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Gil Thorp, 10/26/12
Oh, hey, sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date on what’s been going on in Gil Thorp, but trust me when I say that what’s been going on Gil Thorp is exactly the same thing that was going on when we last checked in with Gil Thorp — some Milford kids whose names I am not bothering to commit to memory are trying to make Irish Terry Gallagher into a star, for some reason — and it hasn’t gotten more interesting since. Today’s strip is mostly of note because the plot requires that characters find out information from a newspaper but somebody at some point in the creative process said, “Wait, kids don’t read the newspaper anymore, do they? iPads, kids love iPads, have them looking at iPads.”
Pluggers, 10/26/12
I love the bear-man’s facial expression and body posture of cringing terror here, as he becomes increasingly alarmed that he’s been lured to a non-plugger dining establishment, perhaps as some kind of trap. In fact, the bear-man’s wife is looking pretty smug, and it’s already been established that she’s not of plugger origins, so maybe it is a trap, or at least a deliberate attempt to drag him out of his comfort zone for the dual purpose of eating some non-deep-fried food for once and also seeing him squirm a little.
(Side note: I’m vaguely embarrassed to even know this, but Mrs. Bear-Man is actually supposed to be a kangaroo; I think the colorists have misinterpreted the ears and guessed that she’s a rabbit, thus the white coloring. Either that or the years of hated she-plugger existence have turned her normally brown pelt prematurely grey.)
Spider-Man, 10/26/12
Hmm, how to distract readers from the fact that Peter’s logic — “Kraven will steal that diamond tiara! Except, wait, that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing Kraven would do at all? Looks like I’m going to have to figure out why he’s going to do the totally out-of-character thing I’ve just arbitrarily decided he’s going to do!” — is completely insane? Hey, why not have Peter take off his teal suit jacket, hang it up on a weird, ill-drawn blob on the side of a building, and put on an electric blue suit jacket? Perfect! That makes even less sense!
Shoe, 10/26/12
“And I don’t care how much of the world has to be destroyed to lower those gas prices, as long as I don’t have to see it!”
Mark Trail, 10/25/12
How hard has everyone instantly fallen in love with Ol’ Pop, the kindly patriarch of this nest of heavily armed thugs? Very hard, I’m guessing! I’m looking forward to the fun as he and Mark get to know each other. “How long have you been in this guerrilla band, Pop?” “We’re not a band of anything, son! Certainly not anything political like ‘guerrillas,’ which implies some sort of political or ideological goals. We’re just poor peasants trying to get rich by seizing Americans at gunpoint if they happen to sail too close to our village and then holding them for ransom! Now shut up and don’t touch anything in my hut or I’ll slit your throat.”
Momma, 10/25/12
“Man, I sure wish Momma would cut it out with the gross Oedipal schtick and find another direction for its sexuality-themed jokes,” said all readers of the strip until they read today’s installment and then collapsed in gibbering horror.
Family Circus, 10/25/12
“I’m leaning towards angel, because to be a saint you have to be really, really good, but to be an angel you only have to be regular-level good and also dead.”
Spider-Man, 10/25/12
I may poke fun at the journalistic bona fides of J. Jonah Jameson, Peter Parker, and the Daily Bugle here, but you have to admit that they’re doing better than the people over at the Las Vegas Vista. “Holy crap, chief,” said the top political reporter, “There’s going to be a presidential election in just a few weeks! Let’s get a news story on today’s front page! I’ll do some research and have a feature on who exactly the candidates are for Sunday.”
Apartment 3-G, 10/25/12
“And I prefer to call it 180 pounds of confidence! Are you the one behind all those ‘Is Greg Cooper packing on the pounds’ items in Walter Scott’s Personality Parade? What the hell kind of publicist are you?”
Crankshaft, 10/25/12
Jeff’s mom has met a courtly gigolo, in what is probably the single most cheerful Funkyverse development in recent memory.
Marmaduke, 10/25/12
Do you know who else was a failed artist?
Apartment 3-G, 10/24/12
Haha, Greg, good job throwing off Margo’s suspicions there. The correct answer to “Why would you BUY A NEW YORK APARTMENT when you’re SHOOTING A MOVIE IN LONDON” is something like “Gee, maybe because I live in New York and most movies only shoot over a few weeks or months?” rather than “WHAAAH MY OWN PUBLICIST DOESN’T BELIEVE ME WHAAAH IT’S LIKE SHE THINKS I’M STALKING HER OR MAYBE HER ROOMMATES OR SOMETHING WAAAAH.” Also, you know, maybe a good publicist would think “Hmm, my client has just plopped down some cash for an apartment in a glamorous building in Manhattan, maybe this could be seeded on Page Six” rather than “WHY ARE YOU HERE AND NOT THERE???”
By the way, I’m actually a little surprised that Margo isn’t on her building’s co-op board, considering her well-known love of being in charge of things and deciding who lives and who dies. The building’s conversion to a co-op apparently happened just a bit before I started writing this blog, and I’m forever saddened to have missed out on what I’m sure were a dramatic series of legal filings.
Mary Worth, 10/24/12
Oooh, Dawn’s relationship with Jim really is on an express train to crazytown! The lesson Dawn is apparently going to learn here is that the depressed and the disabled are dangerous, so you should shun them. Also, maybe the Mary Worth team has wildly misunderstood what “hydrophobia” means and soon Jim will become rabies-crazed? Can’t wait!
Judge Parker, 10/24/12
“So look, I’ll pay off whatever small amount of money Bea owes you, but in return you’ll have to shut down the vast, lucrative criminal enterprise that allows you to purchase Picassos and live comfortably in your underground lair. Do we have a deal, my violent, chainsaw-wielding, felonious friend?”
Apartment 3-G, 10/23/12
“I’ll miss her. She was mighty handy with a taser!” says Margo, referring to a character who tried to tase one of the girls’ nemeses three and a half years ago and has been seen maybe three or four times since. Thus, Margo looking directly out of the panel at the reader and referencing Mrs. Bloom’s one wacky distinguishing characteristic is the equivalent of someone on a sitcom mugging for cheap audience applause, except in this case nobody can hear the applause because we’re all reading at home alone, and really the only people who remember a three-and-a-half-year-old one-day gag from Apartment 3-G are probably the people who read this blog. So let’s all applaud! The good folks at Apartment 3-G central deserve it! The rest of the world is no doubt just slightly but measurably more baffled by Apartment 3-G than usual.
Judge Parker, 10/23/12
Bubba seems quite receptive to Avery’s plan to become a “partner” to Bea in the operation of her fishing lodge, and also possibly in other ways (nudge) (wink) (I’m talking about a sex partnership, in which they have sex with each other). He hasn’t exactly given Bubba a reason not to dismember him with a chainsaw, though, unless he’s trying to weave a sense of “Look, I very much don’t want to trouble your harmlessly massive marijuana grow operation.” The only obstacle to a happy ending for all is Sam, who, among his many fine qualities, is a reliable prig who won’t let illegal things like massive marijuana grow operations go unreported to the authorities. Chainsaw dismemberment is still a possibility, is what I’m saying!
Dennis the Menace, 10/23/12
Hmm, Dennis offering to turn snitch? I rate this: mildly menacing.
Mary Worth, 10/22/12
You know what, you guys, this Mary Worth plot, in which Jim and Dawn are helping each other through their trauma and have the beginnings of romantic feelings for each other, is really quite sweet, and I thAHHH AHHH AHHH DAWN LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE JIM’S SISTER WHO WAS KILLED IN THE FERRY ACCIDENT IN WHICH HE LOST IS ARM AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
There are a lot of possibilities here (reincarnation? long-lost twin? Dawn really is Jim’s sister and survived the wreck and has amnesia and/or a whole set of false memories?) but I think we all know what the best one is: that Jim’s “sister” never existed, that this is a Photoshop job, and that if Dawn doesn’t accede to his demands that she move into the sisterly love chamber he’s prepared for her in his basement, she’ll find that picture with her eyes scratched out taped to every tree in her neighborhood.
Mark Trail, 10/22/12
Ah, the eternal dilemma of modern governance! Sure, we’d all like for our little village to run itself, with the main island keeping its politics out of things — but with main island politics come main island money! Do you want those fat cats on the main island calling the shots on how your village does things, or do you want to have to resort to yachtjacking to fund your local schools? Hopefully Mark can come up with a settlement between the village and the main island that respects local autonomy while sharing fiscal burdens. If negotiations fail, he may need to impose it with his fists.
Spider-Man, 10/22/12
So I looked it up, and last-minute bus tickets from New York to Las Vegas are only about $100 cheaper round trip than last-minute plane tickets … and the bus ride involves changing buses four times over 3 days. J. Jonah Jameson’s dedication to humiliating his employees is intense.
The Lockhorns, 10/22/12
“Also, Leroy’s been dead for three days! I figured I’d call someone to take him away when I got sick of looking at him, but, you know, it hasn’t happened yet.”
Family Circus, 10/21/12
Ha ha, yes, it’s all good nonpartisan election season fun, but I’d just like to point out that, within the Kompound, the Keane Kids by no means constitute a minority group. In fact, they outnumber Keane adults two to one, which is why it’s all the more important to keep them placated with delicious cookies, lest they rise up in violent revolution.
It’s not surprising that PJ is Big Daddy Keane’s favorite son, though. I think his inability to talk is probably the deciding factor.
Archie, 10/21/12
The real shock here is not that Mr. Lodge is directing his manservant to do his painting for him — after all, many great artists throughout history have mainly come up with concepts and served as more of a supervisor of craftsmen who do the day-to-day work — but that he’s referring to the blue figure in the final panel has having any “flesh tone.” Mr. Lodge’s radical anti-racist show, “Whose Flesh?”, will be premiering in a hip art space in a disused warehouse on the seedy edge of downtown Riverdale next week.
