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Apartment 3-G, 3/3/05

Mim’s baby’s-daddy’s name is Chuck
And he’s a guy who likes to … have sex without using birth control, apparently.

OK, so that was the future Mrs. Curmudgeon’s joke. I don’t have anything specific to add about this strip, but this is as good an opportunity as any to discuss an interesting dream I had last night: I was with Salon.com sports columnist King Kaufman, and we were going over to the apartment that Britney Spears shares with Tommie from Apartment 3-G. King and Britney wandered off somewhere to talk, and Tommie and I stood next to an enormous free-standing bookcase in the middle of their living room that was filled with old encyclopedias. “Are these all yours,” I asked her, in all seriousness, “or is the library out of room and using your apartment for storage?” She just laughed.

Any amateur analysts out there who can explain to me what this means? Longtime readers will remember that this isn’t the first time that I’ve had a comics-themed dream.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/2/05

So I pretty much lost interest in this Rex Morgan storyline when it became less about human remains and sexual innuendo and more about this mysterious homeless guy living just off the Morgans’ property and June’s endless treks back and forth between the kitchen and the yard. But the epiphany in this strip hit me like something very heavy dropped from a great height. The filthy, shabby, unfashionable clothes … the six-day growth of beard … the pus-encrusted, self-tended wound … the prickly and evasive attitude … of course he’s a graduate student! Sadly, this is something that those who have never been there probably can’t appreciate, like the time that I found out that our neighborhood’s letter-to-the-editor-writing, quixotical-city-council-campaign-waging, neighborhood-meeting-attending-and-blathering-on-and-on-through crank was, like me, a copy editor. But I spent so much of my early 20s BS-ing my way through grant applications, convinced that their rejection would leave me homeless and destitute, that I feel just a little bit vindicated by this strip.

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Beetle Bailey, 3/1/05

Boy, Spc. Chip Gizmo must be on leave or something, because Beetle Bailey is trotting out all the supporting characters for their brief moment in the sun. I’ll bet Killer here is wishing that his was a bit more dignified. Rocky at least got to show his free spirit and refusal to be hemmed in by traditional political distinctions; Killer apparently thinks that girls are impressed when you dry hump the landscaping. So, so misguided, my randy, mustachioed friend. I’d say that these two strips offer an intriguing window into somebody’s perception of modern leftist politics, but I think that’s maybe giving Beetle Bailey a wee bit more credit than it deserves. The guy I feel bad for is Sarge, who’s reduced to serving as a dumfounded bystander and setup man for these unspeakably lame jokes.

By the way, is there anyone who was in the army, possibly in the 1950s, who can explain to me the difference between Rocky and Killer’s hats?