What I love about The Phantom is it will happily take a break from a storyline about an alien on a private jet from Guantanamo blowing up a warlord's brain with magic TikTok to give us a very specific kink scene where a shirtless man in a cage is taunted by a scantily-clad bongo player. I call this fetish 'bondage at Lilith Fair.’
Apartment 3-G, 3/31/05
Generous? Generous? For the love of God, no!
For Better Or For Worse, 3/30/05
The baby-pimping horror doesn’t end here, though. Not by a long shot.
For $75, you earn the right to take the little angel to next year’s “Take Your Child To Work Day” and earn the cooing adoration of all your coworkers.
For $250, you can give this precious gift from God the name of a beloved, deceased relative. For the corporate rate of $400, you can christen the precious darling with the name of your newest product as part of your marketing strategy.
For $800, this delightful child will, from the ages of seven to fourteen, be legally bonded to you and your heirs as an indentured servant, cleaning your home, cooking your dinner, and doing whatever other light manual labor you may require.
For $1,500, you get to eat the baby.
Gil Thorp, 3/29/05
I know there’s such a thing as sharing too much, even in the world of blogs, but I have to tell you all that if Ludacris actually makes an appearance in Gil Thorp, it is very likely that I will crap myself. If nothing else, it’s good to see Coach Thorp, who’s normally something of an insufferable know-it-all, get thrown by the crazy street lingo that his inner-city athletes are using. I look forward to coming strips in which the kids try to explain that in certain semantic contexts, “bad” can actually mean “good.” By the end of the week, Gil will be calling plays in that crazy Snoop Dogg “izzle” language.
Normally the art in this strip is about as subtle as all the male characters’ haircuts, but I have to admit that I like the way newly svelte Brent’s hoodie sags out at the gut in panel 1 — see, he’s lost weight so fast that he hasn’t even had time to shop for a new wardrobe yet! On the other hand, the hood itself isn’t so expertly rendered; panel two looks like it was aiming for 8 Mile, but hit Ren Fair instead.
By the way, you read it here first: this storyline is going to be a Gil Thorp stab at ripped-from-the-headlines topicality. Brent lost all that weight not because he hired a personal trainer, but because he stopped taking steroids. Possibly after seeing a public service announcement recorded by Ludacris.
(And yes, I know, Pimp My Ride is Xzibit. C’mon, how often do I get to use the word “pimp” as a verb?)