TWSNLUD vs. Serious Business

My friends, it's summer! These are the months of Bruckheimer and Bay, of barbecues and baseball: fun is the order of the day. And where should we find more fun than in the Mighty 'Mics? But what is this I see before me? Things have taken a turn for the serious in our beloved panelled pages. Not to say for the worse, it's not like that, no. But for reasons unknown to any save perhaps the shadow conspiracy which lurks behind the scenes of King Features Syndicate, the mysterious Illuminati responsible for strings pulled and decisions made at United Features, yes for reasons known only to these illustrious and terrifying nether beings, our Summer Strips have been hijacked for darker purposes. Doonesbury (ever a bastion of the serious, but always tempered with the humane and humorous) is telling a disturbing and singularly un-amusing tale of "Command Rape." Lio (though never actually funny to begin with) has embarked on an uncharacteristically narrative tale of Summer Camp travails (hope you're ready for the same, PSin'A). Brad's dad is stuck in a tree (ok that one is just funny). But Garfield! Oh my sweet dear Garfield! Those of you who know me, whether through our traffic on the blogosphere or through more corporeal means, know that Garfield is everything to me. The platonic ideal of the comic strip. And what have we here????? A sordid and sad tale of jealousy and heartbreak. The sardonic feline fortress that is Garfield's implacable psyche has been emotionally breached by.... a woman! I have been all for - and I mean ALL FOR - Liz and Jon's relationship. 25 years coming, I say. But what is this? Is she the Yoko* who will break up the metaphorical rock band of the Arbuckle household? A wedge driven between the homo-inter-species love of Jon, Garfield and Odie? What next? A sapphic tryst with Nermal?? Mmmm, oh yeah. Nermal is a boy. Uh. Oh, ok. What next? A sapphic tryst with Arlene? Where the fuck is Arlene anyway? maybe they could go on some double dates, and everything would be fun and hilarious again.
In any event, I'll take this opportunity in my closing remarks to point all eyes towards the truest stalwart on the 'mics page, They Who Shall Never Let Us Down. I of course am referring the Dagwood family, a font of love and humour undiluted for 75 years (and counting)!. Who can resist the charms of an enormous sandwich, a restorative kiss on the doorstep, the hilarious "Snnxxxxx" of Dagwood's snores... or today's comic gem, the ol' pants switcheroo! I'm sure some of you are grumbling about the chrono-specific reference to "capri pants" in the strip, but come on! Look how funny he looks in pants that are too small! As someone who has been known to perpetrate this self-same brand of humour in real life, I say huzzah to you, Dean Young! Do not submit! Let the upbeat river of Blondie's world flow on, forever running high on its banks through the ever shifting landscape of the 'micsville. So raise your glasses to TWSNLUD, I say! Three cheers for Blondie! Three cheers for Dagwood! Three cheers for Daisy and whatever the hell the son is named! Three cheers for Mr. Dithers, his wife, and for the carpool! Three cheers for the mailman, and for the dog! Three cheers for Elmo, the inexplicable neighbor boy who is always around and seemingly has no parents of his own! Three cheers for TWSNLUD! May your refrigerator always remain stocked! And let us pray on bended knee that those at PAWS Inc. will hear the revelry of the Feast of Blondie and see the error of their ways. Now read on my friends, ever on and on.

p.s.: Here's a special treat from the vaults! The strip in which Dagwood Bumstead and Blondie Boopadoop (I shit you not) get hitched. That's right kids, they were unmarried lovers before this one!






*Let me also make it clear that Yoko Ono was in no way responsible for the breakup of the Beatles, and is in fact a hip, hip lady. The blame belongs squarely on the shoulders of Paul, goon among goons.

Shaped Like a Melon

It has recently come to my attention that short, fat, round characters in the'Mix are a consistent source of humor, and after this realization I felt the need to share briefly with my illustrious companions on the Road of Cosmic Hilarity.



While we all know that short, fat and round is cute, it wasn't necessarily clear to me that this equates with funny. I know feel strongly that it does. Let's observe yesterday's Dilbert:







Dilbert has been consistently monotonal for the past umpteen years, and I have a feeling I'm one of the only Chron readers who bothers to open up the Business section and read this 'Mic (another reason I thought I would address this today). But here, Scott Adams has tapped into one of the great veins of cute imagery, and produced... Humor! Dogbert in a suit is incontrovertably funny. Look at his fat little body! No neck! No neck is hilarious!

We've seen great animated characters displaying these traits (see Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro for perhaps the most shining example of the round-fat-cute phenomenon) for many years, but this seems to be shading over now into the Treasured Pages. Lord, I even enjoyed Lio the other day when it included a funny little monster with a squat body and just his eyes poking out. Lio! I hate that comic, and all it took was for Marc Tatulli to draw a rotund beastie, and here I am chuckling all over the floor (as opposed to chucking all over the floor, my typical reaction).

This leads me to another thought: perhaps this is the reason I enjoy Garfield so much. He's fundamentally a funny little fat-round dude. Perhaps this brand of humor has been lurking amongst us for decades, and I just never realized it. Though as the PSin'A has already addressed, there's nothing fucking funny about a weird coffee shop gag, 15 years too late. I hope whatever intern got to run wild with that one has been shipped over to Blondie and reduced to drawing the make-up lines on her cheeks for the rest of his life.

So I'll be on the road for a month or so, and this might be my last post before then. I'll leave you all in the capable hands of MG69, RStBK666, the PSin'A and the rest of the colorful characters here at RDaCw/T. Hopefully I'll have some bizarre and culturally untranslatable French 'Mix upon my return.