Qomics for Queers is still holding out hope for Ted Forth

That's going to be how I introduce myself in every room I enter from now on. "NO, I THINK I HAVE THE RIGHT ROOM-HI, MOM... ....PROFESSOR WILKINS!" Or maybe: "NO, I THINK I HAVE THE RIGHT ROOM-HI, TOILET... ... TOILET PAPER ROLL!"

Wednesday's Sally Forth:

Well, it's no secret that I have a little thing for Ted Forth. When it comes to middle-aged men, they don't get much hotter than Ted. He's sensitive to irony yet remains above the fray with his pro-value innocence. And considering how I often feel trapped between market-driven apathy and cynicism parading as reform, value-positivity can look pretty hot. Enter Ted Forth.

Hillary's little comment here provides some hope, even though it's supposed to be a from-the-mouth-of-babes jab at Ted's masculinity, gives me a little hope, hope that we'll see a "Hillary has two daddies" story line a few years from now.


And Tuesday's Dennis the Menace:

I love the expression on Hank's face. It's just saying: "Don't out me in front of the cop, Dennis. Our people don't have a good history with the po-po."

Or maybe that's just my imagination.


Thursday's Mark Trail:

Oh, man, I was right! Not only are they fighting, they're carrying on a conversation while doing so! Not like Dick Tracy, which stops the speech bubbles during a fight scene, Mark Trail doesn't skip a beat.

But Dan raises a good question: HOW did Mark find out so fast? The eyehook under the boat really didn't say much besides, you know, there's an eyehook under a boat, not insurance fraud, although Mark's crazy assumptions turned out to be correct. Yes, a very convenient narrative turn....

Now what sort of "deal" does the EMBARRASSED Dan have in mind? I've read a few Nifty stories that started this way....


And your Family Circus Leslie Feinberg rewrite:

Family Circus rewrite, possible

No, no, no, no. OK, little Miss Malapropism can now use the word "imitate" correctly? "Our car's engine" instead of what a kid might actually say, like "the car"? And all this mucky verbiage in a long-winded setup just to get to a punny malapropism, a class of jokes that depends on conciseness and innocence? And why does Dolly look so damn happy about this whole thing?

D+, Jeff Keane. You can do better.

I'm thinking that a good Feinberg quotation will work well here.

Qomics for Queers, established well before the Industrial Revolution and its bourgeois construction of gender

What a week's it's been! I'm beginning to feel a lot like Luann Powers, more and more work, less and less time, and the ghost of a tonalist artist floating around me forcing me to paint.

Well, all except for that last one.


Let's start with this Friday's Snuffy Smith:

I can't get over just how sad Jughaid looks in panel two. This is a break from Snuffy Smith convention, specifically the one where all the characters have to laugh in the final panel. Here are a few examples:





I, of course, think that this is just jealousy. Those are some pretty schnazzy shoes!

Especially considering Tuesday's:

Consider that frilly pink apron. Something tells me that Maw didn't make Jughaid put it on. I mean, why would she when he's just peeling potatoes? That's a whole lot cleaner than all of the other shenanigans Jughaid gets into. I'm sure he put it on because he likes it, and I say more power to him. Seriously.

But what gets me is the fact that Jughaid puts himself in Beetle's position in his fantasy. Coincidence or shout-out to the funny page's gayest couple? You decide.


Tuesday's Family Circus:

Left to his own devices, Jeffy's turned into a rage-filled zombie out to kill Thelma!

The next line was Jeffy's response, which I'm sure was something along the lines of "No, I won't hit anything with it, Daddy. There isn't a thing in this house that I want to hit."


This Saturday's Rex Morgan, M.D.:

"That will buy us the time we need! Rex is dumb as a brick and can't handle that whole press harder on the gas to go faster thing, so he drives at 10 miles an hour everywhere he goes! He'll probably get lost, too, on the way to his own home! Ingenious plan putting your husband's stupidity to work for us, June's talking breast!"

Well, the other way to interpret the final panel is that everyone assumes Hugh and Rex will find another way to pass the time on the way back from the airport....


We continue in the Tyler Jay drama from last week with this Thursday's Gil Thorp:

Here we see Tyler Jay at the only three angles that Frank McLaughlin can draw: the Zordon floating head in panel one, suave Superman close-up in panel two, and 11-year-old neighbor boy in panel three.

Tyler says he's cured, but enquiring minds need to know: from what??? Last week he came out, so to speak, and now he's been thrown into therapy. He pronounces himself instantly cured and repeats it over and over for community approval. Now he needs to play some sports and continue visiting a therapist to cure him of a "problem" that the week before he was proud of.

That's right, folks, Tyler Jay is being allegorically ex-gayed. The parallels are astounding.

Or, this whole strip might be working on a metaphysical plane way above my head. "You've barely started, Tyler Jay, transcending space-time to become one with the baseball. You bashed open your head, and now you must drink this tea to begin your spirit-journey."

Hold up, what is Tyler doing at coach Thorp's house?


And your Family Circus Audre Lorde rewrite:

Family Circus rewrite, probable

I'm not going to pass up this opportunity! I'm thinking Elizabeth Stuart. Maybe Audre Lorde.

Qomics for Queers will never let go of the dream

First, Tuesday's Beetle Bailey:


Beetle continues his conversation with Chaplain Staneglass from last week. Apparently, he's rather antsy to get out.

And who can really say that they don't feel for him? Passing this way, when it's the closet we're talking about, but once is enough. And Beetle's over-joyed in panel two, The view zooms out to include random other characters floating around in the white abyss that is Camp Swampy, and we see that he gets the attention of General Halftrack, but Sarge's expression of ennui shows how common this really is. Yeah, he thinks, like Beetle's excited to "pass here only once". If he really were, we'd already have that little apartment in the Castro like he always talks about, far away from here. But I'm not holding my breath.

But check out this Sunday's middle three panels:


No, Beetle, that's not how he dreams of seeing you....

But seriously, that same dead-inside expression from Sarge. I may still be dreaming of the big Beetle Bailey coming out special, but I think Sarge is giving up on the dream. Hang in there, big guy!


And your Family Circus Robert Goss re-write:

Qomics for Queers - The Office Closet Case

While it's easy for the rest of us (or maybe just me) to judge the comics as not quite queer enough, when you think about them as being stuck in a time-warp, you realise you have to look a little closer at the closet cases involved in order to pick them out. Television might have its L-Word's and Will and Grace's and lesbian sisters of Jamie on Mad About You, and the silver screen can have its fancy pants Jack and Ennis and Kissing Jessica Stein, but the comics are just fine without all the bells and whistles. No, they don't need your pity; all they want is your respect and your time as you kids look more deeply into them for their queer folk. Yeah, it might not be as easy as calling someone on your cell phone or whatever it is the kids are doing these days, but if you read between the lines, reinterpret the artwork, and just make things up, you can find the representation you're looking for.


First, check out this Friday's They'll Do It Every Time:


Don't let the fashion fool you; this is supposed to be now. This single panel is about a guy who calls the women in his office "sweetheart" and "m'love". And he's somehow singing at the same time. Now there's really only one sort of guy who can get smiles for that sort of behavior - the office "glad" (maybe Scaduto means that he's just happy?).

I just reread Richard Isay's Becoming Gay, and I must say that even though it was written in 1991, there is a cultural difference between the gays of his time and mine, so much so that I can't wrap my mind around a statement like this: "[I] was concerned about the effect coming out would have on my marriage" (37). The clothes tell me that Buttbrain here might be a part of that generation.

So TDIET, like an anachronistic Seinfeld, is supposed to poke fun at different types. This type, with whom those two guys in the Bronx are so familiar, is a great guy deep down inside. Buttbrain is that type of person who has just come out to himself, later in life, and has come out to some of his women friends far from home and has become a sort of desexualized confidant and office mascot because of it. But being partly in the closet, especially to one's close family, is only going to help build his self-esteem about this one part of his identity and create resentment towards compulsory heterosexuality, which ultimately will be transfered on the most visible representative of The Opposite Sex in his life - Helgar. I've seen this misdirected anger a lot among partly out queer people; in fact it seems that's the fuel of the Catholic hierarchy.

So what's Buttbrain to do? Well, he has to take that final step. No, it won't help his relationship with Helgar, but maybe he can become a better role model for his son who can't stop wearing the same blue-vest-striped-shirt outfit.


This Friday's Blondie:


Aversion therapy for heterosexuals.


And your Judith Butler rewrite of The Family Circus: