When Ted Met Sally

This week in Sally Forth, Francesco Marciuliano is exploring what would have happen if Ted and Sally had never met. He is also exploring other counterfactuals on his Francesco Explains It All blog.

But some things are fate. They just might not have happened as we imagined them. Here is my version of When Ted Met Sally.

Without Sally, Ted would have been drawn deeper and deeper into his neuroses.

And without a stabilizing influence, Sally's business instincts would have had no limits.

But somethings are meant to be, no matter how dark and twisted.

And they lived happily ever after.

The Weingarten Effect

or Asshat, No More

In order to belie the impression that I am unhealthily obsessed with the career of Gene Weingarten, I try to only blog about him once a year or so. That's been tough lately because he has been ubiquitous in promoting his new comic strip Barney and Clyde (and the allusion to the Beatty-Dunaway codgerflick is intentional). In a Washington Post feature story he tells how the five year gestation of the strip started as a bonding opportunity with his grown son Dan who he feels had been neglected growing up in favor of his daughter and future veterinarian Molly.

The high concept of the strip is "a billionaire befriends a bum". Presumably, hilarity ensues. The Weingartens enlisted the artistic support of David Clark for the actually drawing part of the comic. As part of the media blitz Gene interviewed himself for the Miami Herald which was full of softballs. So the online Washington Post chat he recently held was my opportunity to interview him, albeit stealthily. Since he knows of my blog and my opinions about him, by having twittered about me, mentioning me in his chat, and once suspiciously asking if I had anything to do with his Facebook posts being flagged as being inappropriate (I helpfully suggested that he check with the WaPo webmonkeys if their ill-fated Facebook Direct feature was incorrectly marking him as a spammer), I used a variety of aliases to submit a dozen questions to the chat. He ended up answering seven of them. Here they are with running commentary:

Peanut Gallery: Enough with the stage setting. When does the funny start?

Gene Weingarten: We thought we'd wait a few more months.

The first three weeks of the strip have been a lot of backstory, building to the meeting of the titular odd couple. A nice self-deprecating response to start off the chat.

Kar, MA: What has been the reaction of fellow comic artists, particularly the ones you have abused and ridiculed over the years? Does becoming a published cartoonist make you more sympathetic or less towards the demands of producing a daily strip?

Gene Weingarten: DEFINITELY more sympathetic.

Haven't had any piling on by the cartoonist establishment yet, after a brief, spirited salvo before the strip debuted. I expect some, though. It's not impossible some of the anonymous Commentariat to this story comes from those guys. We'll never know.

When the comic was first announced, the comments on The Daily Cartoonist were fairly rough on both the concept and the execution. Some of the more over the top ridicule may have been tongue-in-cheek, but then again, maybe not. The comments on the above-linked feature article split pretty evenly between fawning and vicious. But with less than fifty comments, by WaPo standards, that counts as complete indifference.

Buggy Whip, PA: With newspapers dying, why are you starting a newspaper comic? Why not do a webcomic where the barriers of entry are so much lower?

Gene Weingarten: Very good question. Dan and I are very bad businessmen: It was either start a newspaper comic or become commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico.

Another nice faux-deprecating comment. Well played, but not a real answer. The more daring choice would be to develop the strip under a pseudonym to see if it would sink or swim without whatever minor cachet the Weingarten name gives it.

yelloj, KT: What rules have you established for the aging rate of your characters? Is that adorable smart-alecked daughter going to stay 13 forever?

Gene Weingarten: Dan and I and David have yet to solidify out strategy here. My vote would probably be to freeze them forever. I'm not sure I want to see Cynthia with breasts.

Gene Weingarten: This reminds me. For years I have had a question that I have never gotten a cartoonist to give me a straight answer to. When they draw something sexy, do they turn themselves on?

Even DAVID CLARK wouldn't give me a straight answer to this. I think there is something dark and disturbing under the surface here.

Gene Weingarten: Oh, and Cynthia is 11, not 13. At 13, she'd probably already have breasts.

This question, which could possibly tip my hand as to who asked it, is a callback to my post two years ago where I call Gene an asshat for his completely illogical theories of Comic Strip Temporal Dynamics. Clearly he has rethought this and backpedaled some.

As for his hypothetical about comics artists in lust with their characters, I have two words: Greg Evans. And let's not even mention the rather fan servicey Brooke McEldowney.

SPP: In two weeks, you have managed to use the Silent Penultimate Panel trope three times. What other comic strip cliches do you intend to repeatedly use in a post-modern ironic manner?

Gene Weingarten: Oh, we are adherents of the SPP. We make no apologies for it.

This poster, possibly a toonist, is referring to the conceit in which the next-to-last panel of a strip is essentially a silent freeze frame. It's a timing thing: a setup has occurred, and this delivers a drawn-out moment of tension -- or a dawning realization -- before the punch.

It's effective. A cliche, but effective. Cliches become cliches because they are effective.

I like that Gene hypothesizes that I may be a cartoonist because I know all the insidery lingo. Nevermind that there was an entire blog dedicated to penultimate panels. And speaking of which, he goes to that well in today's Sunday strip as well.

Tralfamad, Ore.: Gene, When Dave Barry 'retired' (he has a new book out) and you tried to take his place as syndicated columnist of choice, it kind of flopped. How is syndication of Barney and Clyde going vis-a-vis your previous effort?

Gene Weingarten: I like your place name.

No one took Dave's place. Essentially, when he retired his column, 450 newspapers retired their decision to have a humor columnist. I suppose if I had been as funny as Dave, I could have persuaded them not to. But, as I have said often in the past, I don't consider it an insult to be told I am not as funny as Dave Barry.

As far as Barney & Clyde, we'll revisit whether it's a flop in six months.

Didn't think I'd answer this one, did you, Jocko?

This was one of my more caustic questions, so Gene does get points for answering it. Despite having won two Pulitzer Prizes, Weingarten's lasting contribution to newspaper history is 'discovering' and editing Dave Barry while at the Miami Tropic. So there is really no shame in not being able to fill those shoes.

Fo, MA: It's very traditional in the comics industry for sons to take over from their fathers, e.g. anything originally drawn by Mort Walker and/or Dik Browne. Are you two the first case you know of where a father and son have started a strip together?

Gene Weingarten: I believe so. If anyone knows any different, please tell us.

This was just me showing off. From there the chat kind of petered out. Two or three of the questions I asked were answered by similar questions from other readers. You can peruse the whole chat here.

So after three weeks, my verdict is a resounding "meh". Barney and Clyde is hardly the worst strip on the comics page but there is no way it could be. On the other hand, after five years of self-promotion and endless bloviating about the inadequacies of other comics, he has labored mightily and brought forward a mouse.

There are some cute post-modern touches, but there is a decidedly retro feel that reeks of fuddy-duddyness rather than cutting edge. The dense dialog and overtly sloppy hand-lettering is deliberately defying the ever shrinking funny-pages trend. Perhaps evoking nostalgia is the way to go when the age of the average newspaper reader is Dead. Or perhaps the joke is on us and the strip is trying to be as mundane as possible.

There is a phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect where people are incapable of recognizing their inadequacies and they have an excessively high opinion of their capabilities, often to tragic effect. I propose the Weingarten Corollary where one is very successful in one field (because nobody with two unprecedented Pulitzers can be called a failure) but blind to the fact that their talents don't always translate to other areas. It could also be called the Michael Jordan Baseball Effect. The slew of actors who have tried to become singers and vice versa are all victims of it.

Barney and Clyde is a result of a lethal brew of hubris and naïveté mixed with dollops of armchair quarterbacking and topped with a patina of father-son bonding. Much of the hostility towards it stems from the fact that Gene clearly has pull in the newspaper world that the average comic strip writer breaking into the business does not have. Two of the four newspapers carrying it have direct Weingarten connections. And what artist is having his circulation cut or his strip turned down so that Gene can indulge in this retirement-time nepotistic bucket listing?

One thing for sure, the strip does seem to be teaching Gene some small measure of humility. But as the Waitresses sang a couple of decades ago, "I don't want to be somebody's learning experience. Some rich kids way of spending his allowance."

I really wish the strip the best, mostly because Dan Weingarten seems genuinely funny. But keeping his dad from using 'Gerald Ford falls down' jokes and recycling all his old humor columns is probably too big a task to attempt. Let's hope the strip develops and shows some character, not just a bunch of characters.

NCCCC 2010 Round 3 - Doonesbury Dopplegangers

For this round of the National Crappy Comics Copy Cats Competition, we look at strips that take a stand.

Politics and comics rarely mix. At least not well. Topical humor does not age well with lead times of two weeks or more. The truly funny political strips of the past like Pogo an L'il Abner had a sensibility that transcended partisanship. The current reigning champion is long-running and Pulitzer Prize-winning Doonesbury. For several decades now, conservatives have chafed under the piercing wit of Garry Trudeau (and just how American can someone named after a Canadian prime minister be?) hoping for a right-wing equivalent. Meanwhile liberal cartoonists labor under Doonesbury's long shadow, which is its own burden.

Doonesbury Dopplegangers

Let's look at political cartoons of various ideologies:

Mallard Filmore



Mallard Filmore or That Fuckin' Duck as I prefer to call him combines the intellectual rigor of Sean Hannity with the rational discourse of Glenn Beck. This lazy compilation of cheap shot sub-Fox News talking points would be the worst comic strip in print even without its infuriating reliance on straw men, poorly sourced quotes, and cheap Ted Kennedy gags. There is no narrative arc and each strip is nearly indistinguishable from the last. Its only redeeming value is that it is universally despised except amongst Washington Times subscribers.

Prickly City



You can't spell Prickly City without 'ick'. Perhaps the most obvious beneficiary of reverse affirmative action anywhere, Scott Stantis seems to be deliberately trying to win a Worst Drawn Comic award. The use of a right-wing big-lipped ethnically-ambiguous girl as his primary mouthpiece is just offensive on multiple levels. And while it tries to use oddball metaphors in incomprehensible thinly disguised allegories (terrorist desert hamsters anybody?), they mostly come off as half-cocked.

The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee



I have not quite yet deciphered the random political leanings of Edison Lee except that it seems to have a vaguely anti-big government and anti-tax stance. Way to go out on the populist limb there. The jabs and cheap shots just seem so forced and obvious. The inclusion of a lab rat pet puts in Calvin and Hobbes range (as write-in nominator john observed), but it's the college-freshman-that's-read-just-a-little-too-much-Ayn-Rand sensibility that makes this strip most annoying.

Non Sequitur



Wiley has toned down his Non Sequitur political rants considerably since the election, which can be considered a weakness. A good cartoonist would stick to his guns no matter who is in office. The ObviousMan and History of Cavemen bits at least provide a slightly different take on the usual ax-grinding. Still, being the second best knee-jerk liberal on the comics page is pretty faint praise.


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And there is still time to vote in the Calvin Clones and Faux Far Side categories.

NCCCC 2010 Round 2 - Faux Far Side

In the first round of the National Crappy Comics Copy Cats™, we looked at strips trying to fill the big shoes of Calvin and Hobbes. An even bigger and much missed comic strip was the off-beat and relentlessly eccentric Far Side. Gary Larson is as much a part of geek culture as Monty Python or The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. There is a Far Side for any situation. It's hard to believe that their have not been any new strips since 1995. For fifteen years we have had to relive the strips in the endless books, calendars and tee shirts or put up with its many pale imitators. Which brings us to our next category:

Faux Far Sides

And the heirs to the throne cover a lot of different territories. Here are a few of the most blatant flatterers.

The Argyle Sweater



Stylistically, you couldn't find a closer cousin to the Far Side than The Argyle Sweater right down to the line style and shading. It has mad scientists, anthropomorphic animals and oddball geeks. The humor is also dependent on bad puns, odd juxtapositions and surreal situations. And when it misses it misses big.

Bizarro



When it comes to surreal situations, no strip out-DaDas Dan Piraro's Bizarro. Full of trademark signatures like pie slices and dynamite sticks. The humor is perplexing and off-beat to point of opaqueness. There is almost and Emperor's New Clothes quality to many of the jokes. You don't want to declare yourself too unhip to get the gag even if there may not be any funny there.

Rubes




If you wanted to design a Far Side Lite, you couldn't do much worse than Rubes. Relying on the typical single panel tropes, the jokes are clever but not too deep. It lacks any sort of post-modern twist. Just standard gags executed competently.

Non Sequitur



Before it had any continuing characters, Non Sequitur was, just as its title implied, a random series of gag-a-day strips. While drawn in a standard strip format, the sensibility was that of a square single panel. And it covered a lot of Far Side territory: cave men, oddball animals, and subtle puns.

There will never be another Far Side. It covered so much ground, it's tough to do a truly fresh take. That doesn't keep people from trying. So which strip is trying a little too hard?


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NCCCC-2010 Round 1 - Calvin Clones

For this year's version of Foma Madness, we are going back to our roots and finding crappy comics. While we did a fairly exhaustive series in the inaugural edition of the National Crappy Comics Competition, this time we are narrowing our focus and naming it the National Crappy Comics Copy Cats™. We are looking for the comic that is lamest rip-off of an established strip or genre. And our first category is:

Calvin Clones

Kids and their pets are a comic strip staple. From Charlie Brown and Snoopy to Milo and Opus, anthropomorphic companion animals have always been comedy gold. However, a wise-assed kid and his stuffed tiger redefined the paradigm. Intellectually challenging, subversively anti-nostalgic and iconically irreverent, the philosophically named Calvin and Hobbes was arguably the greatest strip of a generation.

But success breeds excess. Since C&H went dark many other strips have tried to bottle that magic but mostly missed the mark. Let's look at the pretenders to the throne.

Red And Rover



Chronologically ambiguous (it could be set in the 50s or yesterday), Red and Rover is the most family friendly nominee with a sweet tone that borders on insulin overdose inducing. While Rover is slightly sarcastic, he is no stuffed tiger. And Red is so milquetoast he makes Dennis The Menace look like a serial killer.

Boy And Cow



Since all the good preternaturally provocative pets were taken, Boy and Cow takes a titular turn towards the bovine. While Cow is plenty punchy, the lack of animation makes her (a cow would be a her, right?) a particularly static foil. There are only so many set-ups that can come out of a kid and cow standing in a field.

Big Top



If a single talking animal is funny, an entire menagerie must be frickin' hilarious. At least that is the premise of Big Top where a ten-year-old boy lived with poodles, tigers, and bears (Oh, my!) Now living on only in reruns, Big Top tried to up the ante with an entire cast of wise cracking circus animals. At least it gets points for being self-aware.

Non Sequitur



Like its name, Non Sequitur is all over the map. However, one of the more common story lines involves precocious hellion Danae and her miniature pony. The equine companion is not a charter cast member, but has become a bigger part of the piece as it tries to temper the dark cynicism of their pint sized cynic with the wide-eyed innocence of a four-footed friend.


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Mother Edie

Original here

The latest storyline in 9 Chickweed Lane (aka The Horniest Strip In Print) has to do with Grandma Edie retelling the tale of how she aided the war effort. In today's episode, a mysterious officer recruits Edie to become a singer for the Reich under deep cover.

That story sure does sound familiar. Like maybe Howard W. Campbell Jr. in Mother Night. Methinks somebody owes Kurt Vonnegut some royalties. Or at least a shout-out.

Update: Brooke McEldowney confesses to an inexplicable (at least to me) ignorance of the works of Kurt Vonnegut:

I've never read any of Kurt Vonnegut's novels; and now I know I shouldn't until I've finished this tale. Thanks for warning me off.

Well, if he hasn't read them, he should. Just as soon as he finishes this story line.

Personal Responsiblity

Barack Obama, September 8, 2009:

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, the best schools in the world -- and none of it will make a difference, none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities, unless you show up to those schools, unless you pay attention to those teachers, unless you listen to your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. That's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education.

I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something that you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.

Mallard Fillmore, September 10, 2009:





Somebody has been sleeping in class again.

'Nuff Said

The Sexy Side of Science

This joke is really just for one person. The original is here.

Creepiest Luann Contest

The annual comics competition is over and Margo from Apartment 3G can be safely crowned as the Kinkiest Komics Karacter. However, as I was doing my 'research' for the MILF division, I had to read a lot of Luann and I kept getting that icky feeling that makes a middle-aged guys like me squirm. The characters in Luann are on that molasses slow growth trend where they grow older, but never quite up. Luann is now arguably either sixteen or seventeen and her older brother Brad is a professional firefighter living next door to his parents, which is at least a step up from their basement. But they keep getting into jokes that just don't seem right either for high school or the comics page.

In trying to be hip and with-it, the strip often just ends up creepy and disturbing. Just since October there has been a parade of storylines and situations that put a pit in my stomach. Let's have a look.

Gunther Gropes Luann





Ever since Aaron Hill disappeared to his Asian honey in Hawaii, the main rival for Luann's heart has been uber-geek Gunther. It seems that in addition to being a plaid shirted dork, he has madd cosplay skilz. He volunteers to fit Luann for a sexy costume and gets to cop a feel in payment. And in bonus creepiness, Luann finds that shaking her goods should get her more goodies from the dads doing door duty on Halloween.

Brad's Blue Balls





Big brother Brad has been lusting after firefighting tramp Toni Daytona for years but he is still too nervous to seal the deal. But his insecurity doesn't prevent him from mistaking the location of her eyes during the shooting of the sexy firemen (and one woman) calendar. Finally he gets up the courage to ask her over, but usually when a guy has a girl over for breakfast, he nudges her awake instead of answering the doorbell. Then he injures himself rescueing her from a fall, for which she is VERY grateful. One would think some injury recovery would include some mouth-to-mouth. Instead she scalds him with soup.

Elwood the Big Pimpin' Gnome





In order to come up with a plausible romantic rival for Gunther, the strip has introduced Elwood Druitt - drop-out dot.com millionaire. Between his short stature, pimply face, and Elvis pompadour he should be an automatic gross-out if it weren't for the big bucks he can throw around. He literally pays for a date with Luann. He has also taken to stalking Luann at her storybook reading gig and openly wonders about her fertility.

Tiffany T&A





Whenever some fan service is called for, the comic features Mean Girl Tiffany who always has some sub-sitcom scheme that involves her being scantily clad. Presumably the same age as Luann, the Tiffster looks and dresses more like a pornstar. Her bling even has its own soundtrack.

Are You Trying To Seduce Me, Mrs. DeGroot?





That is quite a cougar growl Luann's mom has. Featured playa T.J. has been promoted from annoying sidekick to roommate and his omnipresence has not escaped the MILFy Nancy DeGroot. She starts by leaving the door unlocked while taking a bubble bath. Then she paints suggestive come-ons on the wall. She also starts asking lots of personal questions about his past, presumably to get a grip on his medical history. The soundtrack to this storyline isn't porno music as much as it's Simon and Garfunkel.

Delta Lewinski



The biggest storyline of the last year has been about the school trip to Washington, D.C. and the travails of token magical negro Delta to be allowed to come along. This mcguffin has led to the Elwood story since he ended up donating the bucks to help it happen in hopes of Luann's 'gratitude'. It also set-up the aforementioned dunk tank incident. Delta does finally make it to DC and the pay-off for the whole year-long arc is that Delta gets to ask Barack Obama directions to the bathroom. Does anyone remember any tales of presidents and a young woman in the executive washroom?

This is where I need your help. Which of these is the creepiest storyline? Feel free to factor in underage inappropriateness, clumsy innuendo, head-banging-against-wall idiocy, sheer tone deafness, and overall ickyness.



My real fear is that since all of these strips are since October that we have enough upcoming awkwardness to make this an annual event.

The Comics List

I have always read newspaper comics in massive quantities. When I lived in the Philippines, the Stars And Stripes, the only newspaper available on military bases, had room for just a dozen or so comics, so I used to go down to the base library and read the Sunday comics from all the stateside newspapers. There were always some great obscure comics that only appeared in a few newspapers.

When I was in high school, the morning newspaper carried Bloom County but the afternoon paper carried Doonesbury. Somehow I talked my parents into subscribing to both. I would come home from school and turn up the stereo as loud as possible without masking the sound of the newspaper being delivered. The afternoon 'newsboy' was an older guy in my math class that would make the route with his girlfriend in his poorly mufflered pick-up truck. I could hear his truck coming down the street. After it passed, I would go out to pick it up and wave at the two of them as they rounded the cul-de-sac and headed back up the street.

For years I subscribed to the local paper, the Baltimore Sun, but I would also read the Washington Post whenever I was near a newsstand in part because it had three whole pages of comics. One day my wife subscribed to the Post for me in order to sign up for a discount at the grocery store. It was one of the most thoughtful gifts she has ever given me.

After a major comics page purge, the Sun's comics page only had three or four strips not carried in the Post. Soon afterwards, I dropped the Sun as it continued to atrophy into the pale shell of its former self which is making H. L. Mencken spin in his grave.

Now the Washington Post is sliding headlong down that same slippery slope. It just eliminated its separate business section (where it used to hide Dilbert) and consolidated the comics down to two pages of cataract-inducing fine print. They still carry Doonesbury full size on page C3, but the rest are in four skinny columns. Here is the current line-up:

Page 1 Column 1 Garfield Tack McNamara Prickly City Non Sequitur Big Nate Beetle Bailey Speed Bump

Page 1 Column 2 Zits Judge Parker Candorville Cul De Sac Spider-Man Watch Your Head Baby Blues On The Fastrack Pearls Before Swine Dennis The Menace Family Circus Close To Home

Page 2 Column 1 Mutts Red And Rover Frank and Ernest Classic Peanuts Rhymes With Orange Lio Hagar The Horrible Blondie

Page 2 Column 2 Dilbert Agnes Get Fuzzy Pickles Mark Trail Mother Goose and Grimm Baldo Sally Forth Sherman's Lagoon Curtis Brewster Rockit

In the purge, WaPo had originally cut Judge Parker but had to restore it after public outcry. In what I consider kind of a 'Fuck you!' move, to make room for it, they moved Frazz from the comics page to the Kidz Page after a brief try with Agnes there. That means Frazz only runs four times a week, destroying the continuity of the weekly gags. They just don't get it.

To get the comics I can't find in WaPo, I use a couple of internet subscription services. I recently had a scare when my GoComics e-mail service stuttered to a stop. After panicking and getting to the bottom of that SNAFU (it seems that they had both an old credit card number and an abandoned e-mail address), I updated the list of comics I have mailed to me every morning. That list now includes the following:

Annie Brenda Starr Bo Nanas (which I just learned is reruns) The Elderberries Dog Eat Doug For Heaven's Sake Girls & Sports Housebroken Ink Pen The Meaning of Lila Stone Soup Tiny Sepuku Compu-toon Neurotica

Bound and Gagged Flo and Friends Big Top Cathy The Fusco Brothers On A Claire Day The Other Coast Yenny PreTeena Pigborn Adam@Home Gil Thorp Herb and Jamaal La Cucaracha Shoe

Tom The Dancing Bug Daddy's Home Ballard Street The Argyle Sweater Cleats Dick Tracy The Dinette Set Gasoline Alley Pluggers The Quigmans Real Life Adventures Rubes Ziggy

But even that service doesn't cover all the comics I want to read on a daily basis. I also subscribe to Comics.com which e-mails the following strips:

9 Chickweed Lane
Arlo & Janis
Cow & Boy
F-Minus
Frazz (which I just added so I don't miss some)
Grand Avenue
Jump Start
Little Dog Lost (which got dumped by WaPo in the purge after only a month)
Luann
Monty
Rose Is Rose
Rudy Park
Secret Asian Man
The Knight Life (which is Sunday only in WaPo)
Working Daze
Working Out
Zack Hill

Finally, I know that Josh, THE Comics Curmudgeon uses the Houston Chronicle's rather comprehensive comics page for his comics reading since he, like me, has been abandoned by the ever-shrinking Sunpapers. I have two beefs with the Chron. First, they don't have Sunday strips and second, they won't throw it on my lawn or e-mail it to my inbox. That makes it the source of last resort since I forget to check it every day. So here are the strips carried by the Chronicle not available anywhere else:

Archie Apartment 3-G* Better Half Between Friends Boffo Buckles Cleats Crock Drabble Edge City Funky Winkerbean Grin and Bear It Lockhorns Mallard Fillmore *added after initial post

Mary Worth My Cage Pardon My Planet Phantom Popeye Rex Morgan Safe Havens Six Chix Slylock Fox Snuffy Smith Edison Lee Tiger Willy & Ethel Zippy the Pinhead

That makes the total number of comics on my daily or near-daily list:
WaPo: 38
GoComics: 42
Comics.com: 17
The Chron: 28
Grand Total: 125

That sounds like a lot, but it's probably less than fifteen minutes a day of reading. The biggest hurdle has been weeding out duplicates. For example, Dog Eat Doug is available on both GoComics and Comics.com. Since GoComics shows up in the inbox before Comics.com (which often doesn't arrive until I'm already at work), it makes sense to delete it from the Comics.com list.

The other hassle is keeping up with the current purges. Willy and Ethel was once in the Sun and Zippy was perhaps the cruelest cut from WaPo's line-up. All the hippies that used to defend it seemed to have switched their efforts to the rejuvenated Judge Parker. Even the Houston Chronicle has its issues. I hadn't updated my reading list in quite a while and for some inexplicable reason 9 Chickweed Lane appears in the place of the dropped strips. I like the comic, but I don't need to read it four times.

Also, note the conspicuous absence of the time-warped For Better Or For Worse on any of these lists. It's dead to me.

All of this is a lot of work, but it sure beats going to the library and reading back issues of out-of-town newspapers. And as the dead trees industry continues to hemorrhage, even that might not be an option some day.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: The obvious question is: What am I missing? Which comics from one of those services should I be reading? The other burning issue is if there is another way. How can I get as many comics as possible with the least effort?

National Kinkiest Komic Karacter Finals

In all my vacationing and photo-editing (and you really should check out my vacation pics), I have neglected a very important piece of unfinished business. We must now pick the winner in the National Kinkiest Komix Karacter Kontest. It's time for the apples to oranges final round where we pit the winners against each other head to head.
The criteria used to decide the final winner is completely up to you. You can go Westminster Dog Show style and decide which one best exemplifies the best of breed. Or you can measure kinkiness in absolute terms. Or go with your personal kink and vote for strip you would most like to star in a porn knock-off of. It's all in your hands, so to speak. Now let's review the results and handicap the field.

Kinkiest Kouple Ted and Sally Forth In the most stunning upset of this year's contest, Ted and Sally squeaked by Arlo and Janis. I had expected this race to be a runaway. Frankly, I blame complacence on the part of Jimmy Johnson. A link from Francesco Marciuliano's Medium Large sent not insignificant traffic to this blog and while there was no overt ballot stuffing campaign (not that I would discourage one) it seemed to have been enough to let the Forths win by a nose. Just a few days ago, A&J raised the bar again with what is known in the parlance of Miley Cyrus photoshoots as 'implied nudity' with this strip: Too little too late.

Hottest Soap Hunk The Phantom Never underestimate the power of purple tights. The hunky jungle hunk handily beat out the more conventionally clothed soap guys. I really don't have a theory except that the other guys just don't work hard enough to keep the home fires lit. In the Judge Parker sub-category Sam Driver easily outdrove now-titular Randy Parker (and there is an innuendo-laden porn name if there ever was one) by over five to one.

Barely Legal Babe Edda Burber (9 Chickweed Lane) Edda's sexual awakening in Vienna seems to have warmed the hearts (among other places) of her fans. Her now active love live pushed her past still-cock-teasing Toni Daytona, who had one the last time these two faced off. The furry crowd was heard from in the comments with both Cassandra Cat and Ashley Bengal getting write-ins. And while this would make a great undercard, you people are really sick.

Best Bear Ian Cameron (Mary Worth) Nobody really gave the Chinbeard of Charterstone any real competition. The pool-lounging beer-bellied bear with the undeservedly hot beard (and I'm talking about Toby here) is clearly master of this domain. How he can do against better looking competitors in the finals is unclear. This category had the best write-ins with Mark Trail's gone but not forgotten Molly and Comics Curmudgeon real-life bear Dingo both getting notices.

Desirable Dominatrix Margo Magee (Apartment 3G) Margo never had any serious competition and won by a 2-1 margin, the largest in any category this year. I just have to say that her disciples are a forgiving lot. Margo is mean, badly tempered and rather frigid. But hey, if that is what you like, who am I to argue? Closest competitor June Morgan is going to have to up her game if she ever expects to be a contender.

Hottest Mom Blondie I expected the MILF category to be more competitive that it was, but the readers went old-school and voted by bra size, naming comics zombie Blondie Bumstead as their favorite. Seventy-five years old and her milkshake is still bringing the boys to the yard. This category which had the most nominees also had the most varied write-ins. Moms garnering mention included Lois Flagstone, Janis (sans Arlo), Rose (is Rose) Gumbo, Boopsie (another long-in-the-tooth hottie), and the moms from Cul-de-Sac and One Big Family whose nominators didn't even know their names (Madeline Otterloop and Ellen respective for the record).

Now let the kinkiest karacter win.