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Curtis, 9/6/06

OK, COMICS, WE GET IT! WE REALLY DO! SOMETIMES YOU GO TO THE STORE TO BUY JEANS, AND THERE ARE JEANS THAT ARE ALL BEAT UP! AND YET THEY COST MORE THAN JEANS THAT LOOK BRAND NEW! AND THAT’S CRAZY! BECAUSE WHY CAN’T YOU JUST BUY A NEW PAIR AND THEM RUN THEM THROUGH THE DRYER A BUNCH OF TIMES OR HIT THEM AGAINST A ROCK OR SOMETHING? SAVE YOU SOME MONEY, YOU KNOW? BUT THE KIDS TODAY! WITH THE FASHION! THERE’S NO REASONING WITH THEM! WHADDYAGONNADO? IT’S CRAZY! NOW WILL PLEASE STOP HARPING ON THIS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN?

Ahem. I find most of today’s comics unworthy of comment, but I do think you all need to see this. What we have here is three comic geniuses acting out a month’s worth of Mary Worth comics from 1998. The actors, portraying Mary, Ian, and Toby, are more or less frozen in the positions presumably held by the characters in the original comic strips as they recite the dialog for each panel. The gentleman playing Professor Cameron is particularly good: not only does he capture Ian’s massive level condescending bloviosity, but he went the extra mile and grew a chinbeard. The whole thing is filmed in grainy black-and-white and has eerie atonal music playing in the background, giving it the feel of one of those slightly cheesy but still awesome British horror movies from the early 1960s.

If anyone smarter than me can put this up on YouTube, I’ll be happy to post an embedded version here.

Update: Almost forgot to give credit where credit was due: this was pointed out to me by faithful reader/commentor Laura.

Upudate 2: The promised YouTube version, provided by faithful reader iburl:

Also, there are apparently four more parts! If anyone knows these people, please have them contact me! Though egotistically I’m sort of surprised that anyone who would go through the troubles of making those films isn’t already a reader of this site.

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For Better Or For Worse, 9/5/06

I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of time to discuss at great length Liz’s sanctimoniousness (faithful commentor fillmoreeast memorably referred to her as the “White Guilt Fairy”). For now, I’d just to point out that she’s awfully smug for someone who appears to have fallen under the spell of technology-assisted learning pretty much instantly. “All right kids, I’m going ask you a single question, which won’t require any kind of creative or analytical thinking on your part, before I turn on the TV. Now watch this damn tape about … I dunno … the environment or some crap. And watch it quietly. Just because I have my head down on my desk doesn’t mean I can’t hear you.”

By the way, Liz, Canada’s longest river is the Mackenzie, which for its entire length flows through … the Northwest Territories. Thus, it crosses no provinces at all. I learned this the old-fashioned way: on the Internet.

Judge Parker, 9/5/06

Oh my God, Raju, don’t wait for the clothes — you’re clearly irresistible to somebody. Look at the way she’s staring soulfully into your eyes! Kiss her, you fool, before the moment’s gone!

I’ve always been too distracted by the fright-wig craziness going on at the top of Abbey’s head to really notice the long, luxurious locks cascading down the back. She may be the wealthiest woman in America sporting a Manic Panic she-mullet.

Mark Trail, 9/5/06

Honestly, we’ve learned this already, But Molly the bear really needs to learn to express affection in some way other than french kissing. Here, she runs afoul of the moose-kangaroo hybrids that have escaped their secret government breeding compounds and are ranging free in Lost Forest.

Marmaduke, 9/5/06

There is entirely too much ass in today’s Marmaduke.

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Mary Worth, 9/4/06

Let’s get my assessment of this out of the way right now: Lame. LAME. LAAAAAME. This is just typical of the touchy-feely logic of this strip’s southern California locale: they think they can talk Stalky McStalker out of his stalking ways. Well, some mustachioed monsters can’t be reasoned with, you liberal namby-pambies.

We can’t see Dr. Chinbeard’s hands in panel one, so there’s still an off chance that he’s holding on to a pillowcase full of doorknobs and is about to start wailing away at Aldo’s face and chest. I like the fact that Wilbur is standing there with his arms crossed, like he thinks it makes him look like a bad-ass. Nobody wearing that shirt looks like a badass, Wilbur.

Gil Thorp, 9/4/06

Gil Thorp, meanwhile, is the diametric opposite of lame, as unlame as a comic strip can possibly be. Clearly Sean Pettibone has stumbled upon some sort of avant-garde band from the 1980s attempting to refresh their cutting-edge creative efforts by working up a new chainsaw-based act out in the deep woods, which they’ll record for their new album, Clearcut Symphony. Either that or they’re chainsaw-handed cyborgs, sent back from the future to prevent Milford from winning the football championship this year. Either way: distinctly non-lame. The retro Moose Miller t-shirt is just icing on the cake.

Dick Tracy, 9/4/06

It’s always kind of hard to follow the jumbled Dick Tracy chronology, but I’m reasonably sure that Dick is either engaging in pre-sex tie removing or post-sex tie retying in panel three.