Qomics for Queers

Let's call it what it is...

2008-03-31T23:02:00.003-05:00

I just can't keep up with this site.

At this point, the only people who'll see this email are those who subscribed. Thanks, actually, that means a lot to me.

So I owe to you to finally concede to myself that this thing isn't going to work out. I just don't have the time to work on this and provide the content needed, nor do I have enough desire. Usually I read the comics right before bed, and I'm just done. Trying to find things to be funny about every day, especially when there's nothing queer, then doing all the bloggy behind-the-scenes stuff, it's just too much.

But I started another project to put together several of the blogs that I was working on, to make it easier to do them. I still read the comics, and I still want to post on them sometimes, so I moved that over to Rise Above on WordPress. I'm also doing some of the serious political stuff there that I was doing at another site, as well as some other fun stuff that doesn't work on either of these two sites or Bilerico, which I'm still editing.

I already posted about today's gay FBOFW, and I just checked out Josh's site and see that his wife was thinking along the same lines I was.

Thanks again for all this time!

Rose is Rose

2008-02-25T19:25:00.003-05:00

I never thought I'd see a Rose is Rose about erections, but here it is.

It's interesting to see an erection symbolized with hearts. Does that subvert the construct of the phallus or simply mask its violence? You decide!

Fred Basset

2008-02-25T19:17:00.002-05:00

This is why I love Fred Basset: well-drawn plaid and unabashedly gay dogs.

The Family Circus

2008-02-24T21:16:00.001-05:00

Awwww! Dolly's teaching TFC's future writer the tricks of bad writing. How meta!

Gasoline Alley

2008-02-24T21:09:00.004-05:00

I've barely been able to follow the so-so-tired character comedy self-congratulatory joy-gasm this past week on Gasoline Alley. It's just too much. Yes, that glasses postal worker's boss is too focused on work to express that the GPW is getting his job back in a traditional fashion, but GPW is happy nonetheless. We get it. Let's move on.

But what is interesting is the way plaid got drawn on GPW. It's the same way plaid often gets drawn in the comics (see Dennis the Menace), with the lines flowing from the front to the sleeve as if all the plaid were lining up, which it never does. I know it's the easy way to draw plaid, but does it bother anyone else?

Marmaduke

2008-02-24T21:03:00.003-05:00

God, Marmaduke, not every poodle is female. Half them are male. Just because some people give them haircuts doesn't make them all female. If all poodles were female, then there wouldn't be any more poodles.

And don't look at us like that, Marmaduke. It's creepy. I don't want to think about what you're planning to do to that poodle.

Blondie

2008-02-22T21:21:00.002-05:00

Ha! It's funny because the Bumsteads don't own any knives or scissors or screw-drivers or any sharp objects.

Beetle Bailey

2008-02-22T21:19:00.000-05:00

No, Killer, "knock off" is a new euphemism for masturbation.

Alex states the obvious about Thursday's comics

2008-02-22T20:29:00.010-05:00

Because the noise that vacuum cleaners make isn't entertaining!

Washing, vacuuming, and shampooing things makes them cleaner!

Being annoying and saying "bump beds" repeatedly instead of "bunk beds" doesn't make you any less annoying!

The art in Gil Thorp isn't as painful to look at anymore, but I still can't tell who anyone is!

But nobody laughs at Hi and Lois!

Those two should kill Mark Trail!

You also know you're pregnant when you're (hetero)sexually active, your period stops, and your pregnancy test is positive!

Archie

2008-02-20T20:17:00.003-05:00

OMG the horror!

Let's ignore the premise of this strip for now, that Jughead is a mindless drone who'll follow the stench of cooked flesh blindly and that women's bodies are the consumptive equivalent of meat (where have we seen that one before?) and just look at panel two.

Archie, so shocked by the fact that his friend has any heterosexual urges at all, has actually turned the entire world dark around him. It's like Japanese anime, I suppose. Not only that, he's turned his face into something completely horrific, what with the thick and short eyebrows, the Alvin, Simon, Theodoresque teeth, and waffle mark where his hair should be.

How did that happen, indeed, Archie.

In panel three, we find out that Ethel has a deformed leg that fortunately she can still walk on and, while she made a move to attract Jughead that few women would ever make, is completely oblivious to the fact that he's following her.

Maybe she just likes prime rib perfume for the sake of prime rib perfume. Did I ever think of that? Did I?

The Family Circus

2008-02-20T20:12:00.002-05:00

Awwww! Billy's learning how to be a conservative Christian! Explain away all your personal short-comings with bizarre interpretations of God and everyone else's by saying that their short-comings are a falling from God!

If only he knew that it was man's hands, acting in sin, that created the refrigerator light.

For Better or for Worse

2008-02-20T20:09:00.001-05:00

Thank you, Lynn Johnston, for convincing me never to have children.

Curtis

2008-02-19T17:23:00.000-05:00

They have! It's called Wellbutrin.

Judge Parker

2008-02-19T17:15:00.004-05:00

Who'd want to hurt me? Well, that's a good question. I'm thinking about this rough trick I picked up at a rest stop a decade ago - his name was Joe, I think, but I had to call him "sir." He opened up my mind, Mom, he opened up my mind.

I don't think you could say that he really wanted to hurt me, but there was an awful lot of pain involved. He left me after a few weeks when he said that I was all used up, he left me a confused and sad boy who had grown up a lot. He said that if he ever wanted to use me again, he'd send me the used jock strap he used for a gag and I'd have to wear it back to that same rest stop to meet him again.

I asked you to step into the living room so that I'd be spared from telling you that very story, but now look what I've done. So I guess we should open this thing up and see if there's a jock strap inside!

Shoe and Hi and Lois

2008-02-18T19:54:00.004-05:00

Aw, yeah! Two federal deficit jokes in the same day! The comics sure know how to reach out to today's youth!

It's interesting that they're both talking about the federal deficit, and yet no one else really is. I mean not in those terms. People are talking about the value of the dollar going down, the housing market collapsing, sluggish job growth, decreases in real wages, the increasing income gap, etc., but not really the federal deficit.

I'm beginning to think that "the federal deficit" is non-political political joke fodder in much the same way that "those politicians!" or "taxes are bad!" are. Either that, or these cartoonists need to pick up a paper.

I don't know what to think about the Shoe kid's test. There aren't any man (or woman!) made objects on Earth that can be seen from the moon. More inexplicable than that, the kid didn't just write "A big butt."

I worry about the youth of today, I truly do.

Mary Worth

2008-02-18T19:48:00.003-05:00

Yes, what about some sort of medical charity trip? Oh, this sounds like a great idea.

Jeff, do you know anything about this? Is there somewhere in the world he can go to put his medical talents to work for others in a way that's rewarding to him personally but that the women in his life might not understand? Something that's more fulfilling than sitting around an apartment nattering away about neighbors and Charterstone bylaws ever could be? Something that won't make him feel like he's whiling away his time sexlessly until his cold, lonely death? Jeff?

Marvin

2008-02-18T19:46:00.001-05:00

Well, she is a character on Marvin, so she "knows" bad writing. You'd think she could crank out a romance novel or two just with that.

Judge Parker

2008-02-18T19:43:00.001-05:00

Steve's dildos finally arrived!

To bonk or to bonng

2008-02-16T15:50:00.010-05:00

Crock and Archie:

I like that the idea that a million people would tune in to watch Archie get bonked in the head with a basketball made an appearance in this Archie, showing that the writer either:

assumes his/her loyal audience is a lot bigger than it actually is,
has heard that stupid things are popular on YouTube, but hasn't ever visited the site to see that these sorts of stupid things get far fewer than a million hits, or
forgot to give any number of background details that would support that number, like that Oprah was the person throwing the basketball or that the Dilton's already built up viewers at a channel devoted just to basketball-head-bonking.

Whatever the case, Dilton's shown amazing cunning in trying to drive Archie crazy... for no reason other than to toy with Archie's brain the way a cat toys with a mouse before destroying it.

Grossie, on the other hand, can't be shaken. I'd love hair spray too if it let me take a cannonball to the head.

Snuffy Smith:

Ha! It's funny because Snuffy's gone color-blind and doesn't know it yet. Next week, we'll see Dagwood Bumstead lose a leg and then tell us about how he's going skiing!

Marmaduke:

"Now let's get a shovel and fill in that hole, and we'll never have to suffer at the hands of that demon-dog again."

11/14 comics

2007-11-25T22:57:00.000-05:00

Far be it for me to proofread a comic (then again, I'm already queering them, translating them, and teaching them how to canoe), but as someone who's dabbled in the freelance copy editing in the past and who edits all sorts of writing for cool gay blog, I just can't over look that your/you're mistake in panel one. You'd be surprised what intelligent and creative writers make that mistake.

Of course, United Features Media should have someone on top of that. I'm guessing that Rose is Rose is so diabeticly sweet that s/he can't even stand to read the text to find errors in several dozen words, and neither can the writer.

I'll ignore the big ol' period after "find" as just an unfortunate blotch on the paper (post-Photoshop there's really no excuse, but, *sigh*), and focus instead on the recipe... what exactly is this Plugger reading? Polenta, orzo, tahini, and jicama? That sounds less "coastal, librul, big-city, Kerry-votin', gay-marryin', war-protestin' froo-froo food" and more "things mixed together like condiments at a junior high school cafeteria and then people are dared to eat." Gross.

"He's taking all the line"? "Keep the pressure on"? "Rod tip up"? "He's huge"?

This is intentional at this point, right? Or did RMMD writer Woody Wilson has been spending too much time on the Nifty. (Link NSFW)

11/13 comics

2007-11-25T22:11:00.001-05:00

I remember when I first came out to myself, as the kids are calling it these days, way back when puberty hit. Growing up in exurban/small town Indiana, I really didn't know what to do with it. I had a vague idea that I would wait until college before anything really happened in terms of sexuality. That's what I thought in junior high, and high school changed things around a little....

But it seems that Jeffy is having similar thought,s albeit at a younger age. Hang in there, Jeffy! There'll be great boys, I mean, toys to play with in college!

This Pluggers answers one of the biggest questions that I have about the Plugger-verse: Can anyone just send in whatever yo mama joke they've heard or insult they've received and get published?

The answer is an unequivocal "yes".

11/12 comics

2007-11-25T20:47:00.000-05:00

Oh, don't lie, Jeffy! Just tell Mom what you'll be able to say one day, that the way to a boy's heart is through his ass.

Judging by the Breton flag in panel one, the kids aren't in America anymore, they're in western France.

I don't really know what this fact does to explain the comment in panel three, other than maybe it's the result of a bad translation. Well, it's either that or it's just another one of Funky's "Gee, high school students sure are dumb!" jokes. In which case, carry on, Funky, carry on.

Ziggy isn't using a search engine; he's listening to Salt n' Pepa's Very Necessary album!

11/10 comic quickies

2007-11-25T17:03:00.000-05:00

I like comics with morals. Like this one's - don't let old people use the internet.

Soon I'll be treated to a plot that centers around this old lady searching for cans to recycle to pay off her "the Amazon site" debt. And it'll be funny. Oh, it'll be funny.

What's interesting here, besides the sexy, sexy animals all looking right at you (if they weren't sexy, how would you know that they're all female?), is that cat. She's a pussy with one thing on her mind....

So this is what straight sex looks like? Good to know.

Another Sunday, another anti-sodomy sermon.

From the How It Is Dep't: Dr. McRealPerson spends his whole day away from the unwashed masses.... Can't be too clean, I always say...

But sometimes he has to interact with janitors in his building... Oh yeah-h-h-h-h! Hallo, Doc... How you are? Put it dere..

*Urge to repeal the estate tax

11/9 comics

2007-11-25T16:33:00.000-05:00

One of the main ~~reasons~~ excuses for not posting for a couple of weeks has been that I can't think of a good snark for this comic. (I know, lame excuse, isn't it?) I mean, there's obviously a queer subtext here, and it's BB, but I'm thinking I'm just out of jokes about BB. Beetle and Sarge are in a closeted relationship. It's not really that much fun to point it out anymore because it's just so obvious to anyone who reads it.

Maybe there's an anal sex joke here, something about Beetle needing a "time out" and the reason he's running away in panel two....

Haha, Archie's creators don't have any idea how hybrid cars work.

That's the joke, right?

Mary's look askance in panel three says it all: Er, yeah, all creature are deserving of compassion. What sort of hippie world is this doctor living in that would deny me my right to run over whatever's in my way?

Is Mary at all worried that this dog is probably someone else's? Wait, don't tell me, since you all are way ahead in Mary Worth reading - the real owner wants his or her dog back, and Mary's not willing to part.

Wednesday comics

2007-11-07T08:19:00.000-05:00

"The Amazon site"? That's another one of those phrases that no one in real life would ever say and yet somehow made it into the comics. Saying "amazon dot com" is what people actually say, the way the site is advertised, and the way people who use webpages for purchases actually refer to those webpages.

I'm going to venture a guess here and say that Amazon just didn't want any Crankshaft readers on their site. I'd say bad things about those people, but that demographic includes me.

Otherwise, Ruff, I'd have to kill you.

One day you'll learn, Jeffy, that pretty bois don't have to be smart.