Monday Odds and Ends.....

Matt here. Nothing like a Monday morning at O'Hare Airport to make one appreciate.... ummm ..... not sure what one appreciates at O'Hare Airport. Anyways, on to the funnies:

Baby Blues

Darryl, c'mon. You can do better than that. Unless "Shoulder Massage" is a euphemism for something else in the Baby Blues household.

Curtis

Despite the pains that Ray Billingsley took to make this accurate, it still fails on the "Google it" challenge. Basically, the ice hotel itself is called the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel. There is no town called Sorrisniva, Norway. The hotel is in Alta, Norway. Anyways, I had more fun reading about Alta and the hotel than I did reading this comic strip.

Hi and Lois

I do like the coloring of daily comics, but for heaven's sake why is the floor black? Or does this mean that Hi and Lois are demons cast out of Hades and perform ceremonies while their kids are asleep? That would explain the passive/aggressive look on the baby's face.

Beetle Bailey

Sigh. Beetle Bailey has been really, really awful the past few months and this is no exception. First, jumping first has no bearing on opening a parachute first. One can jump first but still not open a parachute first. Second, I always disliked forced answers to questions. Sarge asked, are you ready to jump. He should have asked, who wants to jump first and it makes Beetle's answer better. Third, oh hell. There is no third other than I hate this strip.

Dennis the Menace

Before even reading the text of this comic, I knew that something was going on. I'd love to see what Alice's (is that the mom's name) expression is as it can't be good. And who is this person? Is she a babysitter? A friend? Someone they found on Craigslist for a three-way?

Funky Winkerbean

I hate lazy cartooning. Look at these three panels carefully. Let's use coach as the focal point and take his stance of facing forward. The reporter in panel 1 is to the left of coach and in front. In panel 2, he is to the left of coach and in front. In panel 3, he is to the right of coach and a bit behind him. What did he do? Some kind of quick jog around coach to get a different shot. ARRRGGGHHHH......make it stop! Oh, and the "joke" is horrible also.

Sally Forth

I work in HR and people don't just bring HR in and say "cut 40 people from our staff". That is a strategic decision and usually involves all lines of business and they debate and come up with an answer and THEN tell HR who they want to cut. But I guess that's too sophisticated for this new storyline.

That's all for now. Please comment if you enjoy any part of this. We feed off of any kind of discussion and always good to know if anyone is reading. Thanks!

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Hostess Fruit Pies?

Okay, so I don't really have a good excuse for missing the past few weeks of me supposedly doing Thursday and Friday. Let's chock it up to latent emotional problems made worse by the change in seasons. The Meekrat Entertainment Group has updated more or less regularly, though, and I return to you a disheveled mess of a human being. Let's get down to some comic stripping.

Sally Forth

Once upon a time, Sally Forth was pretty dire. Just your standard Mary Tyler Moore-esque comic strip, except with the comic strip usual family dynamic added in. For years, it simply sat there, being on no one's radar and never being particularly good. However, one day, they decided to give Ted a personality, and what a personality it was! Once a bland husband, Ted became extremely geeky, and with this geekiness came some mild humor and the strip became readable. And so it has remained. I pretty much only put this here for the shout-out to the Hostess Fruit Pie ads of yesteryear, which actually encompassed all of their items. You can find a pretty comprehensive collection of them here, but be warned that there's some salty language accompanying them. In case that sort of thing offends you.

Spider-Man

On a semi-related note, I was quite displeased when I found out that the vampire in this Spider-Man storyline was going to be Morbius and not Lugo Belosi. Of course, Belosi might still pop up as Morbius is apparently not a vampire anymore. Does anyone else think it's hilarious that he's claiming to have lost all traces of his vampirism long ago when he obviously has fangs? Silly Morbius! Hopefully you'll use those fangs to sink into a Hostess Fruit Pie.

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Shoddy

Sorry for missing yesterday. Today's not much better, honestly. Check out the Meekrat Entertainment Group, though.

Spider-Man (Thursday and Friday)


I really think Aunt May should go for it. If anything, to shake up Mary Jane's worldview. She's surprisingly square for an actress-model-whatever.

Sally Forth (Thursday and Friday)


Likewise, Ted Forth is shaking up the status quo my sticking it to his mother-in-law. I was just going to put Thursday's comic up here, because my god, but that's brutal, but Friday's comic deserves to be up here too. I can't help but feel that, short-term, this can't go well for poor Ted, though.

Thursday
F Minus

Depending on how far that guy is going, and how fast the basket can go, he might want to put up with the show tunes. Around here, the bus is something like $3 for a one-way ride.

Soup to Nutz

I'm just baffled by the framed pictures of Davey and Goliath, honestly.

Friday
Andy Capp

This seems way too romantic and industrious for Andy Capp. I guess he was younger then, though.

Girls and Sports

Let's check in with this old favorite. Is it? Yes, it's still stupid and terrible!

Love Is

You can add this to the "Passive-Aggressive Love Is" strips.

Pajama Diaries

On most days, Pajama Diaries is a pretty good comic strip, with fairly strong characterization giving way to character-based humor and other well-done gag-a-day type jokes. This new guy just seems way too one-note for this strip, really.

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Early Halloween Special

Hey there, everyone. So sorry about the lack of update yesterday. If it makes you feel any better, the Meekrat Entertainment Group hasn't gotten much love from me this week either. To make it up to you, here's comics from the past two days, plus I scoured the Internet for web-comics! Well, not really scoured. Just read the ones I usually read. Here we go:

THURSDAY
Brevity

I'll allow for the irradiated spider still being alive, even though that sucker would be dead seconds after biting Peter Parker. What gets me about this is the fact that the Daily Bugle isn't calling Spider-Man a threat or a menace, and isn't claiming he's in cahoots with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

BC

I see that BC is just ripping off jokes from Garfield now. I'm not even going to bring up all the things that are stupid and wrong with Friday's strip.

Retail

I believe I remarked upon this strip's costumes last year as well, but it's worth repeating. Waldo (or Wally, for some of you) is eye-catching, to be sure, but the Captain Kangaroo costume is just on a whole other level. I believe that Friday's strip featured the boss dressed as Ming the Merciless, but that's hardly better than Captain Kangaroo.

FRIDAY
Sally Forth

Speaking of costumes, check this out. The Hawks have been getting more exposure in recent years, due to the "Justice League" cartoon and whatnot, but it's still surprising to see them casually referenced like this. Then again, Ted is a colossal geek, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

My Cage

Since I'm not posting tomorrow or Sunday, I'd like to take this opportunity to say farewell to "My Cage". I hope its creators are able to find success elsewhere, or perhaps continue the strip as a web-comic or something. I think they could pull it off, if they wanted to.

Spider-Man

Since this post has so far been mild praises and whatnot, here's today's Spider-Man. It's obvious Mole Man has captured the two of them, but it could be a tentacle demon. Which would mean that this strip is pioneering tentacle rape in the funny pages! Can't wait for editors to get letters about that. It'll be the best thing ever.

Mandrake the Magician

It's always nice to see some of these strip acknowledge their shared universes.

WEB-COMICS
Axe Cop

If, for some reason, you're not reading Axe Cop, here's an example of what you're missing. The real reason I put this here, though, is to point out the questionable message Axe Cop is sending children when he claims that you can take any candy you want because the cops are asleep. The last few panels where Axe Cop comes back with over a thousand pieces of candy and winds up with only eleven are pretty genius, too. You probably can't actually read it, due to its size, so just go to the site and do so.

Oh, and happy Halloween to all of you. Unless you don't celebrate it, in which case... have a nice weekend. Also, November is National Novel Writing Month, if you're into that sort of thing.

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Thanksgiving: The Aftermath

Hey there, folks. Hope everyone had a fine Thanksgiving yesterday (or Thursday, if you're not in the United States) and that you didn't die from turkey overdose or excessive football watching or some other drastically real problem you could have experienced yesterday. Anyway, here's comic strip commentary:

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/27/09

So does this mean that Loweezy or whatever her name is isn't, in fact, a woman? That explains quite a lot, actually.

Sally Forth, 11/27/09

As someone who has watched the "Star Wars Holiday Special", and owns a bootleg copy, I can honestly say that there is no greater revenge that Ted can have against his parents than making him watch it. For the record, it's not so bad until you get to the part with the holographic circus. Of course, the holographic circus is within the first five minutes.

Candorville, 11/27/09

I would never pay the guy to leave me alone if all his stories are as delightful as the one he's telling now.

Graffiti, 11/27/09

All I remember about Moby Dick is that Ishmael was freaked out by Queeqeg, Moby Dick demolished their boat and Ishmael had to use Queeqeg's coffin as a life-raft, Captain Ahab ate some fresh whale-meat, and there was a chapter about Ishmael having a flash-back to some island he went to with whale-bones on it or something. What I'm getting at here is that it's a pretty boring book and far too long. Sorry if opinion's too funky fresh for all you squares.

The Quigmans, 11/27/09

The headless horseman wasn't Ichabod Crane, comic strip. Even if you're not willing to read the story (or even watch the Disney version) then you should at least have the presence of mind to look it up on Wikipedia.

Real Life Adventures, 11/27/09

I'm going to have to protest "Real Life Adventures" "People who play Dungeons and Dragons aren't qualified to reproduce" stand-point. It is a stupid standpoint and I hate it, especially since I play the game on occasion. And I will fight you on this if I have to, comic strip.

Daddy's Home and Nest Heads, 11/27/09


Here, we have two comics about the "Black Friday" phenomenon. While most people (rightfully) believe that the reasons the first comic strip posits is the reason that the day after Thanksgiving is called that, the minor amount of research I've done actually puts the reason "Nest Heads" forth to be the real reason that it's called that. So it's not because consumers act like raving savages, but because businesses are desperately hoping that one day out of the entire year will allow them to actually make a profit.

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Of Webcomics and Quetzalcoatl

Hey folks. Here's your post. Hopefully it meets your approval.

Hi and Lois, 9/18/09

I've been doing a web-comic for years and I've only ever sold two shirts, so selling three a week? That's really not too shabby. Also: The people who do "Hi and Lois" are aware of web-comics, and vaguely aware of how they work. This worries me to no end.

Sally Forth, 09/18/09

I've been wondering the same thing about pretty much every sport.

Monty, 09/18/09

They never actually made a "Godzilla Vs Gamera" movie. It's really one of those thing that most Japanese giant monster enthusiasts (note: don't tell me the proper term for such a thing, I know what it is) really want to see in one form or another.

Ziggy, 09/18/09

Quetzalcoatl?

Hold on, why the heck is Ziggy talking about Quetzalcoatl, and in such a throw-away manner? They could have used any number of lame avian puns in this instance, yet they throw out a clue leading to an ancient Aztec deity? First "Hi and Lois" with their web-comics, and now this... I'm apprehensive about what nuttiness we'll see next week.

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Saturday is the New Friday

Wassup? How's it going? Everyone is doing well I trust. I have a small spattering of comics for your viewing pleasure this week. I suggest that you enjoy them to the fullest.


Slylock Fox and Comics For Kids 6/3/09

The cheetah looks to be tweaking on meth and the penguin is raping a fish. How is this a comic for kids again? Last time I checked, rape and drug use were illegal for kids as well as adults. But it was a long time ago that I checked; just about 25 years ago, right after I was convicted of murder 1 and rape when I was high on acid. Have they changed the rules since I've been inside?



Sally Forth 6/3/09

Honestly the only thing going on inside my (a male) brain most of the time is a sound like static on a TV. I'm not thinking about why women make me nervous or plate tectonics or anything. It's just static and, about every 11 seconds or so, breasts.

Static and breasts, they're what make the male brain work.



BC 6/4/09

'FUNK' is a not a sound effect I have heard before.

I wonder if the stick crushed a third ant? That's probably why the evening is ruined; now they can't have that three-way they've been talking about for years.



Drabble 6/4/09

The lot seems to be pretty empty so what's wrong with parking anywhere? And it seems to me that passengers really don't have any input into what the driver is doing. Unless it's one of those cars that has a brake on the passenger side.

Also, yelling at someone who's driving is a very bad idea. That's how 18 car pileups start.

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Earth Day Comics BLARGH!

Today is Earth Day in case you haven't already heard, and almost every comic strip found a way to remind us that IT'S EARTH DAY! I work at an office where people leave the lights on in their office when they leave for 2 hour lunches, leave the lights on in the bathroom that only gets used 4-5 times a day, and people glug bottled water instead of the awesome tap water we have here because "our pipes are old." Did I wait until today to start giving them shit about it and trying to get them to change? No, because Earth Day is every day!


Sally Forth 4/22/09

Thanks for illustrating my point you crazy ho. Don't delude yourself in to thinking you care about the earth because you do something once a year. I hope next year Ted Forth builds a composting outhouse in his back yard, COMEDY GOLD.


Blondie 4/22/09

Some random thoughts about the constant mailman collisions in this comic: mailmen aren't out delivering mail before 8 AM when most people are going to work right? Are Dagwood and Herb scissoring? Why is God allowing this comic strip to continue existing?

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Short, Sweet Friday Comic Treats

This Friday I barely had time to rattle off this post. Or at least that's what I'm going to tell you all so you wont judge me as harshly for my half-assed work.

Sally Forth 1/9/09

Lets hear it for oblivious kids! And yes Hillary they get along just fine, IN MY BELLY!


Mary Worth 1/8/09

"You had to eat a human heart, otherwise you'd never have had enough strength."


Pluggers 1/8/09

Even the basement dungeon.


The Other Coast 1/8/09

"The market for pet cooking recipes is exploding."


Cul De Sac 1/8/09

It might not be a favorite of the other writers here on the DCR, but I love Cul De Sac. It makes me happy. Everybody have a fantastic weekend!

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