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Crock, 7/18/06

If there was ever a time in the thirty-year history of Crock — a comic strip about a group of Western military men engaged in a seemingly unending mission somewhere in the Arab world — in which it ought to by right match up to the geopolitical moment, this is it. Unfortunately, and yet to the surprise of nobody, it hasn’t lived up to the challenge. One doesn’t expect Ph.D.-level theses on interactions between Western and Islamic culture, but one does expect someone identified as a “nomad” to look less like a parody of a cold-war era spy, complete with totally-inappropriate-for-the-desert all-black clothes, and more like, oh, I don’t know, a middle-eastern nomad. Surely a picture could be found in a book or magazine to serve as a guide. Interestingly, the artist may be somewhat embarrassed about this: in panel three, the nomad is forced almost completely out of the frame, giving up screen space to a lovely palm tree.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 7/18/06

Some of you commentors have reacted to this TDIET with disparaging comments along the lines of “What the hell is wrong with this guy” and “Nobody does this ever.” You people don’t understand that you’re seeing a master at the top of his game. Look at how he diagrams the entire joke for you along the right of the word balloon. In the hands of a lesser artist, revealing how the process works like this would be an open invitation to host of imitators, but even if you see all the individual pieces of the puzzle, you can never fit them together in that oh-so-special TDIET way. It’s like the time I saw Penn and Teller and they did a trick twice, the second time explaining what they were doing as they were doing it, and you still came away amazed. The “P.S.” at the end is just a little reminder that you that this, in fact, is how we roll in They’ll Do It Every Time. Oh yeah!

Marvin, 7/18/06

Ha, ha! You see, in the west, we’d use “sticks and stones,” but in the east, they’d use “bamboo and pebbles.” Because, see, they don’t have trees in China, just bamboo. Lots and lots of bamboo. And pebbles are … um … zen … oh, Christ, this strip is just totally appalling to me.

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Man, a guy goes away for a few days, and some pretty twisted romance goes down in the funny pages. Let’s check in with the weekend’s high points!

First, Sunday’s Mary Worth will go down in infamy as the Day The Stalking Started. We need to begin by taking a look at this panel:

The fact that Mary doesn’t want to spend time with creepy sublettor Aldo Kelrast needs no explanation, but why does she feel that the best way to reject him is to babble on like a minor character in a Jane Austen novel? She seems to be taking the line that if she’s seen spending time along with a man 15 years her junior while her not-actually-her-boyfriend is out of the country, she’ll be branded as a whore. Which may seem ludicrous to those of here on planet Earth, but check out the two old biddies in the left half of this panel, clearly in mid-gossip. Already the tales of Mary’s trampish sluttery — talking to a strange man with her arms and shoulders exposed! — are no doubt spreading throughout the hallways of Santa Royale’s most exclusive mid-range child-free condo complex.

Meanwhile, Aldo forgets that the first rule of stalking club is: don’t talk about stalking club.

This panel has actually solved a little dilemma for me. Since Aldo first came on the scene, I’ve imagined his voice to be effete and quasi-British, like Dr. Smith in Lost In Space. Mrs. C. feels that instead it should be high-pitched and nasal — the classic movie nerd voice. Now, however, it’s clear that he talks like George Zimmer, the guy who does all those damn Men’s Wearhouse commercials.

Speaking of classic movie nerd voices, this weekend Raju got a little pep talk from Abbey:

Yeah, Raju, go for it! Go for it! And say, who’s lounging cartoonishly sexily in the next room?

Let the daughter pimping begin!

Meanwhile, in Lost Forest, Mark Trail is expressing his forbidden love for Kelly Welly the only way he can: by tackling her.

Despite the fact that even casual readers of this strip know that this is Kelly, Mark’s been referring to her as “he” and “him” for days now, presumably as another part of the sublimation process.

And speaking of forbidden love, “Dr.” “Troy”‘s head exploded.

He’s also, to the surprise of no one, not a real doctor. I keep waiting for Rex to laugh and say, “Join the club, Troy, join the club.”

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We’re going on a long weekend trip to celebrate my birthday (that is, the anniversary of my actual birth, not of the birth of this blog), though we are not travelling to sunny Mexico, as this awesome graphic from faithful reader Joan might imply. New posts back on Tuesday, I promise.

To entertain yourself in my absence, check out this increasingly alarming series of graphics featuring my head from faithful reader jonnya:

• Josh’s head
• Josh’s head (larger)
• Josh’s heads
• Josh’s head (with crazy eyes)