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The Boondocks, 1/16/05

Did you ever notice that whenever Martin Luther King, Jr., appeared in public, he almost always wore a suit? Well, Aaron McGruder (or a member of the team of artists over at Boondocks Enterprises) apparently did. I’ve always noticed that as well, which is why this cartoon amused me as much as it did with its departure from the seemingly iron-clad halo-and-wings-and-flowing-robes conventional cartoon depiction of the dearly departed. The contours of the suit make the fanny-shaking in panels two and five all the funnier.

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Curtis, 1/15/05

If you weren’t convinced by Barry’s reckless use of the word chutzpah, here’s more evidence for you that Curtis is actually written by an elderly Jewish man. In fact, I’m not even sure that actual elderly Jewish men exclaim “Oy!” repeatedly in response to lower back pain these days.

This strip summoned up from somewhere deep in my primal pop-culture consciousness memories of novelty rap group 2 Live Jews and their hit single “Oy, It’s So Humid.” In retrospect, it’s kind of amusing to think that there was a time when the group that 2LJ (as I’m sure their fans called them) spoofed, 2 Live Crew, was not considered a novelty group. Remember when the most dire threat offered against Western civilization was a song called “Me So Horny”? Good times!

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Mary Worth, 1/14/05

Can I lick your tonsils? Just askin’.

When I was trying to describe to my fiancée Gil Thorp’s fast-paced, breakneck pace (which is ten times more fast-paced and breakneck than the pace of an actual high-school basketball game), she remarked, “It’s like the anti-Mary Worth.” This is, I think, a pretty accurate assessment. In Gil Thorp, gender-equality-supporting pair Steve and Hadley went from awkward introductions to revolutionary power couple in three panels. Anna and Dr. Brian’s lip-locking reunion, meanwhile, has been in the works for nearly ten weeks.

This is as good a time as any to relay an exchange from the Golden Girls sent to me by faithful reader Luna:

Blanche: I love my comics. Every day, Marmaduke and Apartment 3-G.
Dorothy: I haven’t read Apartment 3-G since…1962.
Blanche: Oh, well, let me catch you up! It is later that same day…