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Speed Bump, 1/28/05

Faithful readers will remember this month’s shameless swipe at Cathy in Pears Before Swine. At the time, I wondered whether this violation of the unwritten laws against comic artist infighting might unleash a wave of carnage on the comics pages likes of which we’ve never seen before. While Cathy has taken the high road (and there’s a sentence I never thought I’d type), Pearls Before Swine seems to come under a flanking attack today from Speed Bump. After all, Stephan Pastis is the author of PBS, and you’ll note the “PBS” belt buckle being worn by our optometrist patient here.

Of course, if Speed Bump is working as a paid character assassin for Cathy Guisewite revenge, she should shell out a bit more, because this joke is pretty laaaaammme. Stephan Pastis 2, Anti-Stephan Pastis Cabal, 0.

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Mark Trail, 1/27/05

Obviously I couldn’t let yesterday’s jive-talkin’ For Better Or For Worse go unremarked, but it was actually kind of a tough call, as it’s been quite a fascinating week around the serial comics. In Mary Worth, Dr. Brian’s ex-wife announced her intention of effecting a reconciliation with him by any means necessary, possibly involving somehow conniving him into impregnating her. In Apartment 3-G, Margo stormed out of dinner with FBI Pete after he asked her if she had “personal relationship” (that is, whether she had “gone there”) with her evil captor Mr. Eldon. And in Mark Trail, Birdie whacked Mark in the back of the head with a bottle.

I had always sort of thought that the mountain of circumstantial evidence against Birdie and Barracuda would turn out to be not what it seemed: after all, Birdie loves animals, and Barracuda doesn’t have facial hair, which all seems to point to “good” in the Mark Trail universe. And sure, they seem like nice people: after all, they don’t like turning from drug dealing to murder; they only do it when they have no choice. In an earlier strip this week, they talked about dumping “the body” in the bay, and I thought it would be interesting if every Mark Trail strip for the next three years were just three panels of his waterlogged corpse, decaying imperceptibly day by day until eventually there’s nothing left but a barnacle-encrusted skeleton. But the authorial voice here lets us know that Mark is only unconscious, and to be sure we (and Birdie and Barracuda) should have known that it takes more than a single blow to the head to finish off America’s premier nature journalist/adventurer. I mean, he’s been hit in the head before. Often. The only question left in my mind whether or not we’ll get to see him hit a woman.

I like the pelican close-up in panel two. Of course, random foreground animals are one of Mark Trail’s stocks in trade, but this bird seems to be keeping a beady little eye on things. Maybe Mark’s myriad feathered friends will save him, descending on his drug-dealing enemies and pecking them to death. Then, with an army of killer birds at his back, he will march forth and take over the world! He will rule us all as our king, with a harem of dark-haired women dressed in pink polo shirts, which is how he likes them! I mean, that probably won’t happen, but a guy can dream, can’t he?

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For Better Or For Worse, 1/26/05

You mean she’s “screwing,” right?

Just to show you the impact this blog has had on my home life: my fiancée came running into my home office around 8:45 a.m. today as I was enjoying my morning Coca-Cola, practically besides herself with glee at today’s FBOFW. Now, as noted, she’s a sex ed pro, and in fact works with teens for her job, and has never heard any of these euphemisms used by actual adolescents. Maybe it’s because they’re Canadian-specific terms. Can one of our north-of-the-border readers confirm or deny? Anyone? Jim Morrison? Anyone? Whatever the case, I urge all of you to start using these terms in your daily conversation, if only because calling a 14-year-old girl a “gig” or “roadside” is more polite than calling her “a big slut” or “jailbait.”

Non-Canadian-sex-slang observation: In the FBOFW patois, children almost always say “an'” for “and.” This makes a certain sort of sense, though poor Elizabeth is still doing it at age 23 or so.

As a final note, as I was putting the finishing touches on this post, faithful reader Ken emailed me the following note: “Could you please comment on today’s For Better Or For Worse? I am in awe of it.” I think that about sums up my feelings.