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Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

I dislike Edge of Adventure because this is extremely just James Allen writing whatever the gently caress he wants, and whatever the gently caress he wants to write is tone-deaf and rooted in lurid pulp and exploitation. "I have to find out about this crashed plane" is fine but it reads a lot more as "this Black woman adopted a white girl and I just have some questions about this".

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Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Comic Strips 2020: This is one problem you can't threesome your way out of.

nishi koichi
Feb 16, 2007

everyone feels that way and gives up.
that's how they get away with it.
mr boop is a horny comic, but it’s actually quite sweet, and isn’t drawn by a horrifically repressed dirty old man who thinks he’s creating True Art

Evil Mastermind posted:

Comic Strips 2020: This is one problem you can't threesome your way out of.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Kennel
May 1, 2008

BAWWW-UNH!
I wouldn't call Mr. Boop a horny comic. It uses sex a lot for jokes, but it never feels like it's anyone's wank material (I'm sure those people exist, but that's not the point).

Compare to something like Oglaf, which is also humorous, but openly horny with pornographic art.

nishi koichi
Feb 16, 2007

everyone feels that way and gives up.
that's how they get away with it.
i will never not love how alec draws that dumb smug-rear end smile

ikanreed
Sep 25, 2009

I honestly I have no idea who cannibal[SIC] is and I do not know why I should know.

syq dude, just syq!

Kennel posted:

I wouldn't call Mr. Boop a horny comic. It uses sex a lot for jokes, but it never feels like it's anyone's wank material (I'm sure those people exist, but that's not the point).

Compare to something like Oglaf, which is also humorous, but openly horny with pornographic art.

The writer of oglaf said that they started just drawing fantasy pornography and it "degenerated" into fantasy sex humor

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

A slide into the lowest form of art: humor.

Parahexavoctal
Oct 10, 2004

I AM NOT BEING PAID TO CORRECT OTHER PEOPLE'S POSTS! DONKEY!!

Selachian posted:

I think the joke is that Caspar bought his ticket from a scalper, but the sign scares him out of even trying to use it -- he just tears it up and throws it away, rather than risk having to present it to the ticket taker and maybe get caught.

No, I saw that at once, but it doesn't seem to match with the usual theme of "Caspar's behavior is humorously abnormal". I've never bought a ticket from a scalper, so I don't know - is it standard to try to bullshit your way in regardless?

Johnny Aztec
Jan 30, 2005

by Hand Knit

Zereth posted:

:yikes:

there was a like, over-a-year-long arc about Edda's(?) grandma(?) romancing a literal nazi back in the day.

IIRC, while this guy was in the Nazi party, it was more of a "Join or Die" situation, and he wasn't like, a NAZI-Nazi.
However, McDowley sucks so much, and the storyline so terrible, that who gives a poo poo.

Granny loved Nazi. RAH RAH USA man loved Granny. Granny hosed Nazi guy and got Pregnart
Nazi guy couldnt marry Granny because USA MAN had first dibs. USA MAN, being the upstanding, honorable, person he is, married Granny, knowing she was PRAGERNART with Nazi mans child.

Pigsfeet on Rye
Oct 22, 2008

I'm meat on the hoof

Green Intern posted:

A slide into the lowest form of art: humor.


Comic Strips 2020: A slide into the lowest form of art: comic strip humor

readingatwork
Jan 8, 2009

Hello Fatty!


Fun Shoe

Is there a reason nobody posts Lio? It's been a while but I remember not hating it.


Old School Peanuts (Jan 11, 1952)




Calvin and Hobbes (Jan 16-17, 1988)






Robbie and Bobby

(Jun 6, 2016)


(Aug 15, 2020)





Evil Mastermind posted:

Comic Strips 2020: This is one problem you can't threesome your way out of.

Yvonmukluk
Oct 10, 2012

Everything is Sinister


Bobbins

Johnny Aztec
Jan 30, 2005

by Hand Knit

readingatwork posted:

Is there a reason nobody posts Lio? It's been a while but I remember not hating it.

Well, when it was first posted, the thread enjoyed it. It was different.
As time went on, we realized Lio only had the same handful of "jokes" repeated ad nauseum

No, it's not terrible. It's just bland. Middle of the road. It's a comfortable false edginess. It doesn't want to try, or grow. It has it's niche, and is fine staying right there and milking it for as long as possible.

Mercury Hat
May 28, 2006

SharkTales!
Woo-oo!



Johnny Aztec posted:

IIRC, while this guy was in the Nazi party, it was more of a "Join or Die" situation, and he wasn't like, a NAZI-Nazi.
However, McDowley sucks so much, and the storyline so terrible, that who gives a poo poo.

Granny loved Nazi. RAH RAH USA man loved Granny. Granny hosed Nazi guy and got Pregnart
Nazi guy couldnt marry Granny because USA MAN had first dibs. USA MAN, being the upstanding, honorable, person he is, married Granny, knowing she was PRAGERNART with Nazi mans child.

That's the way it was portrayed, but wasn't he a Lieutenant? There's being conscripted into the military and there's doing well enough in the war to be promoted, imo.

But I guess granny good gams wouldn't dare fall in love with some lowly soldier boy pulled out of the wheat fields of Austria.

Darthemed
Oct 28, 2007

"A data unit?
For me?
"




College Slice
Docks




Retail




Dick

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

Parahexavoctal posted:

No, I saw that at once, but it doesn't seem to match with the usual theme of "Caspar's behavior is humorously abnormal". I've never bought a ticket from a scalper, so I don't know - is it standard to try to bullshit your way in regardless?

I haven’t ever bought tickets from some guy on the street, but you kinda just need to assume you might be getting completely ripped off, and accept that risk when you walk up to the turnstile.

In most cases nowadays for larger events tickets are going to have some kind of digital code on them to be scanned so you aren’t going to have much luck if you got fake tickets.

root
Jun 17, 2000

Booska mask replica...

Mercury Hat posted:

That's the way it was portrayed, but wasn't he a Lieutenant? There's being conscripted into the military and there's doing well enough in the war to be promoted, imo.

But I guess granny good gams wouldn't dare fall in love with some lowly soldier boy pulled out of the wheat fields of Austria.

To add another layer of diarrhea to that abyssmal arc... Wasn't the "villain" of the story a British intelligence officer who was trying to get intel out of Herr Lieutenant and this was... bad... because he was doing it in a "dishonorable" way or some stupid poo poo???

Parahexavoctal
Oct 10, 2004

I AM NOT BEING PAID TO CORRECT OTHER PEOPLE'S POSTS! DONKEY!!

Slammy posted:

Trees died so it could show up right above "Blondie". In color.


This "Blondie", in fact.

I'm not sure if the strip becomes better or much, much worse when you realize that those are the months of the pandemic shutdown.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Hempuli
Nov 16, 2011



B. Virtanen


ANSU

(Warning: curious nipples)

curtadams
Mar 24, 2019

Cowslips Warren posted:

Chickweed is gross but so is Mr Boop and y'all drool non-stop over that poo poo.
First, Mr. Boop is lampshading the heck out of itself.
Second, free-love threesomes are less objectionable than the presumably fetish driven, seriously imbalanced relationships 9CL is showing (boss-subordinate, old-young, and now creepy old-young). The most objectionable part of Mr. Boop is Alec's obsessional behavior, and that does seem to be recognized as problematic.
Third, Mr. Boop does have some redeeming social value. It's criticizing current copyright law, and 100 year + copyrights are just absurd.

Most people here don't get it, but for me there's also the horror at seeing 9CL infested by brainworms. Honestly, really, it didn't use to be like this. In the 90's it was widely admired for strong, self-driven female characters (incidentally with pretty healthy attitudes to sex). Seeing 9CL's female characters reduced to fetish dolls is horrifying.

Professor Wayne
Aug 27, 2008

So, Harvey, what became of the giant penny?

They actually let him keep it.
The Far Side

Pickles


Zits

Somebody fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Jul 26, 2022

Medenmath
Jan 18, 2003
Vintage Valiant (Oct. 06, 1940)



Vargo's Comics

Breaking Cat News


Phoebe and her Unicorn


Wallace the Brave

Samovar
Jun 4, 2011

I'm 😤 not a 🦸🏻‍♂️hero...🧜🏻




That last panel oh my Christ.

riderchop
Aug 10, 2010

av by @daikonquest!
Garfield



Heathcliff



Overboard



Monty



no new Rae the Doe on weekends!


Rae the Doe's web archives

Ghosting


420

Murdstone
Jun 14, 2005

I'm feeling Jimmy


Selachian posted:

Edge of Zzzzz



Lucinde finally passes out from Sam's nonstop monologuing, being sure to display her tits attractively as she does so.

Bonus Ads! Big Yank clothes! Do your clothes not fit properly? Give 'em a Big Yank!





"Cradle crotch" sounds like a particularly unpleasant infection.
She looks comfortable.

Also, Big Yank is great. All the problems in the world are pants-related.

F Minus



Now he can get a swell new lighter!

Mark Trail



Mary Worth



The Phantom



Pooch Cafe



Rex Morgan MD



Andertoons



Accurate.

Apartment 3-G

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Johnny Walker posted:

She looks comfortable.


Her tits are slowly sliding off her torso.

Weembles
Apr 19, 2004

Alhazred posted:

Her tits are slowly sliding off her torso.

Worst case of googly-boobs I've seen in this thread in a long while.

LazyQ
Feb 22, 2011

Mämmilä



"The greedy have a lovely end", ahneella on paskainen loppu, is a Finnish saying. It's not particularly witty, it's more the tone in which it is said.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Parahexavoctal posted:

No, I saw that at once, but it doesn't seem to match with the usual theme of "Caspar's behavior is humorously abnormal". I've never bought a ticket from a scalper, so I don't know - is it standard to try to bullshit your way in regardless?
How exactly are they gonna tell the difference between a "bought from a scalper" ticket and a "was given by a friend" ticket?

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

LazyQ posted:

Mämmilä



"The greedy have a lovely end", ahneella on paskainen loppu, is a Finnish saying. It's not particularly witty, it's more the tone in which it is said.

On the one hand I want this guy, Isopaljo, and all their cronies to eat poo poo. On the other hand that will probably destabilize the way of life for a bunch of folks.

fondue
Jul 14, 2002

B Kliban


I've never been to Ireland so I'll take this as fact


FrumpleOrz
Feb 12, 2014

Perhaps you have not been to the *Playground*.
The *Playground* is for Taalo and for Orz, but *Campers* can go.
It more fun than several.
You can go there for too much fun.
The Lockhorns


Brewster Rockit Space GUy


On The Fastrack


Safe Havens


Kevin & Kell


Mother Goose & Grimm


Hagar The Horrible


Sherman's Lagoon


Ella Cinders


Zorro

Julet Esqu
May 6, 2007




You guys realize, don't you, that if you keep asking questions about the Nazi story in 9CL, some absolute sadist is going to decide to repost the arc for us.

No, I will not be that sadist, I have Luann to post.



Great shoes for a dog park, Luann.

EasyEW
Mar 8, 2006

I've got my father's great big six-shooter with me 'n' if anybody in this woods wants to start somethin' just let 'em--but they DASSN'T.
Hi, I'm the idiot who posts 9CL, and I feel very, very cornered right now. Maybe a different approach is required...

How To Read 9 Chickweed Lane

(with apologies to Paul Karasik, Mark Newgarden, generations of Nancy-worshipping alternative cartoonists (up to and including Olivia Jaimes), and (of course) Ernie Bushmiller)

1. THE STRIP

(or "a strip", because I'm not enough of a sadist to drill down on the same one again and again)



A: Context.

Brooke McEldowney's 9 Chickweed Lane debuted on July 12, 1993. The comic strip you're looking at right now, dated August 15, 2020, is the Saturday installment of a feature which has just celebrated its 27th anniversary. It was potentially read by 76,507 GoComics followers, which, from a cursory examination, would appear to place it firmly in the middle tier of online popularity, or at the very least a certain type of reader loyalty. Pearls Before Swine, in contrast, has 172,986 followers. Crabgrass, as the new kid on the block, has 1,894.

According to the syndicate sales website, 9CL appears in 60 newspapers worldwide. Pearls Before Swine appears in 750 newspapers, while D*lb*rt can still count on 2,000 daily clients around the world. In a century where dead-tree based media struggles to justify its continued existence outside of force of habit, it's an increasingly outdated metric, but one both creative and corporate types cling to as a badge of honor, as if "publication" only becomes real if ink and paper are involved. Anyway, those clients pay with actual money, so it's worth paying attention to them.

Slammy posted:

Trees died so it could show up right above "Blondie". In color.


So yeah, that.

At this point, the lovely people that I'm ripping off for this presumably short-term gimmick rattled off a few headlines to put their chosen strip into a broader cultural context. For 9CL, this is highly unnecessary. It's today. You know what today looks like. You're living in Hellworld, and this is one of the comic strips we read in Hell. That's your context.

The paradigm the comic strip was constructed for is the newspaper itself. A newspaper as a physical object is a series of low-quality sheets of pressed wood pulp, intended to have the shelf life of a single day. Newsprint itself begins the process of decay very rapidly with a few hours of exposure in direct sunlight, underlining the ephemeral nature of the transmission medium. When newsprint was the primary vehicle of a comic strip's delivery, it was expected to be read once, discarded, and forgotten. The ultimate fate of 9CL product in that world would be protective wrapping for glassware, wrapping the remains of a dead fish, or lining a birdcage.

The digital age has turned that basic truth of 20th century cartooning on its ear. In theory, the entire run of a strip from the beginning could be accessible at all times, and many modern cartoonists take that continual availability into account when they plot their stories, a luxury (or hindrance, depending on how you approach it) that Elzie Segar or Alex Raymond never had to face. In practice, the comic strips published under the Andrews McMeel Universal banner are personal expressions attached to a corporate media conglomerate (and just let that roll around in your head for a second), so the rules of artificial scarcity are in effect. As of this writing, the Chickweed archives are an unbroken chain from November 6, 2000 to present, and before that, a less reliable chain from the beginning to December 1994. A profound transformation was set into motion somewhere in that five year gap, which I'm sure we'll get to...unless I get bored of this gag before we do, which, based on past performance, is almost guaranteed to happen.

B: Text.

Three boxes. Old doughy guy in overalls. Woman in the uniform of what we assume is a state trooper. Grey vintage car with brown seats. A cloud of floating Valentine hearts. A pair of badly fitting uniform pants with at least one badly defined leg cuff that reminds the reader of vintage lounging pajamas. Featureless void. And...ugh...BROOKE.

Physically, the act of seeing this strip is the perception of light meeting the eye, slapping the retina, and burrowing its way into the brain like a conceptual parasite. That's the act of seeing, but how do you read it? To ensure that the individual elements are read--or transmitted effectively enough to convey the intended meaning--the originator of any intentional communication must have an endgame in mind.

Dr. Jason Reiss, assistant professor of psychology at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, conducted a series of eye-tracking tests to determine what happens when a set of pupils are confronted with a much more revered comic strip than this one. The translation of the strip into a knowable whole (that is, reading) followed basically the same visual path with each test subject, but it's safe to say that the process was set into motion with a flash registering of the entire strip. We see, then we perceive, then we get down to reading. But it all begins with an almost subconscious snapshot of the entirety.

It's a good thing to know, especially if you're attempting to explain the feeling of dawning dread when your eyes glide across the image, trying desperately to escape. But if you made it this far, you're already screwed, because you just spent nine or ten (hopefully coherent) paragraphs dancing around the periphery of 9 Chickweed Lane.

(Everything else is on the way soon. This drivel ate a few hours of my afternoon, because I'm ridiculous like that.)

EasyEW fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Aug 15, 2020

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Sweaty IT Nerd posted:

I don't think I'm smart enough to enjoy that comeec. It looks really good but it sure does have a lot of details.

This latest one sets everything up relatively clearly, though I agree it can get chaotic and it took this one for me to pull it together:
--wealthy Saudi expresses interest in juniper balls.
--everything in town is upended to deliver, profiteering and graft off every side
--this is all sold on the idea that it's a profitable new industry instead of a one-off job, and for that matter I'm not sure if the Saudi job is an actual contract or "once we have them the guy will totally remember he wanted them and be happy to pay us"
--A bunch of folks have drastic life changes as a result through cronyism, being scapegoated/ousted for trying to stop it, or as a result of other folks buying into the dream and making promises they think they'll be able to keep.
--Chickens are about to come home to roost.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Thinking about it, I think what makes Mammila difficult to track for me is that there are enough jumps that it's easy to get confused whether things just weren't shown on-camera or aren't actually there. Until the freakout in this strip about the "next job" I thought that had all been done off-screen because clearly someone wouldn't build a new industrial direction without lining up clients, right?

curtadams
Mar 24, 2019

Great. Adding corruption to the long list of why this plotline is extra offensive.

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

Bruceski posted:

Thinking about it, I think what makes Mammila difficult to track for me is that there are enough jumps that it's easy to get confused whether things just weren't shown on-camera or aren't actually there. Until the freakout in this strip about the "next job" I thought that had all been done off-screen because clearly someone wouldn't build a new industrial direction without lining up clients, right?

I mean yeah that’s kinda what Isopaljo and his cronies are doing. They care more about the land ownership and Business For Business’ Sake, because both of those equal money, power, and influence.

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EasyEW
Mar 8, 2006

I've got my father's great big six-shooter with me 'n' if anybody in this woods wants to start somethin' just let 'em--but they DASSN'T.
And now, atoning for my sins from four posts ago...

Sally Forth



Pearls Before Swine



Peanuts (August 18, 1973, and oh boy, did that last panel not age well.)



Funky Winkerbean continues to operate under disaster movie rules.



Crankshaft



Rip Haywire



Thimble Theater (March 17, 1937)



Out Our Way (January 7-9, 1935)







Dok's "They Call Him 'Kid', But He Might As Well Be Named Mark" Duck (March 30, 1913)

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