To bonk or to bonng

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:

1. assumes his/her loyal audience is a lot bigger than it actually is,
2. 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
3. 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."

Qomics for Everybody but Me Edition

Even though there are occasionally actual queer references in the comics, I still feel like there's a comic for everyone out there in the world but me! Here are a few examples of all the cool groups of people for whom there are comics:


There are comics for anarchists:



Comics for people who haven't heard of primary elections:



Comics for the obsessive-compulsive:



Comics for people who find Peter Parker sexy:



Comics for 5-year-olds (haha, poop is funny!):



Comics for PETA propagandists:



Comics for demon-possessed dog owners:



Comics for people who have followed Blondie long enough to notice every detail of Dagwood's outfit:



Comics for people who enjoy road-head:



And, finally, comics for horrid human/beast mutants who were never meant to be:


***

OK, and I have two others. First, Rex Morgan, M.D.:

Yeah, why didn't he? I mean, she's a woman, answering the door and showing her face to who knows what men, and he's off thinking that his new bride is safe in the cabin. Doesn't she know her place?

But all this talk of newlyweds spending an entire week alone in a cabin has one thing on Niki's mind, as he looks right at it in panel three. Sit tight, there, Niki! Soon Rex'll get you to that cabin!


And BC:

OK, here we have a dating service with a woman behind a desk in its proper context: 20,000 years in the past. No, wait, I mean 5-6000! Sorry, BC, I forgot that the world is no more than 6000-years-old!

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:

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!

Snuffy Smith

I always like how most final panels in Snuffy Smith involve all of the characters laughing at their own joke. I really think that's pretty cool. But the reason that I put this up here is 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.