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For Better Or For Worse, 10/11/06

Is there anything grosser than Anthony harkening back to one of his and Liz’s furtive almost-certainly-didn’t-get-to-second-base teenage make-out sessions as Liz describes what it felt like being overwhelmed by the flood of memories of her near-rape? Well, maybe it’s the fact that just before said flood of memories arrive, we get that patented icky FBOFW close-up, where an ostensibly pretty girl looks like she’s been daubed with layers of makeup in preparation for a mall-studio glamor photo. Anyway, to summarize: Ew.

Dennis the Menace, 10/11/06

The first thing that entered my mind upon reading this strip, as I’m sure was true for all of you as well, was the immortal quatrain that concluded Ice Cube’s 1993 classic, “It Was A Good Day”:

Drunk as hell but no throwin up
Half way home and my pager still blowin up
Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K.
I got to say it was a good day

Ah, Dennis, so many opportunities for adventure your beeper opens up to you! All of which involve drugs. Because pretty much everyone other than drug dealers has gone in for cell phones now. Cell phones, Dennis the Menace scribes. Take a note. They’re like these little phones that you can take around with you wherever you go. Been pretty omnipresent since the late ’90s or so. No, no need to thank me.

As Dennis continues to be less and less menacing, his constant companion and foil has been consistently portrayed as even feebler in order to leave the impression that Dennis still has something of an edge. Has poor Joey ever looked readier for the short bus than he does here today?

Mark Trail, 10/11/06

People say that Jack Elrod can’t draw people very well. I say that never has the majestic American mullet been portrayed with the attention to detail and depth of feeling on display here.

I’m deeply intrigued by the suspense built up by the nonspecificity of “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Yeah, let’s do it!” Here’s my idea for the missing fourth panel: Molly is wearing an adorable bonnet and drinking tea out of a tiny cup, sitting at an itty-bitty table with a bunch of stuffed animals, all of whom also have teacups in front of them. Orange Shirt and Mullet Head stand nearby, taking pictures for their novelty Web site and squealing in girlish delight.

Mary Worth, 10/11/06

Sometimes in a strip you see the gears begin to shift and new directions begin to open up, and you have to ask yourself if you’re willing to go down the new trails that are about to be forged. So if you’re wondering if I’ll still love Mary Worth if it becomes less about Mary meddling in the lives of others and more about Ian saying wildly inappropriate things sotto voce in delicate situations, the answer is: Yes. Yes I will.

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Apartment 3-G, 10/10/06

Even the visible-stage-direction-happy artists at Apartment 3-G can’t figure out a way to show that Lu Ann’s lips are moving as she reads Alan’s letter, so they’ve decided to just have her read it aloud to an empty room.

Ignoring Lu Ann’s tendency towards single noble tears, I’m sort of intrigued by the sentence structure of Alan’s missive. It could be read as “I hope it’s not too late to say, ‘I love you, Alan.'” Then, when she reads that part aloud, Alan could jump out of a closet and say “Ha ha, you do love me! You admit it! Sucker!” and head out to go have sex with one of his barely-legal art groupies, laughing all the way.

Mary Worth, 10/10/06

So, due to crappy coloring, it took me a minute to figure out what’s going on here: That little soliloquy in the second panel is of course emerging from Ian, and you can see the stem pointing from the word balloon at his big fat head just above Toby’s tresses. But somehow another balloon stem seems to be emerging from the tree upon which Wilbur is resting one of his hairy mitts. The effect implies that Dr. Cameron, failing to get his accomplices to join in with him in a four-part harmony of condescension, has chosen to co-bloviate with the local flora.

Mark Trail, 10/10/06

Wow, remember when this storyline was about poachers and tiger penises and Kelly Welly’s unquenchable sexual urges? Now it’s all about the wacky adventures of Molly, the lovable bear … with an nose for trouble! You just know she’s going to wander off and, I don’t know, maul a baby or something, and then not understand the hostility towards her, and then Mark will have to bail her out of trouble and everyone will laugh and say, “Ho, ho, that’s our Molly!” And then there will be scenes from next week’s episode, with special guest star Tim Conway. I’m totally OK with this change of focus, you understand, but I’d sort of like to be informed of when Kelly gets tired of Ranger Rick and casts him aside, a broken man.

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Hey, everybody! I’ve rearranged the Comics Curmudgeon store over at CafePress. Go check it out! Everything is now in categories for your convenience, leaving the front page a lot less cluttered.

Now, here’s the thing. I haven’t actually taken advantage of my store’s newfound ability to have multiple logos on the same kind of garment … yet. This is because I’m kind of lazy and the interface for designing new products is kind of clunky. So here’s how this is going to work. Go over to the store, click on the amusing bit of whimsy that you’re interested in sporting on an item of clothing of some kind, and see if any of the stuff already for sale meets your needs. If not, just send me an e-mail letting me know what sort of thing you’d rather have. (You can find a list of the clothes available here, and there’s more crap here.) I should have it up within 24 hours. You could also just leave your request as a comment on this thread, but if you send me mail I’ll be able to write you personally when the item you requested is available. Sounds good? You know it does.

Oh yeah, and anyone who loves Mary Worth (which, I assume, is ALL OF YOU) ought to check out faithful commentor Smitty Q. Smedlap’s latest blog post on the subject.

UPDATE: So it turns out that not all the CafePress schwag at that second link is available for me to slap logos on in my store. Sorry ’bout that. I was looking forward to selling Aldomania flasks as much as you were looking forward to buying them.