hi friends,
potsmokinalien here with a fresh perspective on the comics of the SF bay area, that perspective being the ramblings of someone who does not live anywhere near SF. i will be stopping by occasionally to provide thoughts on the ha-ha's and hmms that comprise our reaction to the daily comics.
speaking of which-- lately i find, probably as a result of my pseudo-obsessive love for FBFW, that moreso than laughing, the "hmm" reaction really has been what i've been getting down with in the 'mix--not the brow wrinkling "Hrmm...." of discomfort and annoyance that, say, LIO might instill in the reader, but the "Hmh." you might say to yourself when you are walking down the street hung over on a weekend morning and (not that this happened to me recently or anything) you see a high school kid in a football uniform crossing himself before he walks onto the field down the block. A feeling that you have been let into a private moment in somebody else's life. does anyone actually prefer it when FBFW's punchline is an actual joke? usually it is kind of corny: some kind of play on words, or as in today's strip, the usage of less-than-20-year-old slang. to me, the best kind of FBFW punchline is either a heartwarming life lesson or a poignantly expressed emotion--Liz's reactions to Anthony's "taken" status for the wedding; Jim's recent, controversially interesting musings on his struggle with old age; everyone's conflicted emotions and excitement on the real estate upheaval of last month.
while johnston is unquestionably Queen of the Hmm, it's nice to see the other masters of the form getting the hang of it. conley's an old hand by now, and i feel like the guy who does pearls before swine is learning, which just goes to show you it can hide in the last place you'll expect, and be absent from where you'd assume. i think that might be what bugs me about sally forth, as a matter of fact. it has this reputation for being this polite, pleasant comic but really, how can it truly be when there is never any hmm whatsoever, no emotional heft or consequence to anything that happens in that strip at all? maybe the reason sally is always smirking is because her life is better than the reader's. when she dies, all she will do is make some wry comment about how she hopes they wash the linens in heaven twice a day or something, and then when she gets to heaven god will be ted and she'll be like "ted! i didn't know you were god!" and he'll go "Come on... a footrub every night before bed? It should have been obvious!"
anyway, believe it or not the original thing i was trying to do here is, i'm starting a grandpa jim patterson death watch. i'm giving him 2 months. today's strip is making me wonder if iris has got it in her to stick it out with him even that long. stay strong, lady! this man ran for miles, with a gunny sack and a rifle on his back, for your freedom.
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7 comments:
Stoked to have some one reppin' for the sophisticated/uptight East Coast here at RD&Cw/T. I for one was convinced that grampa was a goner from the start of the stroke storyline, I'm surprised that he hung on this long! However, Johnston is really saying more about modern medicine and speaking (er, drawing) the truth about old age in our times this way. I'm sorry that my jaded outlook was so harsh, you'd think, coming from the yay area and all, that I'd be a little more mellow.
i do find it curious that us laid-back Californians seem to have no trouble finding time to capitalize properly. I guess the rules of grammar and punctuation are different on planet potsmokulon.
Let's all give a hearty "I come in peace" to our brother from another Earth mother: The Pot Smokin' Alien! Tip Tip Turrah. And it seems like C'Gurl's still feeling the effects of the welcoming cypha, given her ironic lack of proper capitalization in her post of 15:51 hours. Ah, there's no party like a conceptual bi-coastal/interglactic rager. Party on, dudes.
On another note, given the propensity for cross-'mic post modernism these days, I would love to see Jim check into Elderpark for his twilight years (or months, if the PS-in'A is to be believed). Imagine him trading stories (if he learns to speak again) with Dusty and the gang. And I must say, I was actually pretty tickled by the ol' Elderberries today. Dusty's hat in hand confession really brought a smile to my face. As a life-long fan of a formerly notoriously losing baseball team, I feel his pain. Now let's all light one up with our new contributor, get into our space ship with cinder blocks instead of a transwarp drive, and get lost in the cosmic hilarity of the 'Mix (which is starting to sound more and more like the Matrix to me). BELIEVE!
like you said mixgurl, i too have kind of been expecting Jim to kick off ever since he had the stroke initially, but at this point that is like 2 years ago, so who knows. i do feel as though he may be moving to an assisted living facility in the coming months, if not dying outright. i'd love to see him live for years-- dont get me wrong-- it just seems like the FBFW uni is in a state of much upheaval lately, Jim's death might be what she needs to chill their world out a bit.
but, in the column of Jim living, i was imagining earlier today that lynn j. might not be able to resist the gold mine of comic gentleness that would be having an old man say one-word punchlines for a couple years before deciding that he finally must die. when he does die, if she sticks to that motif, i'd like the last panel of his life to be him saying "family" in response to something someone says by his deathbed, a rhetorical question as to what force draws people together in times of trial, or what have you. (you hiring, lynn? i'm available.)
My dear P-sin'A, I hope you read today's Sally Forth, becuse momentous things are afoot! Seems like shit might get hectic for the Forth family, hopefully will emotional heft up the wazoo. Maybe Hil will have to take to the streets to earn some extra income for the family, or Sally will enter into a fierce battle with her boss for a raise, resulting in some sort of Indecent Proposal-like secenario. Or maybe everything will be solved with a wry smile and a flippant punchline. Only one way to find out.
wow, maybe mssrs' howard and mackintosh read my post. look, i know ted's a popular guy around here, and i dont want to talk shit on the man who is partially responsible for the name of our venerable blog, but man does he make it hard to resist! look at the expression on his face, it is like the waiter told him they're out of key lime pie and he needs to pick another dessert. you can practically see the wheels already turning: "well, this will give me the time to start that novel.." etc.
what i do like about this strip though, is the fact that ted is apparently the only dude at his job righteous enough to throw off the shackles of office oppression and wear a striped shirt to work.
dudes, take it off of the comments page and onto the blog, mmkay?
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