Laughing Into The Week

What a weekend - helping our drummer move, playing two fat sets with the band, waking up to a bright Sunday, too tired to move, but not too tired to laugh!

I added The Boondocks to the blogroll here because, love 'em or hate 'em, they do manage to bring some flava to the funny pages when they're not making like the Spike Lee of the comics ("no-one gives the black man any cred" - really? Is that why nine out of the top ten records on Billboard are by urban fellers? "The Urban Fellers", now that's a band waiting to be born....), but I digress with largesse.

What inspired this sudden move? Sunday's strip, which was fall-out funny, if you're into camera mugging. This is the fine art of directing a silent glance to the camera (ergo, the audience) in wordless response to some ridiculous or amazing situation. Now, I'm about to go off here, so please bear with me. Craig T. Nelson has one of the most amazing camera muggings in "Poltergeist", after Jobeth Williams shows him that the chair slides across the floor seemingly by itself. He goes to inspect the chair incredulously, then lets slip a little mug to the camera as if to say "WTF?" Probably the most famously known mug is Eddie Murphy's in "Trading Places" as the two old brothers are explaining "commodities" to him. When they point out the bacon, saying "pork-bellies, which you find in bacon, which you might find in a bacon, lettuce and tomatoe sandwich", Murphy, who has been smiling bigly the entire time, suddenly drops the smile and looks into the camera like "you have got to be kidding me", before returning to smiling. It's a classic.

Now add to that the camera (panel?) mugging in the last frame of Sunday's "The Boondocks" after a gratuitous shot of Condi Rice sporting a Darth Vader mask and a light saber. The final panel seems to say "I'm speechless", which is odd for the little dude with the big afro. Comic genius - I laughed til I farted.

"Rose Is Rose" reminded on Sunday how beautifully drawn it can be (Rose looking a little like Pibgorn there) while still remaining funny. Seafood chow mein, indeed.

"Opus" crossed the ever-lovin' line on Sunday and for that, I must bow with ultimate respect in acknowledgement of the disrespect that it showed. Pouring out of Opus' anxiety closet, a dysfunctional cast of Disney characters goes against type with Mary Poppins offering up a "Donald Duck foie gras" on a platter, Timon and Pumbaa contemplating the ingestion of a distressed Jiminy Cricket and Aladdin and Jasmine, respectively (disrespectively?) girded with rocket launcher, AK-47 and burka, exclaiming "back to Baghdad!" Hoo-hoo-boy, if Berke doesn't get some flak for this one, tha people just aren't paying attention!

I just have to mention that I love how the title panel of "Pearls Before Swine" often imitates famous album art (his take on U2's "The Joshua Tree" is my favorite.) I wonder if he'll ever do Roger Waters' "Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking"? In any case, the not-too-bright gators dominate Sunday's strip. These guys should get more panel-time, they're really quite funny, if not fodder for the Gator Anti-Defamation League.

Onto Monday - whoa, did Papi shave his 'stache? He looks ten or twenty years younger in today's "Baldo."

There was an interesting case of simul-comic-nicity in The Orlando Sentinel with juxtaposed strips "Classic Peanuts" (Snoopy talking about his "Second Day Of May Dance") and "Garfield" (the cat does a victory dance out-of-sight.) Maybe they met in the middle?

And with "Luann", ahh, the plot thickens. Luann AND Toni Daytona sitting on a porch talking for two hours. I'd say that Gunther and Brad better keep their eyes peeled, the ladies are on the move!