Post Content

Mark Trail, 5/12/05

It’s fun, in a self-psycho-analysis kind of way, to watch delusions of grandeur slowly transform into paranoia. For instance, now that I know that at least one comics writer reads my blog, I’ve come to assume that all comics creators do. This means that just about anything that happens in any comic could be a reaction to things said here!

Take Mark Trail, for instance. Jack Elrod has long come under sustained and savage attacks, both by me and my commentors, for his inability to draw human beings and corresponding tendency to throw into random panels adorable wildlife animals rendered freakishly huge by problems with perspective. But today’s strip is fauna-free, and instead features a disturbing closeup on the wizened, crumpled visage of Mike, the lovable alcoholic hermit. When considered along with last month’s zombie sherriff, it’s almost as if Elrod is saying, “You want strips with drawings of people? I’ll give you drawings of people! I’ll give you drawings of people until you can’t take it any more! You’ll be glad for me to go back to beavers, moose, pelicans, and sea turtles once I’ve shown you what an ugly, awful creature Homo sapiens is.” And then he laughs and laughs, one of those awful laughs that gets raspier and raspier until it degenerates into hacking coughs that raise up blood-tinged phlegm.

At least, that’s how it happens in my mind.

Well, I for one say: enough already! Bring on the beasts! Not least because the human-interaction angle of this story is possibly the dullest Mark Trail plotline on record. An insurance investigation has made for entertaining narrative exactly once in human history — in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity — and there was at least sex involved there. Jack Elrod can draw a mean sea turtle, but he’s no Billy Wilder.

Post Content

Garfield, 5/11/05

OK, this is going to take a minute, so stay with me.

Two years ago, the future Mrs. C. and I took our very first vacation together, to the UK and Spain. Since she has Panamanian relatives, and has spent time in Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico, she was in charge of hablaing the Español, and, despite her self-deprecating statements in advance of the trip, acquitted herself admirably in all the situations where Spanish was required.

The next year, we went to Garfield le Film-mad Paris. Since I had taken eight years of French in grammar and high school, passed a test in graduate school establishing my competence in the language, and previously voyaged to both Paris and Montreal, I was understandably given the mandate to parlez our vous while in the City of Light. It only took about 24 hours before the first incident arose indicating that this decision may have been a mistake. Our first morning there, we were at a little flea market, and were going to eat at a food stand there. They were selling something called a galette. We could tell from the posted menu that a galette contained tasty items such as eggs, tomatoes, and cheese; but what was it? TFMC told me to go find out. I realized in horror that this was a big difference between us: when confronted with such a foreign term, my instinct was to slink off in shame and have a Kit Kat bar for lunch, but she wanted me to, you know, ask. Unwilling to lose face in front of my woman, I walked up to the Frenchies behind the counter and asked:

“Excusez-moi, quand est un galette?”

The francophonic among you, of course, know that what I asked was, “Excuse me, when is a galette?” The proprietors of the little food cart, naturally, looked at me as if I were retarded. I thought of that little moment when I read today’s Garfield. I have to imagine that Jon, in yet another desperate, flop-sweat-soaked attempt to impress, took his date to a French restaurant that is so fancy that either (a) its staff refuses to speak English, or (b) it’s actually in France. Because otherwise this strip makes NO GODDAMN SENSE AT ALL.

Oh, and: after a humiliating retreat to a park bench where I consulted my phrase book, I came back with the correct version of my question, and they still gave me that baffled “I know those words, but they don’t make sense in that order” look. I suppose if you walked into Burger King and asked “What is this so-called ‘burger’ I’ve heard so much about, and how’d you get to be ‘king’ of it?” you wouldn’t do much better. After some deeply embarrassing hijinks, we eventually just ordered the damn thing. Word to the wise: it’s a savory crepe, and it’s pretty yummy.

Post Content

So here I am, a week from my last post, desperately trying to stave off a comment-based insurrection. Not by actually putting up a new comic or anything, but still. J-to-the-osh is behind, is casting aside the old comics as he takes the recycling out, and will be back with new stuff tomorrow. Typical excuses: busy with the cursed work and social life that molds my trenchant wit and yet keeps me from my muse. Curses! Meanwhile, I hope the new comment of the week is some small consolation to you all.

Oh yeah, and one other thing: in order to stave off comment spam, my ISP has put some kind of tougher server-side controls in. That means that some comments, for reasons I’m not quite clear on, are going into a comment queue that I have to moderate. If this happens to your comment, do not panic: I will do what I have to do to get it on the site in short order. In particular, do not attempt to post the same comment, like, a kajillion times.