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FoxTrot, 1/23/05

As sad as I was about the recent Baltimore Sun comics purge, there were a couple of bright spots for me: Foxtrot and Get Fuzzy were two of my favorite comic strips when I turned to the San Francisco Chronicle for my funny pages needs, and I was very excited to be getting them on a regular basis. But now it’s been six weeks and my reaction to the triumphant return of both to my life has been: meh.

Sunday’s FoxTrot is representative of my malaise. It took me two or three reads to get the actual point of the joke: Jason’s iguana has eaten Paige’s shoe, and in response she’s drawn an extremely long flipbook of her bashing her little brother with a mallet. The problem is that it’s not immediately obvious that the people in the flipbook are supposed to be Jason and Paige, at least to me, which led to several minutes of bafflement. Get Fuzzy, which arguably was my favorite strip in the paper as of 2002, has been even worse, spending what seems like the entire last six weeks focusing on the extremely un-funny running battle between Bucky and Fungo the ferret, with events grinding on at an excruciating pace worthy of Mary Worth.

But anyway, I come to you today not to insult these strips, but to get introspective. I know, intellectually, that I used to like the both of them. It’s been six weeks now, and they’ve yet to elicit a real laugh from me. Have they gone downhill that fast? Are both in an extended rut? Or have I fallen into the grips of the postmodern condition as a result of writing this blog and general Gen-X-ed-ness, whereby I can only enjoy things ironically? Because that would be kind of sad.

Still and all, Jason is holding a star-shaped glob of iguana vomit in the last panel. Maybe that counts for something.

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The Phantom, 1/22/05

Here’s another game much like Exposition, called Tenterhooks. The point is to talk around something that everyone knows about for the sole purpose of artificially creating suspense. You know, like referring to your Secret Nazi Whoosit as “what we came for” rather than just saying it. On the other hand, if this bunch of watery grave-robbers typically conducts themselves with such a lax view towards security that they can’t be bother to remember how many rubber-suited villains are in their party, then maybe they’re better off being as indirect as possible.

On the other hand, it’s possible that they aren’t being indirect at all, and really are just an innocent band of historic meter-long aluminum tube enthusiasts.

Bonus observation: the Ghost-Who-Ruminates-Aloud apparently can’t decide what type of word balloon best represents his underwater running commentary. Nice to see that he’s always trying new things out.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/21/05

FOR GOD’S SAKE, IT WAS A HUMAN THIGHBONE, OKAY? WE ALL SAW IT! WE ALL KNOW WHAT IT IS! THAT WAS ALMOST TWO WEEKS AGO NOW! IT WAS A HUMAN FEMUR! JESUS CHRIST, AREN’T YOU PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE MEDICAL PROFESSION OR SOMETHING?

Ahem. This post has been brought to you by the Committee to Advance the Plotline in Rex Morgan, M.D., in a Reasonably Speedy Fashion (CAPRMMDRSF).