The DCR: Manic Monday

by Hal Bent

Daily schmaily. That's what I say. 

No, actually I don't usually say that. But it is Monday, and with a fresh new week of snarking on the funny pages starting fresh, optimism is high. Let the daily comics review begin:

Ziggy by Tom Wilson & Tom II:

Oh Ziggy, you deluded fool, they're sad thinking of their sad existence of being YOUR pet.  They meet each week to commiserate and share their misery.  You just woke up before they made themselves feel better by trying to smother you in your sleep.


Moderately Confused by Jeff Stahler:

Wait, wait...the Cloo-man is aging...just gracefully.  Or is this guy just saying he wanted to watch sagging boobs? Great, now I'm "moderately confused".


Adam@Home by Brian Basset:

I love the lovely Mrs. Newman harassing old loser boy Adam about his "novel".  "gee, Potato Nose, you haven't worked while '@home' for the past five years, so how is that 'novel' about a modern romance told through series of e-mail messages."   Bwah-hah-hah!

Umm, what is going on with Adam's coffee cup in the second panel?  How does he get coffee into his mouth? How the hell is he holding the cup? Panels one, three and four establish "no handle". Panel two has a handle and with his nose in the way the coffee isn't even close to his mouth. 


9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney:

Finally, an end to the hideous "Thorax: Shadow President" bologna and a return to a more "cheesecake" function to the strip.  'Bout time McEldowney ended that crap. Granted, returning to the "wiretaps" storyline is hardly mildly entertaining, but it beats senseless political crap. If I wanted senseless political crap, I could mosey over to Mallard Fillmore or Doonesbury. 

That said, exactly how deep was that water she is diving into. Say Amos there is six feet tall, so Edda is diving into four feet of water headfirst from at least ten feet up? That supreme wedgie (ouch!) saved her life.

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Thursday Quickies - 7/18/2013

by Hal Bent

Another Thursday slogging in the salt mines (I work for the government in a cubicle...that kind of makes me "the Man", right?) and finally some time to relax with the comics strips and let loose the snark. I do have to behave at work...what's the Monty Python Holy Grail Line?

That's it. "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"
Before I go further, let me remember to give a long overdue shout-out to a DCR regular (one of the three, hah-hah!), Inkwell, and encourage you to check out her great snarky blog--The Slylock Files--devoted to the great comic strip detective Slylock Fox here: http://theslylockfiles.wordpress.com/ 

Check it out! You'll be hooked. 

Keep up the great work, Inkwell, and thanks for reading here! :)


Reality Check by Dave Whamond:

That was...funny.  Wow. A funny comicstrip. I've seen it all now. Of course, now I feel I have to apologize to creator Dave Whamond for this: 

Look at that look of defeat and despair for life on the character's face! He isn't pulling the finger and hearing the fart noise to open the door, oh no! He is dropping trousers and backing up into into the door. I mean, you know in real life someone would be doing that to a door handle like that.

Wait, I take that back...no apology. I was pretty funny there!


Moderately Confused by Jeff Stahler

I've drank a few of those in my time, I think (Natty Light!!!)

9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney:

I know that this storyline is going to come around to Sven being seen as honorable and upstanding for turning in his fiancee, but I have to say: WHAT A DICK MOVE!  Seriously?  My wife comes home with a dead body in the trunk, I just grab a shovel and start digging under the maple tree...that's honorable and upstanding...standing by the one you love. If this was in anyway realistic, Lady Vet here will be castrating Sven come next week. 


Ziggy by Tom Wilson & Tom II:

Ziggy, being some bizarre potato/human hybrid--maybe a slug/human hybrid, is auditioning for Pluggers apparently.  Talk about a union reserved for the fifth level of Dante's Hell!  Oh wait, Slug/Human is too much like the Slurm makers in the Willie Wonka parody on Futurama...darn, I thought that was a good analogy.  

Damn you, Ziggy!!!

*

OK,all..have a great Friday tomorrow! Thanks as always for reading.

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Friday Funnies

It's Friday!  Friday should be the best comics of the week...story lines wrapping up, highest readers other than stand-alone Sundays, and syndicates juggling dailies for the best of the bunch.  Here's five funnies for Friday:

Betty by Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen:

Here's an idea, you two fat twits: go to a Doctor and ask him about the effects of a high wheat diet.  If there was a Doctor who had half a brain, he'd tell tubby here that he was at risk for a number of health issues due to his weight and especially due to his shape and storing fat in his belly. Maybe he's been going to the same idiot Doctors I went to for years begging them to help me lose weight.  I remember one who said "take it easy on the McDonalds, y'know. Heck, you're skinnier than I am! Huh-hah."  Then I finally found a Doctor who actually knew a thing or two and one proper diagnosis later I'm 60 pounds lighter and 100 times healthier.  But, hey, what the heck, let green sweater here keep filling up on those empty carbohydrates until he drives up health premiums even higher. 


Bewley by Anthony Blades: 

I only put this one here because it reminded me of yesterday when I had my kids at their grandparents and we were sitting in the living room when we went to pick them up.  My 9 year-old daughter made a comment about marriage or something, and my 11 year-old son pipes up "well, first you need to learn how to stimulate a man." IN FRONT OF HIS GRAND-PARENTS!  He later explained it as "I learned it in health class", but my parents had a heck of a laugh over that conversation. But like this comic, that's how I felt. "Good idea, son. Tell me all about the birds and bees!"


Close to Home by John McPherson:

Anyone who has ever worked in a call center will enjoy this Close to Home.  Hearing "I was on hold for XX minutes, what the #*@&^% are 'you people' doing there?"  I like to think that all of those options in the comic are running through their head.  


Love Is... by Kim Casali, conceived by and drawn by Bill Asprey;

Wait.  What??? Does that..wow. Follow your heart, don't go black? Is that the message? Black thoughts?  Think love, not black thoughts. How about "evil" instead, or something other than "black" that may have racial connotations. Is there an editor looking at these? Yeesh. 


Moderately Confused by Jeff Stahler:

What are those the not nice words? She's showing him out in the morning, right? Otherwise he'd be calling her on the phone or texting her.  So what's the story? Sexually incompatible? Selfish? (I'm trying so hard to be nice here and not type anything inappropriate here.)  Of course, I have no ideas about the relationship of these two individuals.  This could be a nosy neighbor asking about those "goat noises" he thought he heard.  Maybe this guy is just picking-up his carpooling co-worker and he saw who she was with at last call?  This comic just gets more and more interesting the more I think about it!


Have a great weekend, all!  Thanks as always for reading!

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Blackout Day

Lots of websites are blacking out today to protest SOPA and PIPA. In case you've lived in an internet free hole the past couple days, here's the info on that. Anyway, on to the comics review!

Candorville

R.I.P. Lemont Brown. He was last seen weaving erratically along HW 1, just north of Santa Barbara.

Chuckle Bros

Chuckle Bros actually made me chuckle today. I love that the bald guy is rubbing it in Mr. Six-Pack's face that his shallow emotional fulfillment is so much easier to obtain.

Cleats

That's quite a long explanation just to get to the punchline. Are there really leagues with those rules? Also, why does that kid's dad look like a mobster?

F Minus

ChickenNog would have made more sense for this joke, no?

Moderately Confused

Ug. I'm moderately confused by this comic. Is the second guy supposed to see a donut or something? The thing's made of stone, so I don't see how he could be thinking of food. Perhaps he isn't looking at the wheel at all, but rather sizing up his up his smug inventor friend. "Mmm... transportation make Ogg fat, lazy, and delicious!"

Okay, that's all for today. See you next week! That is, if SOPA and PIPA don't shut us down first.

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Over the falls we go

Wednesday seems like a good day for comics, doesn't it? Yes, I thought so.

Cow and Boy

I like Cow and Boy. It's funny and creative; I dig the artwork. But what the fudge is supposed to be on that sign?! I've been staring at if for 2o minutes now and still can't conclude anything definitive. The best I can come up with is a microphone. It's certainly plausible that a mayor could be beaned by a hanging mic at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. But if an image isn't immediately recognizable in silhouette, why bother? It kind of looks like Snuffles, the evil cat from Pearls Before Swine. Now that would be amusing. Instead of throwing pies and shoes at disliked politicians, people should throw cats.

Family Tree

I don't normally pay much attention to Family Tree—has it always featured Dick Cheney in drag?

Gett Fuzzy

I could see this coming from the first panel, but the image of Bucky defecating in something of Satchel's is just hilarious.

Moderately Confused

And from the looks of that incline, this will also be the last ride she's ever been on.

Rip Haywire

Another rafting trip ends tragically.

Eek!

Is there a joke here somewhere? This woman is gleefully gloating that she just poisoned her husband. I guess that's supposed to be funny.

Lio

I really like Lio's super serious expression in the last panel. Seat belts always take the reckless joy out of driving.

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Cat psychiatry

Today, two panels dealing with...  well, you'll see.  Also a couple more that don't deal with that.


Heathcliff:

...and how incredibly awesome it is, and how you need to grow it out more.  Unfortunately, to properly pull off the look, you will need to get a top hat, a monocle, or both.  A cowboy hat may also work, but then you'll need to get a fake sheriff badge as well.

Moderately Confused:

"Well, I've been continuously beaned by bricks since I was a small child, and I think it's messed with my head a bit.  I actually started to like it.  Yes.  I hate to say it, but...  I think I've developed a brick fetish.  So, yeah.  I think...  yeah, that's probably why they call me Krazy.

It could also be because that's my first name."

"Great, good.  Now, let's move on to your gender confusion..."

The Buckets:

Time to learn some tricks that don't involve the audience.  Or better yet, if you have an uncooperative audience, make sure that you have your magic death box with you, either the one that you can saw people in half with or the one you can stick a bunch of swords into.

Chuckle Bros.:

I could've guessed that in one note.  I mean, the first twang of the banjo just gives it away immediately.

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Mike P Returns Again

It's Thursday, so that means I'm here to give you mirth. You can check out the Meekrat Entertainment Group for more mirth, both comics related and not. Here is some comic related mirth.

Big Nate

I went to a city fair shortly after it had rained and a man running a rock climbing wall told me that, should I be able to climb it, he'd give me a large sum of money. I tried three times before I had to give up. Had the wall not been wet, I would have totally been able to do it, though. If there's one physical thing I'm good at, it's climbing.

Girls and Sports

She can probably hear you. She probably sincerely wants you to go away, but you're so desperate that you'll take any token interaction and milk it for all it's worth. We know you have some luck in this department, for some unknowable reason, so you really don't need to cling like this. Just accept that, like any right-minded person, she's totally uninterested in you and move on. Your friend has the right idea.

Moderately Confused

I sat here for a few minutes, reading and re-reading this panel because the words were in such a bizarre order that it just seemed so darn unnatural. Then it hit me: perhaps that's the joke. Unless the cartoonist just has something against jazz, which would make him the scourge of the 1930s.

The Other Coast

If those are the flavored kind (even just with some light honey) then the choice is clear. Heck, when the other choice is killing and eating your fellow human beings, you should be willing to choke down some granola and bran bars. Besides, I find it sort of dubious that a comic strip that's usually very vocal about being eco-friendly and all that would turn up its nose at granola bars.

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I'm Pre-AARP But Post-PTSD

Greeting on this fine Wednesday. I apologize for not including a warning about the links in yesterday's post. But seeing as there was no nudity involved, you can all get over it. It's not like you've never seen a morbidly obese man without clothes. I see it all the time at the local pool and after a while, when your soul has died, it stops bothering you.

But today we move onward and upward! Although, these commentaries are probably worse than yesterday as those were truly inspired. I hope you enjoy them anyway.


B.C. 8/5/09

I realized that B.C. is a really terrible comic strip, but you'd think that they could at least have made the correct foot for the one-legged guy. Or maybe that's why he's going to cry/throw up. At first I thought he was going to throw up because it's so ugly, but it makes more sense that he would be overwhelmingly saddened that his new prosthetic foot is the wrong one.



Cow & Boy 8/5/09

Or 'The Itch' can come from banging that whore that lives down the block from you. At least that's where my 'The Itch' comes from. I really should invest in some condoms, but it's just so much better without them. Except for, you know, 'The Itch'.



Heathcliff 8/5/09

What the hell is 'AZZIP'? I've never heard of such a thing. Does it involve garbage?

Honestly, if you think that your readers are so stupid that you need to spell out where the characters are then why write it backwards? If you think we're so stupid that we couldn't figure out that they're in a pizza place, then we're surely stupid enough to misread it as 'AZZIP'.



Moderately Confused 8/5/09

Here we go. A comic that isn't afraid to give us as little information as is needed.

From the context of the piece of cake, we can tell that it's her birthday, and as we all know, women don't ever reveal their age for any reason, so it would make sense that she would be cryptic in her answer to the question about her current age, which we did not hear.

Of course she could just be a glutton making up some random sentence to throw off the local cake police.

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Copy-Cats and Whatnot

Well, I have thirteen comics today. However, most of them have just been chosen because they're pretty much identical to each other. For example:

BEAVERS LIKE TO EAT WOOD!
The Argyle Sweater and Ziggy, 7/10/09

I think it's important to note that beavers don't actually eat wood. Cartoonists, obviously, don't realize this.

ANIMALS ARE TOO STUPID TO REALIZE WE SLAUGHTER THEM TO MAKE THINGS!
In the Bleachers and Farcus, 7/10/2009

This one is probably true, however. Also, who would let hoofed animals work on an assembly line? Really now, there's suspended disbelief, and then there's straight-up shooting belief in the back of the head and letting its corpse float downriver to scare children.

BAD PAINTING GO IN THE CLOSET!
Moose and Molly and Pickles, 7/10/2009


I'm glad they're just sort of inventing cliches at this point. We definitely need more of those to replace the old worn-out ones.

Of course, in addition to the above comics, we have three strips featuring appearances by the cast of Zits. One of them is Zits, of course:
Zits, Rip Haywire, and Moderately Used 7/10/2009



I'm sure there's some reason for this that's unknown to me, but it's still sort of weird seeing these characters in all three comics. Also, I was wondering when they were coming out with that issue of Archie. I'm serious about that. I'm not going to read it, but I do like knowing that it's out.

Then we have some random comics:
Mary Worth, 7/10/09:

Mary Worth is so angry that she's actually using PHYSICAL FORCE to meddle. Look at her. This is the angriest I've ever seen the woman. She looks like she's some sort of action hero whisking away the damsel in distress, when in reality she's just a meddlesome old lady. That woman, though, is just asking to me hit on in that stunning yellow combo of shirt which covers nothing, fishnet stockings, and heels. Rawr.

Ted Rall, 7/10/09:

If you told me that today was the day I'd see a cartoon featuring the President calling a bunch of people fags, then I'd just look at you and say, "So? What do I care?" Then again, he could just be answering the group's question. In any case, why is he using that word at all? Is this a reference to some sort of news thing I missed? Is the President vaguely homophobic? Why am I thinking so much about this stupid cartoon?

Get Fuzzy, 7/10/09:

Shrodinger's Cat is one of my favorite hypothetical experiments, and it's nice to see it get some love. It's also nice to see Bucky pitch a fantasy fight between Pavlov's Dog and Shrodinger's Cat, and amusing to see Satchel's take on the whole thing. Who knew he'd get so emotional about something like this?

Skin Horse, 7/10/09:

After yesterday's initial encounter with this strip, I just had to see what happened. If the bald guy is some sort of megalomaniac, then I guess the whole poison thing makes a little more sense. I just wonder if he has some sort of motive to invade Alaska, and if those are his two best dogs, does that mean he has more dogs which are somehow worse? I guess only time will tell.

Well, there you have it folks. Here's a gratuitous plug for my website, and another for the forums which are shared by my site and the DCR. You should totally go make some friends, because everyone who posts on the forum is one bodacious dude (or radical dudette)!

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