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Herb and Jamaal, 12/15/05

OK, I am really, really pretty sure that Herb and Jamaal has already had a storyline involving someone (I believe it was Herb) finding money and then having a moral quandary about whether he should seek out the owner to return it. So, we get it, Herb and Jamaal, we get it, OK? Keeping money (or, in this case, precious gems) that doesn’t belong to you is wrong. Blah blah frickin’ blah.

More importantly: what the hell is the deal with the cab driver dude? Specifically, why does he have featureless black patches where his eyes should be? Are those glasses? If so, why don’t they have arms that hook over his ears, like our stingy jewel hoarder has? Is he supposed to be blind? Is he a panda? Oh my God, that’s it, isn’t it? He’s a blind, cab-driving, single-hoop-earring wearing panda. Jesus, this strip much, much weirder than I thought.

Thing I like about this strip: the little thought balloon in panel two with a dollar sign in it. I have thoughts like that all the time, actually. I wonder: when Herb and Jamaal is translated for foreign markets, do they replace $ with €, ¥, or £, as needed?

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Kudzu, 12/14/05

The Lockhorns, 12/14/05

Ah, marriage! When it goes well, how sweet it is! How it fills both partners with joy and helps bring two souls together as one! And when it doesn’t … well, then it’s delicious fodder for laughs, laughs, laughs! As if the last few weeks of Mary Worth divorce drama hasn’t been enough to prove that, we’ve got not one but two marriage counselor strips today. This Lockhorns panel isn’t “funny” per se (unless we’re talking about the oblate spheroid that is Dr. Pullman’s head, which is funny, but not ha-ha funny), but at least it stays true to the strip’s overarchingly bleak tone and subject matter. Look at Loretta’s face. A lesser comic would have had her smirking triumphantly at the fact that she always gets the last word, or have her brow furrowed with rage that her foibles were being aired in a public forum. But the Lockhorns never feels a need to step back from the brink of the abyss, and so Loretta’s face is just one of numb depression: she and her husband can’t communicate, her marriage is killing her, and the overpriced, bald-headed sub-Freud across the desk isn’t going to say anything that’s going to fix it.

Similarly, today’s Kudzu is true to that feature’s usual M.O., which is to say that it’s perfectly happy to cast aside even its wafer-thin sense of internal cohesion in order to follow some half-assed joke idea to its not-funny conclusion. I mean, why are they … that is, what is it supposed to … or, why should we … oh, forget it, just forget it.

One thing I and millions of comics readers will never forget is this little gem from today’s Judge Parker:

Watch it, April, he’s just going to show you “the claw” later himself — and he hopes you’re going to like it!

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Judge Parker, 12/13/05

There have been plenty of vile romances in the soap opera strips over the past few years, but the clumsy flirting in this strip is ickier than most. The ape-faced Judge Parker Jr. clearly believes that his clever chopstick gambit marks him out as a definite señor smoothie. Meanwhile, I can’t decide if April in panel three is supposed to be gazing dreamily at our crimson-oversized-sweatshirted lothario (and setting him up for the weird eye-gouging fetish he’s going to have to deal with in their inevitable post-married life) or just bored beyond comprehension (and thinking of jabbing herself with pointy things just to stay awake).

Incidentally, I know it’s just terrifically overdone shadowing, but the poor girl looks like she has more hair on her hands than Wilbur Weston.