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Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/27/05

So many objectionable items in this strip: cannibalism, vomiting, racial stereotyping, the inappropriate use of quotation marks. Yet I can’t bring myself to object to it. Why? Because far from loving Ray Romano, I in fact hate him with the passion of ten thousand suns. You hear me, CBS? Hate! Now, I’m not saying that I’d like to see this Emmy-award-winning comedian captured by Dayaks or Fore tribesmen, cooked alive, and eaten in a ritual meant to bring power and status to the elite members of the clan. I’m just saying that if such a thing were to happen and I read about it in the newspaper, I wouldn’t linger over the tragedy for very long before moving on to the sports pages, if you follow me.

Still, I have a few problems with this strip. For one thing, why is it that our cannibal savages live in a palisaded hut, apparently beyond the reach of modern society (you can tell by the thoroughly 1980s wristbands they’ve adorned themselves with), yet still have access to modern porcelain toilets, and, presumably, municipal plumbing? Secondly, why would Ray Romano be wearing a pith helmet? And glasses? Ray Romano doesn’t … wear … oh, crap! These guys didn’t eat Ray Romano at all, just some random explorer dude named Raymond! OK, all this comic’s redeeming qualities have vanished for me. I hate it now.

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Behold, the archetypical Garfield strip! Enterprising Photoshop-wielding readers of this feature have already had their fun creating Garfield strips that encapsulate the comic’s essential blankness (though this one appears to be the only one still online). Here, however, we have a strip that features no visual movement whatsoever. None. The question then becomes: why even bother having separate panels? Why not one big panel with a chipmunk-cheeked Garfield in the center and a long thought balloon above, big enough to contain this strip’s allegedly humorous text? Is there something about the repetition of identical images that’s supposed to tell us something about the passage of time, about comic iconography? Or does it just suck?

Speaking of sucking: if you’re just going to be using the Cut and Paste features of your design program to reproduce three panels, you really ought to use the time you’ve freed up to come up with a good joke. Sadly, the Jim Davis Fun Time Factory chose not to take this path. In protest, I’ve chosen to replace the text with a classic anecdote from the Truly Tasteless Jokes series.

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The fact that the writer for Sally Forth is a regular reader of this blog is all well and good, but here’s a really exciting fact: I just received a picture for my merchandise ad featuring Fence Post Frank himself!

What’s that on the tip of the shovel, Frank? Dirt — or Buck’s blood?

Anyway, y’all should keep them pictures comin’! And, of course, you should continue purchasing Comics Curmudgeon crap.