Snark It Up, FuzzBall!

The city that never sleeps!  The city with a million stories!

Most of them boring.

Somewhere in an apartment on the upper south side (maybe), Ruby, hairdresser, wedding planner and faded Southern belle, “keeps company” with her mystery man “Lyle”.  As that isn’t a particularly popular men’s name, the speculation mounts:

Meanwhile,  Music and Culture abound throughout the city.  Then the hoi polloi shows up.  Unfortunately it’s not the fun and funny Marx Brothers sort of hoi polloi:

…like happiness, different things to different people.

Reasons why Mary, Edda’s old high school friend, really didn’t make a huge effort to keep in contact:

Yup:

Draw your own conclusions.  I did.

I’ve appropriated Dean Booth’s (what? you’ve never been to Dean’s website! fie! go over there now! I mean it!)  “Deathcat Friday” theme.   Just because it’s too good to pass up.

Well, the gang at 9 Chickweed Lane has been skinny-dipping, pontificating, talking to God, God talking back and God considering changing all future members of the human race into sapient cockroaches, starting with Mr. and Mrs. Expriest’s baby.  Neither of them were keen on this idea, and there was a lot more exposition on the topic (“something something Death Star something“), that went on for way too long.

It appears that this turgid storyline will be wrapping up this month week, and it seems that it will have a happy ending.

[There really are occasional gems in this strip, but like real gems, there’s generally a mountain of dross and tailings to sift through before being rewarded.]

Who is the woman in the photograph?

Most important question:
Who cares?

Speculation on the identity: Hilary Hahn (the musician who inadvertantly instigated Edda’s jealous rage against Amos); Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the West); Ingrid Bergman (from a reference to Casablanca several millennia years weeks ago).

True Fable over at CC did a marvelous rant of Brooke McE.’s continuing, cutesy, boring fixation on young lust, with double entendres which are evidently supposed to rival Noel Coward and/or Cole Porter.

Uh-uh.

Edda and Amos might be gosh-darn genius kids, graduating high school early, attending Julliard, traveling to Belgium to compete in world championship cello play-offs.  But you know, you can be too droll, too waggish, too obtuse, too lifetime-subscription-to-The-New-Yorker.  Sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade, and a phallus a…

…well, whatever.

[I have to admit that I was seriously tickled and touched by CC Rusty’s comment about it “I would read this strip every day”.  Awwww, shucks…that is so sweet! Thanks, Rusty!]

Finally! Sarah is tucked into bed, and it’s time for a little kanoodling, Rex Morgan style…

There’s been lots of pirate action, or at least pirate talk, on the comics page.  Pirates always seem to be an issue for The Phantom, and even Rex wonders, given the disastrous bend to the cruise, if a pirate ship isn’t just over the horizon.

Heck, even in 9 Chickweed Lane, Seth and Mark discuss piratical behavior (check out the 27 January 2009 panel…it’s great!).  Of course, knowing me, some of that has to ooze over to other characters, other plots:

And in spite of everything, the talk continues to center on Sarah’s little stowaway friend.  Personally, I’m bored with the Donut Kid, just as the Morgans seem with their own flesh-and-blood (Yes. I know that Rex looks really, really odd in the second panel. I didn’t mess with him at all, I swear!  He does look pretty hunky in the last panel, you have to admit.):

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…

…yes, more than a month of break-ups, hurt feelings, blame-spreading (nicely done, Edda — good to know if your knees break down, you can always make a career out of self-pity), and just about all of it boring.

Other than missing Solange and Mark (yeah, Seth, too), if a certain Creator’s heart isn’t in it, maybe he should just concentrate on one strip, and give us a five-days-a-week Pibgorn.