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Marmaduke, 8/6/04

When I was in graduate school, my roommate and I decided to celebrate some minor life victory (and when you’re in graduate school, every victory is minor) by going to see a movie; for some reason, the movie we decided to see was Batman and Robin. We went in with high spirits, but by around forty-five minutes into it, I was trying to see what I could cram into my ear canals to somehow keep from having to listen to the dialog. At one point, Arnold Schwarzenegger, playing Dr. Freeze, says, “Do hear dat sound? It is da harbinger of your doom!” This man is now governor of one of your more major states.

Three or four years later, a date and I went to see American Virgin, which, for those who haven’t seen it (and you are legion), was a movie that was originally titled Live Virgin and spent several years “in the can,” as they say, due to its extreme awfulness. It did, however, star Mena Suvari, who would go on to appear in a pair of fairly well-received films called American Beauty and American Pie, so presumably the owners of Live Virgin said, “Let’s add ‘American’ to the name and release it on the unsuspecting masses!” And so it was done. I won’t go into this film’s awfulness in detail, except to say that, at its climax, respected British character actor Bob Hoskins has a depiction of a penis forcibly tattooed onto his forehead.

These are probably the two worst movie-going experiences I’ve ever had. While I was sitting in the movie theater on these two occasions, I fidgeted. I rolled my eyes. I sighed loudly. I made snide comments to my moviegoing companions, to the strangers in the rows ahead of me, and to the cruel universe at large.

I did not, however, cry. Nobody — not ever lovably destructive Great Danes — weeps because a movie is bad. Sometimes, they cry because a movie is extremely moving. So either (a) Marmaduke is a big sap who cries at cheesy movies, (b) Marmaduke’s owner is a heartless soul who doesn’t share her dog’s deep wellsprings of empathy, or (c) this comic strip has no insight on actual people’s reactions to actual films. I vote for (c). I suppose it’s harder to draw an irritated dog than a crying one, but that’s a flimsy excuse.

(Incidentally, the other thing I didn’t do during these movies was walk out in disgust. This might give you some insight into the pathology that drives me to read Marmaduke every day.)

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Ziggy, 8/5/04

Willy ‘n Ethel, 8/5/04

Several times on any given day, the compulsive comics reader will think to him or herself, That’s not funny. What’s more rare, and therefore more precious and intriguing, are those moments where we think, I don’t even understand why that’s supposed to be funny.

But today, ladies and gentlemen, we have a pair, a two-fer, a bifecta of incomprehensible comics. Take the scene of turmoil at Casa Ziggy. Ziggy is angry (and when’s the last time you saw Ziggy angry?); his little dog is confused, or surprised, or possibly sad (you can only express so much emotional nuance through eyebrows). But why is the parrot’s statement eliciting these reactions? Is the dog upset and disillusioned that Lassie has stooped so low as to pose in the nude? Since they’re all watching TV (and presumably watching Lassie), does Ziggy’s dog realize that they’re watching a nude scene and suddenly feel uncomfortable and weird?

This all might make more sense if I could remember whether Lassie (or Ziggy’s dog, for that matter) was male or female. But then again, it probably wouldn’t.

At least in Ziggy I have a sense of what’s going on, if not the motivations behind the characters’ reactions. Meanwhile, Willy ‘n Ethel, a strip that is not traditionally difficult to parse (Willy is lazy! Ethel doesn’t like it! Ethel’s sister is fat! Willy is lazy!) is on a whole different plane of baffling today. All I’m getting out of it is that Willy got hit in the head, possibly by a T-Ball bat. Other than that, it’s completely opaque. “She”? “T-Ball”? “Master”? Buh?

Anyway, I’m posting these to lend assurance to anyone who’s ever said “I don’t get it”: you are not alone! And if there’s some comics guru out there who does have a notion as to what the hell these two strips are about, please post your explanation in the comments. Your fame shall be everlasting, and I’ll post the best explanations in the blog.

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Doonesbury, 8/4/04

Baby boomers! Who doesn’t love ’em? Well, their parents probably didn’t like it when they rose up and rejected age-old values like unquestioning patriotism, tie-wearing, and regular baths. And we who are their kids got pretty annoyed by their endless nattering on about how they changed the world and invented free love and took drugs and blah blah blah and, oh yeah, you shouldn’t be doing any of that stuff, so go do your homework.

Maybe their grandkids will have a little distance from the whole thing.

But boy howdy, baby boomers sure do love baby boomers. When you read the boomer-drawn Doonesbury, especially in the long term, you’ll notice that it’s the boomers who are inevitably the viewpoint characters. Now, I’ve always loved this strip; I’ve used old anthologies as my primary source about what young people thought about politics and popular culture during the Nixon administration. But future generations will use today’s strips to find out what middle-aged people think about the Iraq war, which, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, is a wee bit less exciting.

Today’s strip is a good example. In both 1974 and 2004, you have parent-child arguments in Doonesbury. But back then it was the parents who were old, out of touch, reactionary, unable to appreciate good music, and hostile towards issues that really mattered; now, it’s the kids who are young, ignorant, unable to appreciate good music, and willfully apathetic towards issues that really matter.

Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it, Gary?