Jokes So Bad, They Have to be Explained
Many times the jokes in the comic strips are so obscure or poorly done, they require explanation. Many of the comic strip commentary websites are based on the premise of "I have no idea what this strip is talking about? Please help." We have had a few of those with For Better or For Worse, but today is the first day I can think of, when the character actually explained her own joke. It wasn't even necessary. If she had said something like, "Leaving Mtigwaki just tears me up" and there was a big old tear rolling down her cheek, I think I would have gotten the joke. Since lettering is added last, it made me wonder if the dialogue was altered because the artist failed to add any tears to explain what should have been an obvious joke.
That explanation though, provided most of snarking for the day. I popped in a few posts early today, and then it was off to a children's birthday party at a place called Rocks and Ropes, which is a wall-climbing place that requires the adults to belay the kids. After 3 hours of belaying my son and daughter I was a little tired. The parents of the child whose birthday party it was, just finished a particularly nasty divorce, and so much of the party was spent by my wife getting stories of nastiness that the two have been visiting upon each other. Then I took the kids to the jewelry store, so they could pick out their mother's wedding 14th anniversary jewelry gift. Then I prepared a Sunday school lesson for the junior / senior high kids at our church on Pentecost Sunday, which is tomorrow, in case you were interested.
After all that, I expected to roll into April's Real Blog, like I do on weekdays, and find the last post of the day was aprilp_katje's response to my two little posts. I was filled with a mixture of envy and excitement as I saw a number of posts there, indicated the return of qnjones and the_berserker. I wish I had been around to participate. What I like about April's Real Blog is the interaction. The last several days have been pretty interaction-less, and so I hate to miss out when it happens. But there will probably be more of that tomorrow. Weekends are the times when I get to spend the most time with the kids.
Tomorrow's strip: Elly and Connie jog to the pastry store. Ho Hum! How can you snark a joke that has been done about virtually every fat comic strip character since the beginning of time?
That explanation though, provided most of snarking for the day. I popped in a few posts early today, and then it was off to a children's birthday party at a place called Rocks and Ropes, which is a wall-climbing place that requires the adults to belay the kids. After 3 hours of belaying my son and daughter I was a little tired. The parents of the child whose birthday party it was, just finished a particularly nasty divorce, and so much of the party was spent by my wife getting stories of nastiness that the two have been visiting upon each other. Then I took the kids to the jewelry store, so they could pick out their mother's wedding 14th anniversary jewelry gift. Then I prepared a Sunday school lesson for the junior / senior high kids at our church on Pentecost Sunday, which is tomorrow, in case you were interested.
After all that, I expected to roll into April's Real Blog, like I do on weekdays, and find the last post of the day was aprilp_katje's response to my two little posts. I was filled with a mixture of envy and excitement as I saw a number of posts there, indicated the return of qnjones and the_berserker. I wish I had been around to participate. What I like about April's Real Blog is the interaction. The last several days have been pretty interaction-less, and so I hate to miss out when it happens. But there will probably be more of that tomorrow. Weekends are the times when I get to spend the most time with the kids.
Tomorrow's strip: Elly and Connie jog to the pastry store. Ho Hum! How can you snark a joke that has been done about virtually every fat comic strip character since the beginning of time?
posted by howard at 12:04 AM
6 Comments:
Plus this is old ground in FBoFW--LJ might as well have pulled out a rerun strip, Elly and Connie have covered this terrain so many times already.
The Sunday colour strips have been turning into gag strips barely related to the dailies and oftentimes appear to be done by a different art team than the dailies. I have always been more impressed by the artists who managed to incorporate their Sunday colours into the daily storyline, but almost nobody does that anymore.
I have always been more impressed by the artists who managed to incorporate their Sunday colours into the daily storyline, but almost nobody does that anymore.
When I was reading Suddenly Silver, I was surprised to discover that the Sunday strips used to be in synch with the daily-strip storylines, seemingly on a regular basis. I wish Lynn would have kept that up.
When we had the March sequence of strips where they had everyone at Grandpa Jim's party telling things that hadn't happened yet, I got the distinct impression that Lynn is just writing stories and leaving it to the staff to fill them in where and in what sequence they appear. The fact she used to synch the Sundays with the dailies, and doesn't any more is just additional evidence of her lack of involvement in the strip.
I do wish that LJ still cared enough to put up with the "hassle"! BTW, where can one read Sunday MW online? They used to pop up on my Houston Chronicle page, but they don't anymore! :(
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/mary.asp
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