Post Content

The Phantom, 5/3/05

So it turns out that the Phantom is not going to defeat his enemies by shooting them in the back of the head. Instead, much more humanely, he’s going to avail himself of non-FDA-approved “Bandar medicine” to brainwash them, leaving them with shattered Manchurian Candidate-style psyches and glimpsed half-memories for the rest of their miserable lives.

The men at least are lucky: they’re just going to be dragged off to a filthy hut somewhere, be injected with the essence of God knows what quasipoisonous tropical root, and have their minds cleansed in a quick and business-like fashion. Mina, however, seems destined to first be brought (blindfolded, natch) into the Phantom’s waterfall-shrouded Love Cavern. Trust the Ghost-Who-Puts-The-Moves-On: no one will be harmed, but someone might have to listen to R. Kelly’s Chocolate Factory and deal with some scented candles.

A new artistic team recently took over The Phantom, and it’s good to see that they’re sticking to the strip’s proud tradition of baffling punctuation marks. Most people would have been satisfied with some wacky onomatopoetic noises in panel three, but I like the fact that they’ve rendered Sputt! as an exclamation, but Blubb!? as a question. “Blubb!?” Yes, Mina: blubb.

Post Content

Curtis, 5/2/05

Much as cruelly mocking Curtis has become part of my schtick here, I must give “props” where they are due and admit that I do love the strip’s vocabulary of hyper-exaggerated facial expressions. Take this installment, for instance. Curtis’ bug-eyed, dilated-pupil look might say “trippin’ on ‘shrooms” to the casual observer, but long-time Curtis readers (of which, God help me, I am one) recognize it as the strip’s symbol for “I’m assuming an extra-nice appearance to cover up something bad I’ve done.” The I’ve-swallowed-my-lips manuever in panel three makes Curtis look like a Warner Brothers cartoon character who has swallowed “Alum” (whatever that is), but in fact it’s Curtis visual shorthand for panic and distress. And it may look like Curtis is drooling for no reason in panel two, but … um, actually, I think he’s just drooling for no reason. No, scratch that, I guess he’s sweating. Most of us usually don’t do so much sweating in the mouth region, though.

Nice kicky beret on mom in panel one there, by the way. And lord knows where that sock is flying in from in panel four. It’s crazy chaos over there in Curtisville!

Post Content

I wish had something harrowing, impressive, or at least interesting to explain my lackadaisical posting pace, but alas I all I can say is “I didn’t get around do it.” Plus: my copy of the Baltimore Sun arrived today WITHOUT A COMICS SECTION! Am I the subject of some relentless persecution from the Powers That Be? Have the Illuminati, the Freemasons, and King Features Syndicate joined forces with the dude who delivers my paper in an attempt to silence me?

(These are the sort of paranoid thoughts that go through your head when you work at home, folks. Thank God for the Future Mrs. C. driving me to Target and such every few days or you’d be reading these words tapped out on a vintage mechanical typewriter, wrapped around a brick, and hurled through the window of the Sun’s offices. Well, actually, you probably wouldn’t be reading it at all, unless you worked for the Baltimore Police’s forensics department, but I digress.)

Anyway, due to the disruptions of my comics schedule, I’m going all crizzy-crazy in an attempt the catch up: three comics from two days today, and no Sunday comic (and yes, I read about Mim’s baby’s name, and no, I don’t want to know what sick sex thing they’ve got cooked up over at For Better Or For Worse).

Mary Worth, 4/29/05

My first introduction to Mary Worth was the now-infamous Smitty Smedlap storyline. I came in just after the beginning of a dinner out attended by Mary, Smitty, and other, lesser characters. It was obvious to me that Smitty was an unstomachable prick. But — did the author intend for us to see him as such? It was hard to tell, at first, since day after day, week after week, the strip just featured his irascible rantings, followed up by polite murmurings from his fellow diners.

The funeral of the late lamented nurse what’s-her-face may, I’m beginning to see, be destined to last as long as that fateful dinner with Smitty, and its creeping social awfulness may go unacknowledged verbally by any of the participants. Panel one, here, though, may rate among my favorite Mary Worth scenes ever. Momma Rita places a melodramatic hand on her forehead as she pours her heart out to Santa Royale’s first couple of nosiness. Mary’s face, though carefully composed to match the gravity of the situation, cannot mask her glee as all these deeply personal details are vomited forth for her delectation. “Yes,” she seems to be thinking, “Give me your grief, your pain! Dump it all out for me! Allow me to live vicariously through the highs and lows of your life! Then I shall dispense some time-worn aphorisms and YOU WILL BE MINE! MINE, YOU HEAR ME? MINE!”

Dr. Jeff’s facial express, meanwhile, I think can be summed up simply: “Oh, crap, how much longer until we can leave?”

Our flashback panel is worthy of interest in its own right. I’m particularly intrigued by Rita’s giraffe-like neck and long, serpentine limbs, along, of course, with that … gelatinous … thing on the plate she’s holding. Growing up in upstate New York, we learned a lot in school about the Iroquois Confederacy, and I seem to recall making a plasticine longhouse model that looked a lot like that. Except this one appears to be covered with human skin.

On a very different note, let’s take a look at what all the cool kids are doing over in Milford.

Gil Thorp, 4/29-30/05

I think that with these two strips, Gil Thorp may have surpassed Curtis in the race for Most Ham-Handed Comics Use of Contemporary Urban Slang. I myself have longed to blast the hip-hop in the valley with the south side, but I’m not “down” or “with it” or “crunk” or whatever the hell it is like these headband-sporting, grey-haired, IM-savvy white girls so clearly are. You can tell by the blissful look on the face of the not-Hadley girl in panel three that they are true members of Hip-Hop Nation. On Saturday, the strip takes a turn for the weirdly meta as the DJ uses possibly the most non-connective segue in the history of radio to launch into a Don Rickles-light tirade against Milford’s prominent teachers and their awful, awful hair. I suppose that it makes sense that, since everyone in this crappy little town is obsessed with Milford sports, the hairstyles of the school faculty might merit public derision at the hands of the Morning Zoo Crew. On the other hand, everyone in Milford is having the worst day hair day of their lives every day of their lives, so I would advise the listening audience not to laugh to loudly, lest the next laugh be on them. (Steve Luhm, I’m looking in your direction.) The whole thing is so ludicrous that Hutch Renfro’s radio has exploded into a miniature mushroom cloud in protest.