Snark It Up, FuzzBall!

Patterfoob Kid #2 is vexing but has some interesting escapades. Okay, “escapades” suggests something vital and intriguing, but compared to Patterfoob Kid #1, Liz is simultaneously climbing Everest and finding a cure for cancer.

Patterfoob Kid #1, Michael, is beyond redemption. He’s boring. That’s death to both writers and authors, so we can only hope for the icy hand of the Grim Reaper to clap onto his shoulder.

THUD

Please don’t tell me that’s the Grim Reaper.

Anyway, as Michael prattles on an on about his favorite subject (i.e., Michael!), jolly old, laid-back Weed has an epiphany. Not that anyone would ever tell a Patterfoob to shut up…

Just when Gloria and Steve pack off a thwarted terrorist and settle down to a well-deserved dinner and after-dinner making out, “The Man” appears on the doorstep of Sam and Abbey’s place! Hey! Shouldn’t you be chasing terrorists, too, instead of interrupting folks’ dinners of nice chicken?

…when there’s not enough Count Morgu. Or Andy Reed. Or one of the single solitary (albeit peripheral), interesting characters goes missing. Still, one has to forge through the deserted wasteland that is a high school closed due to a MRSA breakout…

The current Mary Worth story has lost me completely. I don’t think it even has to do with those walls decorated in orange (evidently the funeral home last remodeled in the 1970s; I’ll bet the embalming room is done in avocado green). It’s those dang Amalfi Bros.! Who’s Richard? Who’s Ron? Who cares? I really tried to figure out which one was which and failed miserably.

Move along, Mary, move along. Nothing to meddle with here.

…we get a strip of Liz recalling her ex-loves. Who really weren’t. Because they weren’t. Really. No, not at all. Because, you know, Asshathony is her only true love. Really. And she doesn’t even have to say something saccharine like “I love you” to him. He just knows. Like osmosis. Or something. They’re that much in synch. Oh, I left some cookies by the sink. I better put them away. Or I could just eat them and buy more. Yeah, that’s a good idea.

Anyway, a couple of anti-strips that would most likely make Liz dissolve into a puddle of distressed, denying tears (Good.):

Honestly, the “cows” in the original Beetle Bailey strip (16 May) look like short-legged giraffes…short-legged, Asian giraffes. (The ones in panel 1, those in the distance, are far more convincing as cows than those in panel 2…no kidding.)

Fine.

You might not be a real artist like Jack Elrod, but this was just damned lazy, and I’m guessing pere et fils knocked off early for a round of golf after a “job well done.”

So Warren’s hittin’ the road (or the sky), while Liz is content to spend the rest of her life in Milborough. Yay. Whatever.

Look, Mary, this was a thin story-line to start with, and I was doing pretty well ignoring the snark of it. But dang, there you are at Donna’s funeral, and you can see the old lady in her casket! How freakin’ creepy is THAT?

The rest is just icing on the cake that was served at the luncheon after the memorial service…

I read Sally Forth on Sunday, because that’s the only day we get the paper delivered. I’ll occasionally look it up when there’s some good commentary about a particular day at Comics Curmudgeon, or when Josh (the Comics Curmudgeon himself) posts it. Even so, I’ll just gloss it.

But, no… Josh had to make comments about Ted and co-employee wearing black vests, and Ted pretending that he’s making the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs in his mini-van. Yeah, so I gave into the Snark Side. Sue me.

Well, Ted does have that certain Corellian “look,” the rather poofy hair from the 70s (or a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away). He still has girlier hands than most women I know, though.

Okay, maybe I wouldn’t be too keen on going to the Middle East these days, but weighing this against a long, long life in the ‘burbs with a pasty-faced, pasty-assed fiance’, a meddlin’ mother, etc., Liz’s decision-meter is well and truly screwed up.

Then again, there’s always the last-ditch effort…