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Momma, 2/22/06

Ah, Francis, hero to layabouts everywhere. Nothing says “I’ve given up on life” like looking at Internet pornography while your mother is right there in the room. I do like the evocative triptych of middle panels, which helps us grasp the flow of time in the strip’s narrative. “Not porn … not porn … not porn … hello!”

Who do you think would be the heavy hitters on “Lady Prime Ministers Gone Wild?” Here are my top four:

Edith Cresson (Prime Minister of France, 1991-1992)

Tansu Ciller (Prime Minister of Turkey, 1993-1996)

Kim Campbell (Prime Minister of Canada, June-November 1993)

Benazir Bhutto (Prime Minister of Pakistan, 1988-1990, 1993-1996)

Yes, I am a huge dork. I admit that for a minute I believed that the strip actually intended us to believe that Francis was looking at “Lady Prime Ministers Gone Wild.” It was like the time I thought I saw the guy at the video store renting a porno called Specs Appeal and I assumed it was all girls wearing glasses but then it turned out that it was just Pecs Appeal and he was gay.

Speaking of hot, hot parliamentary democracy: Holy socialized medicine, everyone, Paul the Mountie just grabbed Liz’s ass!

OK, so I guess technically he’s holding her up by her ass, but there’s still palm-to-heinie contact. I’m not sure which of today’s comics I expected to see grabass in, but For Better Or For Worse wasn’t it. I guess I should be thankful that it wasn’t Momma.

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Dinette Set, 2/21/06

Ballard Street, 2/21/06

So like I said, I’ve been reading a bunch of new comics on the Houston Chronicle’s Web page, and goddamn some of them are weird. It goes without saying that the market for off-kilter one-panel comics exploded in the wake of the Far Side’s success, but some of the efforts in this space have been more fruitful than others. This Dinette Set, for instance, seems to think that a collection of potentially funny elements, connected by a liberal amount of free-associative logic, together create a coherent whole; sadly, it is incorrect in that assumption. After much scrutiny, I think that this is supposed to be some sort of commentary on America’s energy-inefficient ways: the papaya-headed protagonists (The Dinettes?) scoff at attempts to use our dwindling fossil fuels more wisely, while enjoying a film sponsored by their utility company with a suggestive title. (They’ll be “paying” their gas and electric bills “forward” because they have that enormous picture window! Get it? GET IT?) Potentially less relevant is the presence of Some Like It Hot atop their VCR (a reference to the sky-high heating bills they won’t like paying?) and their guest’s attire. I want an “I Heart Sour-Dough Bread” t-shirt as much as the next annoying thirtysomething hipster does, but it doesn’t really fit in with anything else happening here, and only adds to the impression that the panel is flailing around waist-deep in humor-like material, desperately trying to grab onto a punchline that is nowhere in sight.

Today’s Ballard Street, on the other hand, while also not funny in any conventional sense of the word, is much darker and more wonderful in its utter opacity. In the Dinette Set panel above, you can kind of see where the jokes are supposed to be coming from, which makes them all the more pathetic when they fail. This Ballard Street, on the other hand, seems to come from some strange alternate universe; it’s entirely self-contained, and I feel like it would be totally hilarious if only I were grounded in the completely alien set of cultural assumptions from which it arises. Is that a mechanical dog’s head? If so, how is it emitting spittle? If not, why the crank? Either way, why the megaphone? And why is it apparently vibrating? And the gloves? Why is Bob wearing gloves? Nothing is explained, but I still somehow feel like it’s my fault for not getting it. The fact that the caption is in the present tense somehow only adds to the weird feeling of dislocation about it.

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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.