Hey, you whippersnappers! Yeah, it’s old Funnypapers Geezer here, and I remember back in the day when comic strip artists didn’t go on vacation, they just kept churning out new attempts at funniness every day, or they built up a buffer of several months before they took off, ’cause they never made jokes about anything current, or if they were really successful and not Charles Schulz, they had a bunch of underpaid assistants who did all the work and you didn’t know when the ‘real’ cartoonist was working or not. I thought of that when I saw that Sunday’s Foxtrot was a rerun from a little over three years ago.

How did I know it was a rerun? Well, look at the subject matter: “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” had stopped being popular almost that long ago, and Tech TV, well, it has just plain stopped being after it was absorbed into another cable channel. Besides, I had written a blog post about the comic the first time it was published. It was pretty good too. Unfortunately, all my blogging from around that time did not survive one of my various changes in software or hosting, but fortunately, I do still have a text file of it, so I can republish it now, and it’ll look brand new… except for the fact that I just told you it isn’t, and, besides “Queer Eye” stopped being popular almost three years ago…

But about the same time that this comic ran, the highly esteemed web-based humor publication McSweeney’s did a piece on “Spin-Offs of ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’”:

Tall Eye for the Short Guy

Jew Eye for the Goy Guy

Jedi for the Darth Vader Guy

Philadelphia Eye for the Pittsburgh Guy

Arizona Diamondbacks Right-handed Reliever Matt Mantei for the Phillies’ Set-up Guy

And that was it. That was all. I should feel guilty for copying the whole thing, but I rarely use quotes of less than 35 words. Now, this was brought to my attention by kottke’s remaindered links, and I left the following comment there:

Damn, I could write a better list myself in two minutes!
Timer starts… Now!
Glass Eye for the Blind Guy
Third Eye for the Totally Non-Introspective Guy
Third Eye for the Blind Guy
Slant Eye for the Caucasian Guy (oooh… racial tackylanguage; sure to get attention now!)
Minutiae for the Big Picture Guy
Kottke Eye for… Time’s Up!

Of course, I couldn’t just stop after two minutes so I also came up with…

Black Eye for the Redneck Guy
CSI for the ER Guy
MCI for the WorldCom Guy
Blue Eye for the Red-State Guy
Bloodshot Eye for the Sober Guy
Electric Eye for the Gas Company Guy
Simpsons Eye for the Family Guy
Tommy Walsh DIY for the Designer Guys (reference to two cable shows that were a lot less popular than “Queer Eye”)
(and for ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day’) Aye Aye for the Arrrrrr Guy

As for my ending for Kottke Eye…
Actually, I never figured that one out…

I’ve digressed from the comics-oriented theme of this blog enough. For more Queer Eyed commentary, see my other blog…

crossposted everywhere

It’s time for the most festive event on the Dilbert calendar, the Annual Weasel Awards. And after looking at this year’s nominees I had to send an eMail message to Scott “Dilbert” Adams himself.

Dear Mr. Adamsbert:

I don’t like to point out errors (no, I lied, I really enjoy it), but something appears wrong in your Weasel Awards for this year. The “United Nations” is listed under both “Weaseliest Organization” and “Weaseliest Nation”. Now, technically, the United Nations is an organization and a GROUP of nations. Did you intend the Nation listing to refer to “All the Nations in the United Nations”, or did you really intend it to say “United States” (which won overwhelmingly last year) but ended up mislabeled by someone working for you who is either an induhvidual or Acting U.S. Representative to the U.N. John Bolton? Now I could understand retiring the U.S. from Weasel competition after last year, but if you mean ‘Everybody in the U.N.’ you really should say it more clearly. Thank you for your attentiveness to this weasely message.

I hope you will all do your weasely duty and vote. Several times if you can, because that’s the Weasely Way. The U.N. duplication is not the only ‘interesting’ thing among the nominations. I was rather pleased to see “Weaseliest Profession” dropped in favor of “Weaseliest Industry”. And splitting “Weaseliest Individual” into Politician, Celebrity, Sports Person and Pundit/Celebrity, although they seemed to have trouble finding non-right-wing-blowhards for that last category: Michael Moore hasn’t done much this year and “The Staff of the N.Y. Times” sounds almost generic; and thanks to Judith Miller, there are almost as many liberals pissed at the Times as conservatives. But including Nancy Grace was brilliant. I thought this was going to be Ann Coulter’s year, but can she take credit for the suicide of one of her reporting victimssubjects? And who would have expected just a couple months ago that one of the top contenders for “Weaseliest Company” would be HP? (I’d write more about it, but I’m using an HP computer, and, you know, they might be listening) Still, I think they included Michael Jackson among “Weaseliest Celebrities” just to fill out the category. And not including Congress among “Weaseliest Organization” is an obvious oversight. But if I can mobilize my audience of several, as long as the U.S. is not on the “Weaseliest Nation” list, I’d push for Pakistan. I mean, most of the countries on the list have openly done bad things lately, but Pakistan has been the most sneaky about what it’s up to, and isn’t that what Weaseliness is all about?

I feel somehow obligated to recognize Dick Tracy’s 75th Birthday… because, well, today you couldn’t sneeze on the comics page of your newspaper without getting snot on a Dick Tracy tribute strip…

First, of course was Tracy’s own strip, as the current artist-in-charge, Dick Locher, paid tribute to the man who started it all (and made his cushy job possible)…

Alley Oop (who is 2 years away from his own 75th) was right in the middle of time-traveling to the 21st Century, so Detective Tracy could step right in for a quick cameo…

Beetle Bailey (who’s 56 himself) stretched a little to make a Dick Tracy-themed joke…

Gil Thorp (he’s 48) offered up a groaner of a Dick Tracy reference…

The Wizard of Id (42) namechecked not only Tracy but also the pre-Tracy comic strip detective Hawkshaw and Fearless Fosdick, the Dick Tracy parody that was a comic-strip-within-the-comic-strip for Al Capp’s Li’l Abner. But if you don’t know the references, you’ll never get the joke…

Luann (21 but still in high school) just put a picture of the detective in the background, as did Shoe (29), but Shoe did it a little more creatively…

Among the comics page youngsters, Frazz (5) offered up a relevant if only mildly humorous reference to Tracy’s “2-Way Wrist RadioTV”…

Dog Eat Doug (less a year in the papers, a few months more on the web) catches the title characters watching one of Tracy’s movie/tv incarnations and made his age the punchline…

Grand Avenue (7 years running but I never heard of it before I started accumulating comics for this blog) namechecks Tracy’s comic book adventures…

Silo Roberts (2 years) was fortunate to be doing a series of “guest star” comics with various mostly-real-life famous folk, but Dick fit in just fine (and if you’re confused, well, that’s par for the course for this quirky comic)…

Some of the single panel comics without regular characters gave Detective Tracy center stage. Here are Off the Mark, Loose Parts and Rubes (with a mildly disturbing use of the characters from another comic that recently had a 75th Anniversary)…

…and a mere namecheck from 9 to 5…

But the most impressive Dick Tracy salute came from the almost-88-year-old Gasoline Alley, whose current artist may be wishing he was doing something else, because he brought Dick Tracy into the strip for a storyline that covered the last month, featuring lots of in-jokes like Chester-Gouldesque little explanatory pointers, a Fearless Fosdick reference, a cameo appearance by B.O. Plenty (one of Tracy’s most colorful minor characters) and a murder victim named Chester Dluog…

Have you ever seen Dick Tracy with such a big smile?

Among the comics that did NOT have references to Dick Tracy today, I must point out two… Doonesbury came close with a line about a “police cruiser in a tree” and Soup to Nutz had a background picture of a very un-Dick-Tracy character: Bingo the One-Eared Rabbit from Matt Groening’s Life in Hell…

Nothing (yet) from any purely web-based comics about Dick Tracy today, but I’d be surprised if Medium Large doesn’t have something when it updates later today…

ADDENDUMDUM: No, ML did not go for Dick today, instead opting for an exciting new product. And thanks to commenter Mason for pointing out the Brewster Rockit homage (and also the word ‘homage’ which I shoulda used myself, but, hey, I just did!). I actually saw the strip in question but did not ’see’ the Dick Tracy in it, which shows you how interested I am in Brewster Rockit… although I already thought this joke was better-than-average for the spaceguy comic… but then, I identify with Oldbot more than any other character in the strip…

Then start clicking…

Beware the Night Poodles!

I love it when a flan comes together.

The jelly mix has turned evil!

The virus was victorious once again.

The swallows have returned! And this time they’ve got guns!

‘Throw salt in their eyes! THEIR EYES!’ I screamed. That’s when the battle turned.

How to tell if your lemon is haunted

I’m collecting for the Fire Wizards With No Self-Control Benefit Fund.

“I had this rocket sled left over from a Siberian mission last year.” “Was that when you had to punch the itinerant Russians?” “Yes, I told them in no uncertain terms that a nuclear warhead is not a toy.”

I want to challenge a rainbow to a duel… and lose.

“So the giant bear is…” “Evil.” “And the giant dwarf is…” “An oxymoron.”

It looks like a dump truck barfed on Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree.

The legendary Meatball Brigades storm Nazi Germany, defeating Hitler.

Look out for that wine rack… and the piranha tank!

It’s OK if he kills himself, but I’m not allowed to help?

The best part of coffee is the sugar and the caramel and the whipped cream and the bacon bits.

A salami is created at a random point somewhere in the multiverse.

Import Jared Levine from Manhattan 3, circa 1982… Now import three dozen Scooby Doo metal lunchboxes about a hundred feet directly above him.
This one was actually last week, but it seemed like the opening shot in the current absurdist war…

“I’d like to introduce you to an indistructable friend of mine.” “We’ll see about that!” … “You can hug him too.” “Oh! he’s so coldly destructive!”

“I’m gonna get mugged by a nine-foot pterydactyl if I don’t watch my back.” “Nah, he’d hafta drink like four bottles of vermouth before Gary’d show up.”

Faye would have beat me to death with Hannelore, who’d have gone rigid with catatonic horror.

“And what are the people of your world?” “Tofu.”

The quantum anomaly swallowed up my vintage John Deere, triggering certain repurcussions in remote arms of the galaxy… Pap is considering a hip replacement, but is insisting on a test drive… and Madeleine, my jersey heffer, is working on her French verb forms at the Sorbonne.

“No tractor today.” “Tractor tomorrow?” “Maybe if you eat beans for dinner.” “I like tractor… no beans.” “There is no more food but beans because of so many tractors.”

Why can’t I get the hooker to kill all the space invaders?

“There’s a conehead in my office… I’m a dead man.” “Well, get him in here! We need a fifth for Celebrity Jeopardy on Xbox.”

Can I phone a consonant?

Blame the stuffed animal.

Now you’re telling me one inanimate object killed another inanimate object for its money?

You look like a Borg phone operator.

Sloth, Anger, Pride, Envy and a fat dude eatin’ slugs.

The squirrel swarm is like a tsunami.

When the snake falls in love with the spaghetti, it’s time to buy a new hat. You look more flustered than a barefoot squirrel at a tire store.

I’m happier than a wooden spoon at a spelling bee.

“I’m all over that like a caterpillar on my Sunday Pants.” “Does that mean yes?” “Do birds eat beans to fly faster?”

Were you scared shirtless?

My bloodstream is full of slapstick.

Holy $#!†! It’s Crazy O’Clock!

And one that was not expressed in words, but it would be truly ironic if this week of non-sequiturity were not to include one example from Non-Sequitur:

The following is intended as an affectionate tribute to a comic strip I liked, and not as an exercise in mass copyright enfringement, especially considering that, with the strip’s official website taken down, there is not much else out there about this imaginative story about an imaginative storyteller.

Franklin, we barely knew thee. Which is not all that surprising for a comic character with almost as little commitment to the truth as President Bush. Or one who un-aged several decades in a last-ditch effort to build an audience. Or one who took a familiar comedic premise, the “teller of tall tales”, and tried to take it in several different directions at once. But that was the most endearing thing about Franklin Fibbs: he was quite unpredictable.

One day he would tell a totally fantabulously impossible tale, with profuse visual punning…

the next day telling a ‘normal’ story that takes a bizarre turn…

Many of his tales showed him somewhat less than heroic…

He was capable of making some rather unique cultural references…

…as well as some very silly old jokes…

In the earliest strips, Fibbs had a sort of ‘old geezer’ vibe…

But his artists wisely abandoned it as they explored all the various directions the strip could go, and Franklin (and his wife Paloma) both became more ‘age-indistinct’.

Paloma sometimes served as Franklin’s debunker, but just as often was a semi-receptive audience for his yarn-weaving.

Still either the syndicator (King Features) or the newspapers pigeonholed Franklin Fibbs as an “old geezer” comic (and aren’t there more than enough of those?), so this spring, he underwent a somewhat bizarre ‘makeover’…






So, “Little Fibbs” began his short but eventful run. Of course, with a talking cat as a straight ‘man’ (and without any explanation why the cat can talk, unlike Sheldon), it begins requiring a substantial suspension of disbelief, and the following strip a week later, while attemptung to “clear things up”, really didn’t.

“Little Fibbs” had its moments; after all, Hollis Brown and Wes Hargis, the talented duo behind the first year-and-a-half were still doing the strip. Some made good use of the “Fibbs as a kid” motif…


Others could have just as well been done with Old Franklin…

But two weeks ago, Fibbs did a Sunday strip that was pointedly political…

(and in the process suggested that there might have been other opinionated chapters in the Fibbs saga, but were most likely vetoed by the same syndicate that gives Mallard Fillmore free reign to spout its frequently fact-free opinions)

Then the next day, the news was broken in the strip…

Having the reduced the ‘fourth wall’ to a pile of rubble, Little Fibbs tried to abandon the sinking strip…

Keeping a sense of humor to the bitter end, the creators turned it upon themselves…

(…although the reference to ‘two weeks’ occurring one week after the first announcement does suggest that there were some strips in the series that didn’t get past the syndicate’s editors…)

But especially about the ill-fated age change…

And now, the final frames of Franklin Fibbs (hot off the Daily Ink Website)…

Kind of underwhelming, but I’m sure they have a great story behind it.

Sorry for the long delay before updating, but I was out saving the world. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it. (See? You can learn something from Franklin Fibbs.)

Anyway, yes, there was one more Sunday strip after the final daily installment. (Something to do with longer lead times for providing the Sunday color to some newspapers, probably.) And it revisited Little Franklin’s daily tales three weeks earier about his confrontations with a “Terminator”, in this case doing a gag Monty Python fans will recognize from “Holy Grail”:

Scwarzenegger meets the Black Knight. An almost obvious mash-up, but an appropriate way to “terminate” the strip.

No. I didn’t disappear with Franklin Fibbs. Just needed to take care of other business. But I’m back, feeling very comicky and I want a Pineapple Cannon. Or a Pineapple Pizza (Sorry, Dad).

Our ongoing ClownWatch has a sighting of a fashion-forward clown at the Flying McCoys, one of the umpteen Far Side Wannabe panels.

Anyway, since I have some empty space to fill, this comic reminds me of a recent chatversation:

them: So what do you all wear?

me: Oh, no. I’m not going to start talking about what I’m wearing. I may want to have a political career someday.

them: Aw, we all know you’re wearing a full clown suit, Wendell.

me: No, only the shoes.

them: Clown shoes? In the house?

me: Why not? It just makes sense that shoes 40 sizes too big would be more comfortable than slippers…

From the Department of things that logically are not very funny, but made me laugh way more than they should, via Crankshaft:

MAKE THE DOO WOP STOP!!!

Something very strange is happening at Sheldon, but not in the strip itself. It’s the effect the antics of Sheldon’s talking duck Arthur is having on other comics…

Sunday, October 15, 2006:

Sunday, October 22, 2006 (Foxtrot):

Even stranger…
Wednesday and Thursday, October 18 & 19:

Then, Saturday and Monday, October 21 & 23 (Liberty Meadows):

And isn’t LM just rerunning strips from like seven years ago or something. The duck pirates are TOO much of a coincidence… Let’s see what Arthur is doing today… okay, Sheldon’s page on comics.com is broken again… *sigh*