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Curtis, 1/15/05

If you weren’t convinced by Barry’s reckless use of the word chutzpah, here’s more evidence for you that Curtis is actually written by an elderly Jewish man. In fact, I’m not even sure that actual elderly Jewish men exclaim “Oy!” repeatedly in response to lower back pain these days.

This strip summoned up from somewhere deep in my primal pop-culture consciousness memories of novelty rap group 2 Live Jews and their hit single “Oy, It’s So Humid.” In retrospect, it’s kind of amusing to think that there was a time when the group that 2LJ (as I’m sure their fans called them) spoofed, 2 Live Crew, was not considered a novelty group. Remember when the most dire threat offered against Western civilization was a song called “Me So Horny”? Good times!

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Mary Worth, 1/14/05

Can I lick your tonsils? Just askin’.

When I was trying to describe to my fiancée Gil Thorp’s fast-paced, breakneck pace (which is ten times more fast-paced and breakneck than the pace of an actual high-school basketball game), she remarked, “It’s like the anti-Mary Worth.” This is, I think, a pretty accurate assessment. In Gil Thorp, gender-equality-supporting pair Steve and Hadley went from awkward introductions to revolutionary power couple in three panels. Anna and Dr. Brian’s lip-locking reunion, meanwhile, has been in the works for nearly ten weeks.

This is as good a time as any to relay an exchange from the Golden Girls sent to me by faithful reader Luna:

Blanche: I love my comics. Every day, Marmaduke and Apartment 3-G.
Dorothy: I haven’t read Apartment 3-G since…1962.
Blanche: Oh, well, let me catch you up! It is later that same day…

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Spider-Man, 1/13/05

When I did my first Spider-Man comic, almost a month ago now, I said, “Presumably the ass-kicking will begin in due time.” Oh, how naive I was! How, bitterly, bitterly wrong I have been proved to be! In that time we’ve had marital spats, a little aimless Web slinging, a press conference to announce the opening of new theme restaurant, and the firing of an incompetent waiter. The closest we came to ass-kicking was when Kraven brushed aside some no-doubt trained crocodiles. And now … this! “Cage of loneliness?” I have to sit through some camped-up supervillain’s attempts to flirt via ham-handed metaphors?

I tell you, there’d better be some damn ass-kicking soon, or Stan Lee will be getting a very nasty note.