower-middle-income and hairy.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“And DAMN but Sara has a) a freakishly huge head or b) hideously shriveled claws in panel 2. It’s a shame she doesn’t know any doctors.” –juggernaut

“I like how June is immediately giving Niki a chore to do literally hours after Elvis tried to kill him.” –Gal Friday

“Why is it that all these soap opera strips seem to be written to confirm the fears of shut ins? ‘If you travel to another country you’ll become deathly ill and the heathen doctors will never be able to cure you and then you’ll get lost on the subway and mugged by overly formal punks! Applebee’s is all the exotic culture any sane person ever needs.'” –Christopher

“You might think the point of Mark Trail is to teach kids to be better connected with nature, but don’t be so naive. The obsessive cataloging of animal-related factoids is just one facet of its central theme, a devastating portrayal of Asperger’s Syndrome.”–t.a.m.s.y.

“Having brought the animal into class, and intentionally encouraged it in all its actions, Curtis is wholly and entirely responsible for the death/maiming of his teacher. I hope he’s tried as an adult. And he’ll be glad his Dad has never given up the cigarettes despite his malicious pranks, ’cause he’ll need them for currency in the hole.” –captainswift

“April and Gerald will be caught being ‘roadside’ by the Saints, and we will be subjected to at least a week’s worth of nagging and lecturing by two couples who have no idea how to prevent pregnancy themselves. I’m going to laugh AT them, not WITH them.” –True Fable

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