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Spider-Man, 2/20/06

What the exclamation point Peter Parker is uttering in panel three ought to mean: “Whoa! My wife is making enough money to support both of us and doesn’t want me to work! Now I can dedicate myself to fighting crime full-time without worrying about money — or, better yet, dedicate myself to watching TV and drinking expensive hooch full-time without worrying about money!”

What the exclamation point Peter Parker is uttering in panel three almost certainly is actually supposed to mean: “Oh, no, I’m too macho to handle any woman taking care of me blah blah blah stupid pointless boring wrong-headed crap.”

I know I’ve harped on this before, but seriously, dude: With great power comes great responsibility. And with a rich wife comes zero responsibility. So get with the program!

(I will step back from my Spidey-hating long enough to acknowledge being pleased by panel one: Peter hangs up on his boss so vigorously, the phone glows!)

Apartment 3-G, 2/20/06

Yeah, I realize that the disheveled hair is just comics visual shorthand for Having A Rough Week, presumably meant to ease any illiterate Apartment 3-G fans into the storyline’s events. But wouldn’t it be great if Margo’s normally perfectly primped bun got unwound during some kind of peacock-wrangling episode gone horribly awry? I know that I can only ever see that in my mind, but is it wrong to try to see it in my mind again and again?

Blondie 2/20/06

I don’t really have much specific to say about this. I just wanted to record here for posterity the moment when Blondie went completely insane.

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So, I had a little quickie ready to do for Saturday’s Rex Morgan:

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/18/06

I think it was going to involve the phrase “From the people who brought you the Wildly Overacted Margo Reaction Shot™, it’s the Wildly Overacted Rex Reaction Shot™!” or some such thing. That’s before I saw what a hot, heavin’ hunk of thinly veiled homosexuality awaited me on Sunday and realized that it might not be so overacted after all:

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/19/06

February 19th’s Rex Morgan, M.D.: How gay art thou? Let me count the ways:

1. Panel two: “Define ‘play’!”
2. Panel five: “He said you took lessons from him a couple years back!” Radiating surprise lines. “Uh oh … is my cover blown?”
3. Panel six: Deep, inappropriate discomfort, covered up with tie adjustment. Stuttering. Embarrassment. Desperate attempt to figure out potentially dirty meanings of “saved his life.”
4. Panel seven: “Like I said .. I’ve heard a lot about you, Rex!” Come-hither stare. Potential three-way at 19th hole in the not-so-distant future.

You know who I think is most shocked by all this same-gender loving, going on (almost) in the open? The purple, ghostly shade of LBJ, in the far left of panel one.

And just because Rex is all gayin’ it up (again), don’t think that events in Sunday’s Mark Trail got past me. This edition was about ospreys or some crap like that, but the most important thing about it is that in it Mark appears to be drunk:

“You know what’s awesome? Frickin’ … ospreys!”

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Luann, 2/17/06

Curtis, 2/17/06

Ladies and gentlemen, here on the last day of this Valentine’s Week (yes, it’s a whole week now, didn’t you get the memo from Hallmark and Cathy?), we have a battle royale between two comics love stories that just … won’t … end!

In this corner, in black and white, we have the eternal Brad-Toni-Dirk triangle. See the teasing! The sullen glares! The violation of restraining orders! The gratuitous use of the word “Chunkboy!”

And in this corner, in living color, we have the latest chapter in the Curtis-Michelle love-hate dipole. See what happens when the boy who can’t say “no” meets the girl who won’t say “yes”!

I think we have to acknowledge Curtis as the clear winner here. I’m getting real sick of Toni’s coy little sidelong glances and unnaturally pouty lips. From an artistic point of view, she’s got nothing on Michelle’s hilariously disgusted facial expression in panel three: eyes bugged out, lips curled in disdain, sweat balls flying, motion lines tracking her escape route and a well-placed elbow ready to jab her wannabe paramour in the throat if it comes to that. And while Brad’s wide-eyed, dot-mouthed horror in panel three of Luann is evocative of his new awareness of his own romantic ineptitude, it doesn’t convey bleakness the way Curtis’ lonely, underdressed blizzard trek does. Mostly, though, this Curtis promises to at least end the Michelle nonsense for a few weeks, whereas I have a sinking feeling that the Brad romantic hijinks will continue on indefinitely.