Post Content

For Better Or For Worse, 10/9/06

Well! The witnesses need to stay in town, you say? That sure is inconvenient for any of the witnesses that might have out-of-town boyfriends that they’re trying to build a relationship with! And plenty convenient for total losers who have nowhere else to go but might be able to wear down the objects of their affection with their constant mewly, schlumpy presence! Yes, it appears that every aspect of Liz’s near-rape ordeal has been calculated to ease Anthony’s wooing process. Years from now, they had better have a good child therapist on retainer for the moment when their kids finally ask the inevitable “So how did you guys finally get together” question.

Note also that Anthony is staring at Liz’s ass in the first panel.

I’d say that we’re at least going to get an introduction to Canada’s fascinating, British-derived legal system out of all this, but surely the only law this strip will be obeying is the Law of Narrative Convenience. For starters, who exactly is this bald fellow our power couple is talking to? Ontario’s official Junior Minister for Exposition?

B.C., 10/9/06

Things this deranged B.C. might possibly mean:

1. Columbus’ actions upon his “discovery” of Hispaniola began a legacy of enslavement and genocide that forever tainted the European colonial enterprise in the Americas.
2. What we need are more leaders like Columbus, who don’t let considerations of “political correctness” prevent them from getting done what needs to be done.
3. Them colored folk sure are good at the ball games.
4. MADNESS MADNESS MADNESS

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/9/06

“Elvis.” Huh. I … I don’t think any of us were expecting that. Well played, Rex Morgan, well played.

Post Content

Without further ado: this week’s comments-of-the-almost-week.

“The way I remember the story, Raju, is that the ugly duckling turns into a swan. In this telling, the duckling turns into Henry Kissinger in a pineapple shirt.” –Dingo

“Few Pluggers tend to be young, perhaps because the young still have, generally, a modicum of hope.” –Fred P.

On Beetle Bailey: “It looks like the tanks in the strip are WW2 Shermans, the helmets are the ‘Steel Pot’ variety that was replaced in 1983, and the rifles are M-1 Garands which went away in the ’50s. The sandbags look current, at least.” –Frank Drackman

“Today’s They’ll Do it Every Time made me really depressed for some reason. More so than usual, I mean.” –Cafangdra

“I suppose MW’s depiction of stalkers is no less out of whack than anything else in there. The strange glaring colors of men’s suits and marital blankets … the way that most clothes seem to be made by Martians who have had clothes described to them but have never actually seen them … the migration of Toby’s ponytail to improbable parts of her skull …” –Kate

“Seeing Aldo’s funeral would be entertaining but I submit that even moreso would be the Interventioneers ceremoniously placing one of those highly-visible homemade fatality markers at the site where Aldo went ultimate roadside. Considering the oft-mentioned guardrail-less-ness of that stretch of road, it might be the first time anybody from Charterstone did something that actually helped someone.” –Badly_Computer_Animated_Boy

“But really, how does it logically follow that Molly’s refined skills and abilities preclude her from any beehive vandalism? If anything, Molly’s little show might lead Hoyt to conclude that Molly must be stealing his honey, refining it, and selling it in darling little decorative jars at some roadside stand.” –Ned Ryerson

“If this post-facto rationalization session (which has ground Mary Worth to a dialog-ridden halt for over a week) doesn’t ultimately lead to a guilty suicide, an orgiastic blood-letting amongst the co-conspirators, or a reanimated corpse revenge tale, I will demand my money back.” –DaveyK

“Wilbur is silent because he is desperately afraid that anything he says might be misconstrued as making advances towards Mary Worth and he knows that the penalty for that would be death.” –LaughingOnTheInside

“Peter Parker has become as apathetic about being a photographer as Spider-Man is about fighting super villains. He has the proportionate apathy of a spider.” –Aldos Huxley

“Oh for pity’s sake. The only way they could have made the resolution to the Aldo storyline more boring is…actually, there’s no way it could be more boring.” –Opus

“I’m beginning to have my doubts about Raju. At first, I thought he was going to be some crazy foreigner who got pulled into all of this, and he’d turn out to be like the TAs in EE labs, but now I’m suspecting he’s some kind of evil mastermind, bent on world domination. Which would still be pretty awesome, except his plan seems to be to woo every female in wherever-the-heckville with inventory control and fruity t-shirts. Actually, I’ve changed my mind. Taking over the world with Hawaiian t-shirts (no matter how fruity) is badass. Hands down, the coolest world domination scheme ever. It’d never work, but it’s so awesome, I’m going to keep hoping it will.” –The G-Man

“I feel certain any hospital would welcome Molly, the Emotional-Assistance Bear. Come on! She’s helped me get over my crippling fear of intimacy, and she’s not even my bear!” –Summerhouse

“People, the hilariousness of your comments increases exponentially with my drunkenness.” –Grendell

Also! Just in time for the lovable story of lovable Molly the lovable bear to come to a seeming end … why not keep the memories alive with your terminally adorable Molly the bear t-shirt? No, for reals:

Molly shirts are currently available. But I’ve recently figured out that my new upgraded cafepress store allows me to have multiple graphics on the same kind of shirt, so look for a major restructuring of the store — with a lot of new products — in the next couple of weeks.

Post Content

Mary Worth, 10/8/06

So as I was contemplating this strip on my computer screen with Mrs. C. looking over my shoulder, I said, “Boy, Mary sure is looking…” and she said, “LAVENDER?”

She’s right, of course, but the word I was looking for is smug. In fact, this whole quartet of murderers is looking awfully self-satisfied as they get dressed up for one last look at the mangled body of the man they condemned to an early grave. Mary looks in particularly good spirits in the last panel for someone who’s contemplating her degree of responsibility for a poor schmuck’s untimely demise. In fact, the only way that facial expression would make sense to me would be if you replaced “prevented” with “expedited.” “Could we have driven him to suicide even more quickly somehow and saved me some annoyance? What if we had dressed Toby up as the ghost of his dead wife and demanded his soul in exchange for hers? Oh, that would have been delicious! Too bad we’ll never get the chance now…”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/8/06

There’s been much buzz in the comments of this site about how and when Heather’s Brigadoon In-Law Adventure and Tommy Lee’s True Tales Of White Trash are going to link up, plot-wise. But now that we know that Milton’s family isn’t a bunch of kilt-wearing, Sassenach-hating Scots snobs but just poor, I propose an elegant solution to the problem: what if these lowlifes are Milton’s family, and Nikki (whose gender I still haven’t been able to figure out) is Milton’s son? You can’t hear accents in dialog balloons, after all. It would be a lot less Ivanhoe and a lot more Trainspotting, but would be entertaining nonetheless.