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For Better or for Worse, 9/2/04

I grew up in Buffalo, New York, not a stone’s throw from Canada, and for anyone who grew up a stone’s throw from Canada, one of the main things you know about Canada as you’re growing up is that the legal drinking age there is 19. This has interesting social ramifications. For instance, not only can 19-year-olds go into Canadian bars, but they can also go into Canadian strip clubs.

And so, just as there are enormous fireworks warehouses mere yards over the Indiana border, dozens of strip clubs line the streets of the Canadian towns just across the Niagara River from Buffalo. (These clubs were collectively known as “the Canadian ballet,” a euphemism I find terrifically amusing to this day.) One of them, Mints, kept up a constant barrage of advertisements on Buffalo radio stations, each of which ended with the club’s tagline: “Where by law … you see it all!”

Now, because I was a profoundly geeky teenager, this phrase did not fill my mind with images of gyrating, fully nude strippers; rather, I visualized the debate about the law in the Canadian Parliament. Was it part of the Government’s programme, as presented by the Governor-General in the Speech from the Throne? Or was it a Private Member’s Bill? Did some MPs argue that the discreet covering of certain body parts should be permitted in some cases? Or were the Government and Opposition united in backing nothing less than full, state-mandated nudity? However the process went, surely the result strongly argued for benefits of parliamentary democracy.

You can see why I didn’t date much in high school.

Anyway, this is a roundabout way of saying that Ellie is profoundly overreacting here in saying that April looks “like a pole dancer.” Not only is her strangely formal dress not particularly trampy by the standards of the what the kids today are wearing, but, in the northern, quasi-socialist paradise that the Pattersons call home, it would actually be illegal for a pole dancer to be so attired.

On an unrelated note: For Better or for Worse has continuing storylines and characters who age in real time, but also has daily punchlines. Is it a soap opera strip or not? Discuss.

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Panels from: Rex Morgan, M.D., Beetle Bailey, and Blondie, 9/1/04

It’s safe to say that a substantial majority of cartoonists are men; inertia ensures that most of those men are middle aged. I know this because I can see the names on the strips and look up how long they’ve been writing them, but even if all I had to go on was the artwork, I think I could hazard a guess on the gender and age of the artists.

Let’s be blunt: cartoonists like to draw women with big tits. Today we have a bumper crop (so to speak), though it’s by no means far beyond the norm. At one end of the spectrum we have Beetle Bailey’s Miss Buxley (Miss Buxley! C’mon!), who’s drawn with a certain bathroom-wall crudity; there’s Blondie, who sits demurely through her dinner party, stylized, wasp-waisted, and looking like she’s going to tip over forward at any moment; and then we have Rex Morgan’s Heather, caught in photorealistic mid-jiggle, the shadow work on her mid-torso receiving almost as much attention from the artist as Rex’s chin cleft in the previous panel.

Now, I think it’s well-established that a substantial number of literary and artistic geniuses got their start by channeling frustrated sexual energy while in high school. How many great novels have been written varsity-letter quarterbacks? I’m hoping that this is the driving force behind all this buxomness, anyway, and that it isn’t all some incredibly misguided attempt by King Feature Syndicate to compete with Maxim. Heather’s nice looking and all, but I don’t think she’ll be hanging up on the wall of your local auto body shop anytime soon.

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Being away for two weeks only served to show me how little actually happens in two weeks in the soap opera strips. Still, a couple of loyal readers offered amusing summaries of their twists and turns. Brandon, who also goes by the name of “Tournament of stuff,” provides this recap of Rex Morgan, M.D.:

“After surviving a harrowing adventure far more harrowing than anything in Without A Paddle, Rex and June are ready for two things: a shower and some sleep! Something’s troubling June, though, and it’s not just that Rex smells ‘like a goat.’ Alternately too tired to discuss her concerns and too worried by them to go to sleep, June finally reveals that they’ve been neglecting their parental duties. It’s time, they decide in the morning, to fire their nanny. After saying their cheery goodbyes and their thanks to the crew that nearly killed them, Rex and June head home to face the unhappy task that awaits them.”

Brandon also describes himself as “a fan”, as if that sort of ass-kissing is going to get him mentioned in the blog. Oh, wait, it will. Ass-kiss away, people!

Grand prize, though, goes to an anonymous poster who offered a summary of two weeks of Mary Worth — in advance!

“Heck, I can summarize the next two weeks of Mary Worth without needing the strips to be published. Or without even using a verb! (Since nothing ever happens in Mary Worth, verbs are unnecessary.) Wilbur. Iris. Dinner. Breadsticks. Drama. Wilbur’s broken heart.”

Good try, my nameless friend, though even the most faithful Mary Worth fan couldn’t have predicted that the litany should have really looked something like this: “Wilbur. Iris. Dinner. Breadsticks. Drama. My very own meth lab!“