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Gil Thorp, 7/4/06

Ah, it’s summer! That means that Gil Thorp’s interminable and incomprehensible baseball-themed storyline has finally wound up, and the summer vacation hijinks can begin. Last summer we started off with innocent polka antics that quickly degenerated into a dangerous stalking situation, so my hopes for the next few weeks are high. This strip, which features hands and lips freak Mandy taunting the sexually frustrated Brent by forcing him to chase her while she tools around in a golf cart, holds a lot of promise, as does the return of squareheaded smart-ass Milford alum Von, whose lameness is confirmed by the fact that he didn’t flee from these high school kids the moment he saw them.

For those of you who were on tenterhooks, by the way, Mama Jolene decided to let Brent and his fluffy hair go to junior college because she got a free trip to Phoenix. No, I don’t understand it either.

Crock, 7/4/06

Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that this strip isn’t funny. It might have been funny, for instance, if “tar” and “mayo” formed some sort of natural pairing of words, or were opposites, or were ever discussed in the same context, really. Or it may have been funny if “mayo pit” was a phrase that anybody actually used in real life. But we’re ignoring that.

Even ignoring that, we’ve once again got a big coloring problem. Tar is black. Sand is … yellowish brownish, so I suppose the yellow used here is close enough. Mayo is white! White, people! Not yellow!

Unless it was, say, left out in the hot sun.

Like, in the desert.

In a … pit … of some kind.

Then I imagine it would get pretty yellow.

It’d smell pretty bad too.

So I guess the coloring job was OK. Which brings us back to the strip content. Which isn’t funny.

But I said we’d ignore that, didn’t I? All right then.

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Archie, 7/3/06

I have a deep, dark confession to make: when I was a kid, I was really obsessed with Archie comics. There’s something about them that makes the teenage lifestyle seem especially fun and glamorous to a 9-to-11-year-old. You think that high school’s going to be about dating and friends and wacky contests, rather than humiliation and social exclusion. I’ve always been afraid to revisit Archie since for fear of being horrified at my own terrible tweenage taste. Still, it took this brilliant article at the Onion AV Club to make it clear to me that not only does Archie completely fail to capture anything resembling authentic teenage experience, but it’s actually written by adults who harbor active contempt for young people.

Anyway, I recently started reading the Archie newspaper strip, since it’s available at the Houston Chronicle Web site. I’d like to believe that I’d have recognized at least this iteration of the Archie mythos as deeply lame even when I was 10, but I have my doubts. I offer today’s installment for examination only because it illustrates the casualness with which the strip discards the characters’ long-established, deeply-held values. Specifically: Jughead has a job? For which he takes off his hat? What the hell?

Apartment 3-G, 7/3/06

Um, she hooked up with some guy who wasn’t her husband? C’mon, Tommie, keep up.

Incidentally, I think that as a nurse, Tommie has a moral obligation to set a good health example for the America’s young comic-reading public. In particular, she shouldn’t take long, soul-searching walks in the pouring rain without a hat. I’ve experienced some hard times and heartbreak in my life, and never once when I was at a low state did I say, “Hey, you know what would make me feel better? Going outside for hours and getting cold and soaking wet! Yeah!” Call me an old stick in the mud, but I’m quite capable of moping inside with a cup of hot chocolate.

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Well, the suspense is over and I’ve picked the winner. I have to say that it was incredibly hard and part of the reason that I’ve taken so long to pick the winner is that they were all so good. In a very real sense, you’re all winners! But in an even realer sense, only one of you is the winner, and that one of you is “Lucy Van Pelt,” whose entry just seemed to exude a certain je ne sais Margo to me. For mug purposes, I’ve filled in her word balloon:

And yes, this mug is now available at my store at CafePress! Click here to order yours! Lucy herself will of course be getting a free mug in the mail.

In addition, as promised, Dave Willis‘s super-awesome Margo Warhol graphic is going on a t-shirt:

The colors of this graphic seem to work perfectly with CafePress’s new black t-shirt. They’ve just introduced black tees at CafePress and say they can’t guarantee delivery times. Hopefully it won’t take too long, as I’m definitely ordering one of these for myself!

Again, judging this contest was really, really hard for me, and of course my final decision was to a certain extent arbitrary. Perhaps you’d like to see one of the other contestants on a mug or garment of your choice! If so, just e-mail me and I’ll send you a high-quality image of any of the other photos and drawings submitted. (Here’s the lot of them, for reference.) You can then upload them to CafePress yourself and make your own counter-winner. You’ll stick it to the man! (Meaning me.)

Since I was updating my store anyway, I took the opportunity to do a little housecleaning. I’ve added a couple of new shirt styles. The first is for anyone who loves double entendres and public domain clip art.

Work it, people, work it! (If this baffles you, click here and scroll down for the context for this quote.) This shirt is available for the gents and the ladies.

And, finally, if you want to cement your status as an above-it-all hipster with a t-shirt bearing an incomprehensible slogan, check this out:

Wear this shirt to remind you where to find more information about licorice. (Again, you can click here to learn more about learning more about licorice, but it doesn’t make a ton more sense in context.) This t-shirt is great fun for a boy or a girl.

There are still classic Comics Curmudgeon garments at the store, of course: Brick House exercise gear, a Fence Post Frank hat, Canadian Jive-Talkin’ intimate wear, and, of course, “More Zippers, Mule!” Check it out!