…I’m getting to the point that I think any story would be improved by the presence of a vampire.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Thank you, and good night.

I think it’s a little weird that The Phantom has two unique plots going at a time, one that occurs on the weekdays (and Saturday), and the other than occurs only in the Sunday strips.  I know the reason behind it, but more often than not, I find myself reading two sub-par storylines.

Anyway, as Chatu the Python is returned to prison during the week, the Phantom takes a street kid under his wing, which means letting his own children beat the crap out of him and generally make fun of him. (This is known as “Jungle Justice.”)

Maybe I’d be more impressed with all of this if Kit’s kids, a boy and a girl, didn’t look like they’d been working out and ‘roiding up for weight-lifting competitions since they were five years old.  And I know I’d be REALLY more impressed if they wore something that didn’t look like it came from the Walgreens’ incontinence aisle.  Apparently, I’m not the only one…

Ah…maybe not.

It seems that Dixie Julep, stripper and murderess, has joined the Choir Invisible.  Not surprising, in the land of Sheriff Joe Arpaio — after all, she was armed with a knife vs. the entire metropolitan SWAT team of Scottsdale, with Mesa and Phoenix and Glendale and Tempe, and the 20 other Valley of the Sun communities likely thrown in.

Dang.

I’d like to think that there was an alternative…

Oh, Creator Lords of Rex Morgan, M.D., we are not worthy of your bounty of sights and sounds!

We will, nonetheless, run with it! Run like the wind!

(Are Nolan and Wilson on to the snark? The Dunsmores…and Guido…and the whole S.S. Surly/Loathe Boat/Rex Morgan, Cabin Boy plot are just too good.)

Brooke McE.’s “hands” are an interested analogy, but in all honesty, I think the too-often repeated use is coming close to being parody, rather than having a touching sweetness.

And a hearty “Yo Ho!” for Nolan and Wilson for reintroducing yet another component of this Wackiest Cruise-Ship in the Fleet storyline:

I can’t even begin to condense the current storyline in 9 Chickweed Lane, other than Amos has to perform AGAIN for the big-shot who-the-hell-cares cello competition in Belgium, and it was tooth-pulling and eye-gouging enough the first time around.

As for the shenanigans in Judge Parker, pole dancer cum murderer Dixie has escaped from an entire SWAT team AND a rattlesnake.  If she weren’t batshit crazy, she’d probably be fun to hang around with.  I suspect she’ll come to no good end, but you know that redemption thing…

The conversation between Mary Worth and Lynn the Promising Figure-Skater has ended!

On deck for the next three weeks:  the conversation between Mary Worth and Frank the Pushy Stage-Father!

Be still my heart. Well, that won’t be too hard…

Aside from the stow-away, the melancholic ship librarian, and Second Officer Guido Tomas (oh, and a couple of surly stewards), doesn’t it seem that the Morgans’ cruise ship is missing something — like passengers?

Finally, we get to meet a couple of them, the delightful Arthur and Agnes Dunsmore! Of course, cruises like this are always filled with colorful folks.  You could spend weeks and months and years on the ship and never meet everyone, although some faces eventually get a familiar look to them.

Weird things continue to happen on Rex and June’s cruise: their cabin is the size of a presidential stateroom; Ginger Brittany is a dog!; Second Offier Guido Tomas changes the color of his skin at will; and whether anything is being accomplished between the ship’s crew and its staff is anyone’s guess.

Oh, by his own admission, Guido is the best cook in the fleet. Yeah, right. I mean, I think I’d stick with the peanut butter-and-cracker packets from the vending machine if that were my only option…

And more fun with Second Officer Guido and his “galley adventures”…

God bless us, everyone! (Even vampires!)

I don’t know why I follow Funky Winkerbean at all, or at least after Lisa’ death/the ten-year “jump.”  I never cared much for the strip, and the ‘old’ characters seem to be at least 20 years older now and singularly unattractive.  In some cases, like Funky himself, he may as well have been hit by a bus, as there is no resemblance between his younger self and his bloated protocorpse.

What really chaps my hide is that Lisa is still apparently alive to both Les and Batuik.  There’s no attempt to show in the strip that while Les can remember his dead wife and even imagine conversations with her via his memories of her, that she’s not alive anymore!  She appears as solidly drawn as any of the other characters in the strip!

Oh, yeah, and Les’ interest in his teen-age daughter is extreme to the edge of incestuous creepiness.  Evidently, a decade of therapy hasn’t done him any good.  Hint, Les:  Funkytown can’t be that small — find another freakin’ therapist!  Get laid! Even if you have to pay for it!  You’re such a sad sack, that you’d probably qualify for a sympathy screw.

In Sunday’s strip, he and Summer (and Lisa) go shopping for a dress for Summer to wear at some school party.  I thought it might be improved by allowing Lisa to opt out of the mad crush at the mall and have Chat Bleu be Les’ Handi-cat.