By bats | January 28, 2009 - 4:59 pm

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.):

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By bats | January 23, 2009 - 12:32 am
Posted in Category: Trust Me, I'm a Doctor

And it’s all-inclusive, too!

And how annoying it this?  After June and Rex’s sexy bantering in the Saturday strip, the glorious, multi-paneled Sunday edition is completely monopolized by June and Sarah talking about that #*&#$& stowaway donut-scarfer AGAIN!

I refuse to sit idly by when the opportunity for unspeakable filth is at hand!

You’re welcome.

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By bats | January 20, 2009 - 5:33 pm
Posted in Category: Most maryWorthy

It looks like the die has been cast. The fat lady is warming up. The Zamboni is idling.  Yes, the long program is finally here in the Mary Worth ice-skating extravaganza…a mere four minutes on the ice, and we’ll know if Lynn Griffin and her pony-tail are the champions her trophy-driven father envisions, or just another wannabe whose childhood and adolescence has been squandered for little more than a constant set of chilblains.

What the hell are chilblains, anyway?

I like figure-skating.  I like it even better when skaters use out-of-the-ordinary music (Michelle Kwan using Loreena McKenitt’s Dante’s Prayer; that cute Paul guy using Patrick Doyle’s Henry V soundtrack). There’s a lot of music out there.

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By bats | January 19, 2009 - 10:33 pm
Posted in Category: Cameo Appearances, Markin' the Trail

I guess it stands to reason that a dim-witted, lonely housewife in Lost Forest who befriends an orphan fawn and raises him to adulthood might not be particularly creative when it comes to naming it.

Still, it confuses matters a little…

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By bats | - 10:30 pm
Posted in Category: Three-Ring Freakshow

A minimal drawing, a non-existent punchline (“Is today peaceful or just boring?”  No, I am not making this up.) … and we’re supposed to sit here and applaud the genius that is the Keanes?!

Not bloody likely…

Occasionally, another panel will make up for previous missteps.  And in spite of the wee ones’ malapropisms and impish behavior, Mommy, at least, steps in to dole out justice as needed.  She warned you, Billy, fair and square.

[Not only is there such a thing as a Hello, Kitty rectal thermometer, there is also a fer real ‘n’ true Spongebob Squarepants rectal thermometer.  Not that either of those ameliorates the true purpose of the instrument…]

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By bats | January 18, 2009 - 6:31 pm
Posted in Category: Trust Me, I'm a Doctor

Yeah, it’s Day 68 or so of the three-day Caribbean cruise.  The stowaway child is still missing, the Dunsmores are still drunk, but supposedly dinner has been served.  I’ll believe that when I see it.

In the meantime, Rex gets to humor Sarah.

Oh, and speaking of humoring someone, I’d like to think that other cartoonists are getting tired of Brooke McEldowney’s “hand-jive,” too.

Sadly, the original coloration of Rex’s hand (he was outside in the moonlight) looks somewhat zombie-like…

But wait!  We’re not finished with deck-side intrigue.  While the delectable dinner that Second Office Guido Tomas slaved over grows cold (or is ravaged by the Dunsmores), Rex and Sarah have a little father-daughter heart-to-heart…

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By bats | - 6:21 pm
Posted in Category: Cameo Appearances, Markin' the Trail

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Mark-Trail-on-Sunday piece, and another comic jogged me in that direction.  Of course, as I was working on this one, I realized that I’ve already done a Mark-Trail-on-Sunday Squirrels piece.

Oh, well.  I’d rather see squirrels on ice than Meddlers on Ice (I’m looking at you, Mary Worth).

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By bats | - 5:02 pm

I can’t believe it – I’m still going through Kleenex and coughing (although the coughing is usually at night, and when I do it during the day, I don’t notice it, even though it appears to freak out everyone around me. Good. Makes up for all the moms who drag their snotty-nosed, mucous-thick coughing kids around with them.)

Anyway, I define “bed-rest” as “sitting in front of the computer and mashing comics.”  And at least I can provide some public service by trying to interpret the newest story-line in The Phantom, with its mysterious appearance of creatures that are know to the locals as “Croccos.”  Croccos?!

(The photo of the stack of Crocs was taken by a tourist in Parma, Italy. It just makes me happy, all jolly and bright and sunny!)

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By bats | January 13, 2009 - 2:04 pm
Posted in Category: Trust Me, I'm a Doctor

Maybe, Homer.  But for now, the humble donut is at least as interesting as Arthur Dunsmore.

And continuing Rex’s strange disengagement from the various topics of conversation at his own dinner table, I’m just chalking it up to (1) booze, or (2) just being the usual clueless Rex.

Another day, and wouldn’t you know it?  The Cruise from Hell, or whatever you want to call it, it rapidly devolving into a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial…

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By bats | - 1:59 pm

…Happiness is so many different things to so many different people.

It can be a warm puppy, or a rainbow, or a ray of bright sunshine.  For Apartment 3-G‘s young (*coff*) career woman Margo Magee, it’s snooping through her fiance Eric’s apartment, finding a mysterious red blue box from Tiffany’s in his closet, stealing his answering machine, and then forgetting the Tiffany box! With her vociferous complaints about her “naked, ringless fingers,” maybe Eric proposed months ago, and she merely forgot.

Ah, but let’s be generous and note that eventually Margo does remember the Important Things in Life.  Which is what Charlie Shulz and the whole Peanuts gang focused on for many happy years.

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