COMICS: Casey & Andy

I've changed the method of posting images to this blog, so I thought I'd give it a workout, with an entry about one of my new favorite webcomics, Casey & Andy. I recently devoured the complete archives. Now I am sad. I have to wait for the regular updates. Like a sucker!

Casey & Andy is about the adventures of two roommates/mad scientists, one of whom dates Satan -- who is a hot red-headed babe in the comic's world:


(Click on strips to enlarge.) The art is frankly rough at best, but the comedy is top-notch. How can you not love a comic that kills off its two protagonists in the very first strip?


They get better. In fact, they die all the time, often at each other's hands:


The strips can be somewhat nerd-centric. Role-playing is often referenced, as is computer programming, science fiction, hard science (in the form of Quantum Cop), and even L33t speak:


(I love how all their inventions end in "o-mat.") But the humor is never 100% reliant on absolute knowledge of the specialized subjects; enough information is given for anyone to get the jokes.

But most of the time, the strips are easily accessible to all, whether they be slapstick comedy,


cat humor,


or good old-fashioned fart jokes.


It's mostly a gag-a-day strip, but there have been a few extended story arcs which are every bit as satisfying. I've laughed long and hard at any number of Casey & Andy comics (sometimes while sober!*), which is quite an achievement. There's over 400 strips in the archive, so get cracking!

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*That's a joke, of course. I'm never sober.

COMICS: They read the comics so I don't have to

I've said before that if I had more time -- and more importantly, if I still got a daily newspaper -- I'd like to carry on the tradition of the Baltimore City Paper's Funny Paper column. Funny Paper was a weekly column which humorously summarized and commented on the previous week's comic strips, ripping on repetitive themes, comedic errors, and just plain unfunniness. For example, from the April 18, 2001 entry:

"CATHY: Monday: Cathy is obsessed with food. Tuesday: Cathy is ignorant and incompetent at tax time. Wednesday: Cathy is ignorant and incompetent at tax time. Thursday: Cathy is ignorant and incompetent at tax time. Friday: Cathy is ignorant and incompetent at tax time. Saturday: Cathy is ignorant and incompetent at tax time. Sunday: Cathy is ignorant and incompetent at tax time."

Or, in a trademark fit of pique, dated October 8, 2003:

"KUDZU: Monday, Doug Marlette dusts off the old '668' joke. You know--668: The Neighbor of the Beast. Only Doug Marlette doesn't make it that elegant, opting to render it, '668 is the sign of the guy who lives next door to the Beast.' Doug Marlette doesn't make the jokes; he makes the jokes worse! Die, and go directly to hell, Marlette, you worthless sack of joke-stealing garbage."

Anyway. If I were ever going to get off my ass (or, I guess, spend a great deal more time on my ass) and create a blog in the Funny Paper mold -- well, my window of opportunity has passed. Because Joshua Fruhlinger's I read the comics so you don't have to is doing the job quite nicely. Damn it.

In an early post, Fruhlinger insists he'd never heard of Funny Paper before starting his blog, even though the title of his blog is almost exactly the same as Funny Paper's motto, "We read the comics so you don't have to." Okay, I'll take his word for it. But there's no mistaking the similarities*, from the title/motto, to the unconcealed hatred of strips long past their expiration date (Fruhlinger: "Tune in tomorrow as I call for the death of whoever it is who draws Marmaduke, and possibly for the death of Marmaduke himself"), to the similar permutations of the Phantom's nickname ("the Ghost Who Walks") as a commentary on the strip's art or story (Funny Paper: "the Ghost Who Can Single-Handedly Commandeer a Nuclear Sub," "the Ghost Who Is Never Properly Lit;" Fruhlinger: "the Ghost-Who-Ruminates-Aloud," "the Ghost-Who-Watches-Television-In-His-Hotel-Room"), to the pointing out of similar gags in different strips on the same day, to... oh, lots of stuff that's probably unavoidable if you set out to do something like this.

Where they primarily differ, I think, is Funny Paper ran short items about every strip for the week, whereas Fruhlinger runs longer items on a single strip daily. But where they again draw similarities is in the way they both make me laugh, they both reflect my obsession to analyze comic strip minutiae, and they both make me wish to hell I had done it first.

I read the comics so you don't have to is great. Funny and incisive, it makes me wish I knew the author so I could discuss the comics with someone else familiar with both their triviality and their importance. Good, good stuff.

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*Including, as further research reveals, the fact that the creators of both sites get their comic strip fixes from the pages of the Baltimore Sun! How's that for a coincidence?

COMICS: Wed. 12/15/04

Just a quick rundown of my purchases; I haven't read anything yet.

Plastic Man
Fantastic Four
Muhtoo... I mean, MTU
Madrox
Ex Machina
Girl Genius
and Demo #12. I broke down and got it. I haven't been as enamored with this series as many others have -- I've liked it, for the most part, but have never loved it -- and decided I'd stop buying it a couple issues ago. But I guess I just had to check out the conclusion, after all.

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In other comics news: Orson Scott Card is a douchebag. He's signed up to -- you know what? I'm not even going to tell you why his name is making the comic book rounds today. If you know, you know. All I care to contribute is: he's a homophobic douchebag. God, I'm eloquent!

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Tales from the comic shop: I asked Mike who the killer was in Identity Crisis, purely out of morbid curiosity, as I have had, and continue to have, absolutely no interest in the series. And Mike had to ask me about half a dozen times if I reeeeeaaaalllly wanted him to spoil it for me. After I insisted "Yes!" for the nth time, he looked at me curiously and said, "Wow, you really don't care." Then he told me, and it was so dopey, I cared even less.

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I should've been checking out Websnark a long time ago. Some other blogger linked to the site a few days ago (can't remember who, sorry -- although I see Johanna linked to it today, as well as adding a certain other extremely worthy blog to her links), and when I checked it out, I discovered some fantastically detailed analyses of web and print comic strips. I love that kind of stuff! I'll be adding Websnark to my links as soon as I can be bothered to change my template again.

BOOKS: The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954

The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954 is the greatest book I've read since The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952.

There are some flaws with the book. The reproduction on some of the strips is unavoidably of very poor quality; pristine strips from this era, most of which were never reprinted in book form, are difficult to find. In fact, as a note in the back of the book indicates, it was completely impossible to find the top tier of one Sunday strip. Book designer Seth had to create it from scratch. When I read that, I thought it meant he had to redraw it from a copy of the strip that was so bad they couldn't print it, but no -- those original panels really no longer exist, and Seth pieced together elements from other Schulz originals to make a passable fake. (It's a golfing strip, and if you're paying close attention, you can find the pieces he cobbled together on the page in other golfing strips throughout the book, such as the golf ball rolling in the hole with a "PLUNK!")

In these early strips, Peanuts had yet to fall into the artistic routine of later years. The art is much more experimental; scenes are shown from multiple interesting angles, rather than the straight-ahead or 90-degree profile that became the trademark of the strip. And Schulz often meshed different artistic styles in the same strip; in a series of strips involving Lucy entering a golf tournament, the adults in the crowd (grown-ups in a Peanuts strip!!) were drawn with much more realism and detail than the cartoonish children. Same with Snoopy and birds; the dog is very cartoonish (though much less so than he would become), and the birds are very realistic -- no Woodstock-type birds in these early years.

The characters and their brand of humor is still developing here. Charlie Brown is mischievous and egotistical as frequently as he is insecure; he's not the lovable loser in all things (he even scores a run in baseball), but he's getting there. Linus is still crawling, but he gets his security blanket in this volume (which Charlie Brown calls a "security and happiness blanket"). Pig-Pen first appears, as does the loud-talking Charlotte Braun, whom I had never heard of before reading this book -- I guess she didn't stick around long. And Lucy has taken center stage, with her fuss-budget personality blooming, pushing Violet, Patty, and especially Shermy to the sidelines. And you can see the designs of the characters becoming finalized toward the end of the book. Most noticeably, Charlie Brown's expression becomes much less wide-eyed and cherubic.

As for the humor -- it still needs some work. There are an awful lot of running gags, most of which fall flat. Charlie Brown is a budding comic strip artist, who just can't get Schroeder to appreciate his humor. Snoopy is baffled by some object for four wordless panels. Lucy counts stars, or raindrops. But even she couldn't count the number of strips in which she complains about something Charlie Brown is bringing her, only to wind up with that something on her head. The mud pie gags are still there, but they begin fading out toward the end of the book, to be replaced by house-of-cards gags. Writing on fences pops up a great deal, as do building blocks. And when frustrated by something, Charlie Brown is more likely to say, "That's the way it goes," rather than "Rats!" (I don't think "Good grief!" has even entered his vocabulary yet.)

But in the final couple months collected here, you can see the beginning of the classic age of Peanuts. In the next couple years, the strip would solidify its format, and take off in popularity, and Schulz would commence a good twenty, twenty-five years of pure comic brilliance. Mid-50s to late-70s, that was the peak of Peanuts, which in my mind means the peak of all comic strips. I can't wait for the next volume (scheduled for April 2005).

Potpourri

The final table of the current Celebrity Poker Showdown series will air this Sunday, with players Matthew Perry, Dennis Rodman, Kevin Nealon, Neil Patrick Harris, and Mekhi Phifer. (The Bravo website conveniently, and possibly unintentionally, but probably not, ranks them in order of celebrity importance, from Ace to Ten.) My prediction: I think Phifer and Nealon got to the finals on pure luck, and will be eliminated first (in that order). Rodman will stick around for a while because of his intimidating persona (and in spite of his erratic play), but in the end, Harris will edge out Perry for the win. Doogie's got skills!

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I finally finished going through all the Farscape episodes I taped during the Sci-Fi Channel's recent marathon. That is one excellent show. But I gotta say, I understand now why the fans were so ticked off about how the series ended when it got cancelled. What a pisser of a cliffhanger! Man, you end it one minute earlier, and it's happily ever after. Well, now I've got the Peacekeeper Wars mini-series queued up and ready to go on my TiVo. It better not end on a cliffhanger!

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I haven't gotten the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that all the kids are talking about yet, because I'm still trying to finish GTA: Vice City. Partly that's because I'm much less of a gamer than I used to be; last week, when I got back into Vice City again, I was surprised to see my previous saved game was from May. And partly it's because Vice City is so damn big. I finished the main storyline, defeating the Mafia goons trying to take over my territory, and becoming the unchallenged kingpin of Vice City. The end credits rolled and everything. Then I checked the statistics: I had only completed 42% of the game. In one sense, I had finished it, but in another sense, I wasn't even halfway done, what with all the missions, hidden packages, insane stunt jumps, properties, etc. I had yet to discover/explore/complete. Now that is getting your money's worth. And I hear San Andreas is even bigger. I think I may wait for Sony to release the inevitable "Greatest Hits" version for $19.99 before I buy it; no matter how much gameplay is in it, I still think fifty bucks is too damn much to lay down for a video game.

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Found via Pop Culture Junk Mail: there is a blog solely dedicated to the deconstruction of the comic strip "For Better or For Worse". It's For Better or For Worse Strikes Back, and it's a crack-up. Actually, as I examine it more closely, I see the maintainer has recently abandoned the blog, leaving it open to anyone who wants to post about that day's happenings with the Patterson clan. How fun! Much like Hulk's Diary, this is something I wish I had thought of first. Maybe I'll start my own blog about "Rose is Rose". Or "Drabble"!

Don't Blame Me, I Voted For...

Don't forget to watch the most important source for election results tonight: The Daily Show's live coverage, a one-hour special starting at 7PM Pacific. Although, despite how funny the show was after the 2000 election, I sincerely hope this election doesn't turn into the same kind of joke. Heard it!

Potpourri

I really have no idea what to write today, but since my traffic is up recently, and it only takes one day off to be totally forgotten and drop back down to double digits in hits (yes, I actually worry about that kind of thing, I'm a mess), I'll just write whatever the hell comes to mind.

--I got the first season DVD box sets for both The Simpsons and Futurama yesterday. I hadn't gotten them before because A) I don't think the first season of The Simpsons holds up very well at all, and B) I've seen the first season of Futurama plenty enough in reruns on the Cartoon Network. But that Amazon sale ($15.99 each!) was too much to resist.

--Next up from Amazon: The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954 and Random Zits. I loves my comic strips! Too bad the new Doonesbury isn't out for another couple weeks, or I'd have added that to my order, too.

--Comic strips that don't get collected in books anymore, but should: One Big Happy. Drabble. The Fusco Bros.

--You know what comic strips I don't love?

• Fox Trot. Hate it. Same structure every damn strip: a line in panel one gets repeated in panel four, either by a different character or in a different context. So uninventive and predictable.
• Get Fuzzy. Having the dog actually say "Ha! Ha! Ha!" doesn't make the punchlines any funnier. In fact, they're not funny at all.
• Non Sequitur. Seriously, does anybody like that crap?

--If I had a regular newspaper subscription, I would revive the Baltimore City Paper's "Funny Paper" column on this blog every Friday. For those of you who have never run across it online, it was a weekly critique of the Baltimore Sun's daily comic strips -- a very harsh and hilariously meticulous critique. Sample from the last time the column ran (last February):

MOMMA: Wednesday, Momma mistakes a door-to-door scythe, cassock, and sandals salesman for the Grim Reaper. Sandals? The Grim Reaper isn't a fuckin' hippie!

There are tons of columns in the archives, go check 'em out. And maybe I'll start getting my local paper, just to have a guaranteed post once a week. As opposed to this rambling mess today.

COMICS: Pretty sneaky, sis

Yesterday, at the comic shop, I bought the new PvP collection:



There was something oddly familiar about the cover. I stared at it for a long while, until it finally hit me:



If I hadn't already been a fan of Scott Kurtz, I would be now. That's just pure genius. And there can't be more than one person out of a hundred who would get that. I'm extremely proud of myself, in a kind of ashamed way.

COMICS: PvP vs. the World Crime League

I love comics. But I love comic strips even more. I'd gladly trade away Spider-Man for my daily fix of Doonesbury. If it came down to Batman or Dilbert, Batman would be out the door so fast his freakin' cowl would spin. If I had to choose between Peanuts and... well, no need to even finish that sentence. I would give up every comic ever for Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

What's got me thinking about this is one man's plan to renovate the comics page: Scott Kurtz's post about comic strip syndication. Kurtz, as you may or may not know, is the creator of the fine and funny online comic strip PvP. And in a few short paragraphs, he's put forth an argument for a comics page business model that's so radical, so revolutionary, so crazy, that it just might destroy the comic strip syndicates, and completely change the world of comic strips.

I'm not going to go into his plan here; if you're interested, he explains his ideas much better than I could. He's got some sound logic and some grand ideas. But he also has some holes in his proposal; primarily, he totally fails to consider that, even if the newspapers want the syndicates to fall, many of the comic strip creators will not. Even with the promise of ownership of their own creations, as well as 100% of the profits from the books and assorted other merchandising the strips may spawn, many creators will still prefer the safety and security of the syndicates to a free market. For one thing, not every strip has a lot of merchandising, nor even the possibility of it; for every Garfield, there are dozens of Mr. Boffos or Drabbles or One Big Happys, for which there's barely a market for the books, let alone the kind of greeting card/birthday hat/plush toy merchandising that would generate enough money to make abandoning the syndicates worthwhile.

I said he fails to consider that fact, but perhaps he has considered it, and discarded it. For one thing, he is presupposing that the comics page is ready to self-destruct on its own, that newspapers are already close to rejecting the syndicates and shutting down their comics pages altogether. And it sounds like his plan is for a younger, newer crowd of strips to take over the comics page, to hell with what came before. And while it may be fine for Get Fuzzy to suddenly be in competition with hundreds of free (or much cheaper) new comic strips, and while it may also be fine for relics like Dennis the Menace, The Family Circus, Marmaduke, and so forth to be permanently retired, what about those established but deserving strips that suddenly find themselves unable to compete in such a market? For Better or For Worse might be a good example here. I think it's still a decent strip, though clearly of another generation. Would it suddenly be lost in the shuffle?

All this is idle speculation, obviously; it may even sound like I'm against Kurtz, but I'm not. The truth is, it's more than likely that Kurtz won't change anything with his plan, and even if he does, it will be in slow and minute increments. But I admire him for proposing such an ambitious plan. And I'm hoping that if he (and hopefully other online cartoonists) and the newspapers successfully take a stand against the stranglehold the syndicates have on the comics page, that one of my fondest dreams may at long last be realized:

Cathy will finally die.