Momma, 10/19/04
Momma’s so hepped up on soothing laudanum, she doesn’t even notice that she’s talking to one of those freaky Easter Island heads.
Luann, 10/19/04
Luann’s gonna get lucky!
One Big Happy, 10/19/04
This is so vile as to defy comment.
Mary Worth, 10/19/04
Tommy has long proved that he’s the master of the thought balloon, but here he takes it to a whole new level.
Garfield, 10/18/04
Marmaduke, 10/18/04
Regular readers of this feature know of my affection for theme days here, so you can imagine my joy when I saw not one but two dancing animal jokes in today’s comics section. I was a bit stymied at first, though, because I couldn’t really think of anything funny to say on the subject. Then I thought to myself, “Hey, these cartoonists couldn’t either!”
Zing! I tell ya, this stuff practically writes itself, especially when I’m being needlessly cruel.
OK, let’s find something nice to say … um … well. I think the expression on Jon’s face is funny in the third panel of Garfield, though he should really be inured to bizarre cat behavior at this point. I also like the clothes that male-Marmaduke-owner and female-Marmaduke-owner (do these people have names?) wear, especially the hat on the former and the chunky-patterned dress on the latter. They live in America, circa 1967, and they’re adults and all, but they aren’t quite square.
On the note of comic-page animals, I should point out that I went over to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (is there a more mellifluous name in the annals of American journalism?) Website to download these two comics and found that neither of these mainstays grace the pages of the Pacific Northwest’s most prominent daily. I had to reassure many anxious readers that my recent dream about moving to Seattle was in fact just a dream, but the idea that I could live in a land where I get to read Mark Trail and not Marmaduke in the paper is an intriguing one. If only it didn’t rain 320 days a year.
There’s some more dancing animal action over in the Peanuts rerun today as well. So why didn’t it get put up here with these other two? Well, mostly because, as usual, it’s funny. Oops, there I go again! Best stop now before I cross the line into unpleasantly hostile. You all are just lucky you didn’t get another dose of Mary Worth. All I have to say is: “Save it for the judge!“
Here’s the sort of hard-hitting commentary you come here for: What’s the deal with men in the comics and golf? Every male in the funnies, from modern-day types like Dagwood and General Halftrack to anachronistic duffers like Hagar the Horrible and B.C., pines to get back to the links the way Proust wants a madeleine. Is golf equipment intrinsically fun to draw? Does the comics community view it as a metaphor for so many of the important things in life, like walking, carrying heavy objects, and hitting things? Or do comics artists themselves hanker to be on the course so badly that they can’t get the thought out of their heads and end up drawing golf-themed strips out of desperate longing? If the latter is true, it would explain a few other things as well.
Speaking of Hagar the Horrible, some poor soul recently posed the following profound question to Ask Jeeves: “Does Hagar the Horrible have a last name?” Sadly, their resulting trip to this site didn’t answer the query. However, nameless seeker, I’ll tell you this: If Hagar were a real Viking, he wouldn’t have a last name in the modern sense, but would have a patronymic — that is, a name based on his father’s name. Leif Ericson, for instance, just means “Lief, son of Eric.” So If Hagar’s father was, say, Thor, his name would be Hagar Thorson. However, if Hagar were a real Viking, he wouldn’t play golf, either, so take all this with a grain of salt.
A linkback goes to Mike Donovan, who has his own comic. And, one final metanote: my previous post was the 100th since I began this blog! I’m very happy that it was about meth addicts in Mary Worth.