Last Monday's Lesser Comics
On Monday, Fred Basset addressed a concern I've long had.
Yeah, yeah, yeah; yes, Alf and Nettie are good people. I get it. And I understand the need for proper decorum when spontaneously encountering people like Alf and Nettie in strange environments--I, and everyone else, I'm pretty sure, hardly endorse the barbaric alternative of chucking dimes and Jolly Ranchers at them in fear.
But man, you say as much as "Hello," and all of a sudden you get drawn into an long conversation about the riots in Paris, or just how gorgeous the twinkly lights on the Eiffel Tower are, or how their French friends are all comatose and likely to die within the week. I hate that. Frankly, I just want to eat a lot of food, and I don't want the path to said food obstructed by a thick web of conversation. Or thick web of pointy high voltage wire bent into scary face-shapes.
Monday's Cathy:
Astute observations about modern life: One, that on purchase of a new television, the other televisions in the house totally get all moved-ass around, and Two, that nobody says they ever actually watch television, because to do so is clearly to attach yourself to the stigma said medium incurs from ugly peers. The implication of these two things, connected by the headings "Private Persona" and "Public Persona," is of course that the drug-addled, androgynous, ophthalmia-suffering Norm McDonald is a massive hypocrite who wastes time in either the office or grocery store (are those oranges?) listening to assorted eighth and sixteenth notes and drinking all sorts of boozes.
Cathy, you once spoonfed us sympathy towards the plight of the sweaty, globby-eyed single women we ecountered daily. We were better for it. But now, you bewilder our children with screaming, pink-eyed wash-ups with large thumbs. In the words of so many charming myspace girls, wtf?
Here's a fun game with Garfield: remember that Jon Arbuckle cannot really communicate with his cat, and pretend Garfield's thought balloons aren't even drawn in. Observe the lonely, tragic existence of Mr. Arbuckle, and enjoy the vast expanses of lavender-tinted silence punctuated with shit like buttered toast being inexplicably flung at the man and such.
I couldn't find last Monday's Family Circus, so here's a random one from one of the many non-Mondays of this month:
Frankly, the temperature of the hot dog is the least of this child's worries. The meat is Spock-casket black, and is being served either between sticks of butter* or cleaning sponges. Note Jeffy's pallid hue. Something sinister has brought fear into the heart of the boy, or if not fear, then certainly enough jagged chucks of black enamel to screw with a ventricle or something.
Of course, if we're to look beyond the apparent Rockwell simplicity, we can read his expression as a resigned cognizance of the fact that his mother has gone crazy with the food/non-food substitutions. And hey, with forty-odd years of a Mento shaped head, I'm pretty sure anybody would find themselves in a similar state. Jeffy totally knows this, and sees in his mother his own inexorable squashy-faced fate. Sure, his dad's phenotype may provide some source of psychological relief, but the child maintains control of himself largely through his prescribed role as a purveyor of nostalgic, youthful innocence. By going through the day-to-day motions of Keane's abstract notion of childhood, he feels as though he can retain his state forever, keeping time's relentless butchering of his telomeres at bay.
It's not all dashed lines and pupilless angels, y'know.
*Reminds me suspiciously of the "Bacon Churner with Fauxtatoes" (halfway down that page) that Rob Cockerham added to the TGI Fridays menu. I'm guessing some form of cahoots is a-happenin'.
Yeah, yeah, yeah; yes, Alf and Nettie are good people. I get it. And I understand the need for proper decorum when spontaneously encountering people like Alf and Nettie in strange environments--I, and everyone else, I'm pretty sure, hardly endorse the barbaric alternative of chucking dimes and Jolly Ranchers at them in fear.
But man, you say as much as "Hello," and all of a sudden you get drawn into an long conversation about the riots in Paris, or just how gorgeous the twinkly lights on the Eiffel Tower are, or how their French friends are all comatose and likely to die within the week. I hate that. Frankly, I just want to eat a lot of food, and I don't want the path to said food obstructed by a thick web of conversation. Or thick web of pointy high voltage wire bent into scary face-shapes.
Monday's Cathy:
Astute observations about modern life: One, that on purchase of a new television, the other televisions in the house totally get all moved-ass around, and Two, that nobody says they ever actually watch television, because to do so is clearly to attach yourself to the stigma said medium incurs from ugly peers. The implication of these two things, connected by the headings "Private Persona" and "Public Persona," is of course that the drug-addled, androgynous, ophthalmia-suffering Norm McDonald is a massive hypocrite who wastes time in either the office or grocery store (are those oranges?) listening to assorted eighth and sixteenth notes and drinking all sorts of boozes.
Cathy, you once spoonfed us sympathy towards the plight of the sweaty, globby-eyed single women we ecountered daily. We were better for it. But now, you bewilder our children with screaming, pink-eyed wash-ups with large thumbs. In the words of so many charming myspace girls, wtf?
Here's a fun game with Garfield: remember that Jon Arbuckle cannot really communicate with his cat, and pretend Garfield's thought balloons aren't even drawn in. Observe the lonely, tragic existence of Mr. Arbuckle, and enjoy the vast expanses of lavender-tinted silence punctuated with shit like buttered toast being inexplicably flung at the man and such.
I couldn't find last Monday's Family Circus, so here's a random one from one of the many non-Mondays of this month:
Frankly, the temperature of the hot dog is the least of this child's worries. The meat is Spock-casket black, and is being served either between sticks of butter* or cleaning sponges. Note Jeffy's pallid hue. Something sinister has brought fear into the heart of the boy, or if not fear, then certainly enough jagged chucks of black enamel to screw with a ventricle or something.
Of course, if we're to look beyond the apparent Rockwell simplicity, we can read his expression as a resigned cognizance of the fact that his mother has gone crazy with the food/non-food substitutions. And hey, with forty-odd years of a Mento shaped head, I'm pretty sure anybody would find themselves in a similar state. Jeffy totally knows this, and sees in his mother his own inexorable squashy-faced fate. Sure, his dad's phenotype may provide some source of psychological relief, but the child maintains control of himself largely through his prescribed role as a purveyor of nostalgic, youthful innocence. By going through the day-to-day motions of Keane's abstract notion of childhood, he feels as though he can retain his state forever, keeping time's relentless butchering of his telomeres at bay.
It's not all dashed lines and pupilless angels, y'know.
*Reminds me suspiciously of the "Bacon Churner with Fauxtatoes" (halfway down that page) that Rob Cockerham added to the TGI Fridays menu. I'm guessing some form of cahoots is a-happenin'.
