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Family Circus, 2/24/07

Siddhartha Gautama was born a prince, and his parents vowed that he would never experience any suffering. When, as a young man, he slipped out of the palace and saw an old man, a sick man, and a corpse, the shock set him on a spiritual journey, at the end of which he became known as the Buddha, or “the Awakened One.”

Since Dolly has apparently been kept in some kind of hermetically-sealed plastic bubble, protected even from insects, for her entire life, I’m curious as to what sort of religion she’s going to found as a result of her stunning first encounter with these tiny filth-eating creatures. I’m guessing it will really, really like ants, or really, really hate them.

Mark Trail, 2/24/07

Who knew that Dan would make this the sexiest Mark Trail storyline ever, what with his strolling around naked day after day? Admittedly, random objects intervene so we can’t see his perky man-nips, but this is Mark Trail, where a lady’s sexiest outfit is a pink polo shirt, so you have to take sexiness where you can find it. The first panel in particular, taken in isolation, would work if Dan were about to go on stage one more time tonight as part of some tawdry Chippendale-style revue; even though he’ll be subject to the drunken stares and hooting of dozens of women, he assures his lady love that hers is the only gaze he really cares about.

I’m assuming Dan’s “thing” is actually some kind of ill-conceived insurance scam involving faking his own death. The plan will fail because it relies on Sally’s anguished reaction in the wake of Dan’s feigned demise; since she never seems to have any dialogue, I’m guessing that her inability to speak will derail the scheme.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/24/07

So, yeah, this happened. Do you think maybe all the other FW suffering is in video game form too? Harry Dingle could get his hearing back if he just got more power-ups? Cancer Girl is really playing Halo’s “Remission” mod?

They’ll Do It Every Time, 2/24/07

I’ve mostly posted this so that you could unironically enjoy the Loyal Order of Caribou roll call (including “Anson Pantz” and “Harv Buttly”). But I do wonder whether Schnookly is less a “member” of the club and more its “hired servant.” It would explain a lot.

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Jeez, y’all have been busy little commentors over the weekend, haven’t ya? Anyway, new comics coming soon, but I thought I’d reiterate clarify a few comment-related matters:

• The spam filter is an automated, capricious beast. It is necessary to keep me from going insane — without it, I would get literally thousands of spam comments a day — but if it decides that you are a spammer, sometimes it will “retro-spank” your old comments — that is, find comments that have been around for a while and zap them. I will retrieve them if I can but I’m not always able to do so. This also mucks with the numbering system of the comments; apologies, but it is the best I can do.
• I don’t care what you link to in your comments, so long as you’re not just posting outright commercial spam or links to spyware or something. But if you’re linking to something that you might expect someone else to reasonably find objectionable, be polite and make a note of that in your comment.
• Please don’t get pissy at other commentors, even if they get pissy with you. Especially if they get pissy at you. Really, be a big person and ignore them. Do you want this site to be a center of rage and vitriol like every other site on the Interweb? No, of course you don’t. (Update: Rage and vitriol towards your fellow commentors, I mean. Hate on the Foobs and Hi and Lois all you want.) If things start getting bad, the comments will be banished to the Cockpit, but I can’t police people all the time.
• Do not throw around racial or homophobic slurs, or deliberately and repeatedly instigate conflict with your fellow commentators. That will get you deliberately added to the spam filter’s blacklist by me, and you will not get out. See the discussion policies, and heed Rule #4.

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Shoe, 2/23/07

To me, the tropes in Shoe range from the mildly amusing (“the Perfesser has trouble with deadlines”) to the bland (“Skyler doesn’t know the answer to a test question, so he comes up with an ‘amusing’ response”) to the irksome (“Shoe is hounded by his ex-wives for money”). However, there are few I find more more outright distasteful than “the obese older male birds hit on ‘sexy’ fortysomething birds who look like they have been used hard by life.” And few strips in that genre have been as unpleasant as today’s, in which the Perfesser drunkenly attempts to initiate sexual relationship with a barfly, only to be repulsed to discover that she’s even more intoxicated than he is. So, um, congratulations, Shoe, on bringing me to this new level of ick. Don’t feel any obligation to top yourself in the future or anything.

Apartment 3-G, 2/23/07

So the Apartment 3-G creative team had done a decent job depicting Albert Pinkham Ryder’s face, though his ghost is dressed rather nattily for someone who spent the latter part of his live a shut-in. But considering that most of Ryder’s work consisted of dark, moody landscapes that presaged modernism, I question whether he would go through the trouble of coming back from the dead just to help Lu Ann paint her bright, faux-Victorian botanical still lives on white backgrounds. I suppose he doesn’t really get to pick the tastes of the artists he inhabits. Being dead must be even worse than I thought.

Kudzu, 2/23/07

Most of the time, Kudzu’s hateful “modern bible translation” bits involve slang that’s at least five years out of date, which allows me to feel young and scornful. But I had to goggle at today’s strip for a good five minutes before I figured out that “friend” as a verb is probably supposed to mean “to add as a friend on MySpace or Facebook or whatever those social networking hoo-hah sites are that I’m too old and cranky to use.” Sussing out the meaning was made even more difficult because the phrases in the Lord’s Prayer it replaces — “trespasses” and “trespass against” in the King James, “sins” and “sin against” in more modern translations — don’t correspond, like, at all. It’s just an attempt at slapping in a random neologism in place of a word that may be vaguely suitable for replacement because in the King James translation it’s kind of archaic and confusing. So, in conclusion, I hate it, and it should die.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/23/07

I usually look away when Funky Winkerbean hits its high points of horror, but I have to ask: does anyone else think that the black blob between Wally’s outstretched arms in panel three that doesn’t seem to be attached to anything is his head? Take that, Mrs. Wally! You think it’s so damn tough going through life with one arm? How about going through life with zero heads, huh? Game, set, and match!