Comics Rewritten! Yay!

Fred Basset, 8/7/08:
GIANT DOG. ENJOY.

Gil Thorp, 8/7/08:
"Not to be a gigantic dick, but mind if I question your occupation -- nay, your life? The existence of your superiors renders you obsolete. Why haven't you killed yourself? I won't stand around to listen to your answer. I have to get to a baseball game I'm driving 5 hours for."

Marvin, 8/7/08:

"I hate you, child. Cower as I throw this billiard ball at you. Once I finish with you, I'm going to find that bipedal dog of ours..."

Deconstruction of Meta-comics

Herb and Jamaal 7/31/08
Ha ha, Herb has a boring life. No really, he does. I read this every day. Still, there are some things about this comic I don't understand:

• Is Herb's wife directing her rant at me, the reader? Does she not understand I cannot hear her thoughts, or is she so self-aware that she knows she is a character in a comic? Creepy.
  
• Is the wife's rant not actually a rant at all, but rather the text of the book she is reading? If so, is she reading a book about the comic she is currently in a la The Neverending Story? Still creepy (but if a big white dragon appears tomorrow, this comic will improve one thousand percent).
• Did Herb actually have to narrate twelve years of his life to himself in one night? That is, does he start from birth every night, or just start from where he left off the night before? If we're going with the whole self-aware comic hypothesis, Herb didn't even have a childhood. This is getting creepier the deeper we get into it.
  
• Most importantly, how could Herb possibly sleep when he is actively telling a story (even a boring story that no one would ever listen to)? Isn't that more or less not possible?

No matter what conlcusions may be made, the overarching fact is undisputed: Herb's life is boring.

Fred Basset 7/31/07
Fred Basset pretty much has two styles of jokes: incredibly tame puns and self-aware meta-comics, as exemplified in today's installment. The incredibly tame puns are like my cup of mental earl grey tea in the morning. They are nicely drawn, gentle, and bring a feeling of contentment. The other kind, usually involving Fred in a blank white space accidentally knocking down the sides of the panels or talking to the camera, are like a disgusting cup of smack-the-reader-in-the-face. How can a cartoonist be so lazy and uncreativ...aww those ears in the third panel are just so darn cute! Next time, Fred Basset! Next Time!

Damned hippies, what with their music machines...

Fred Basset, 7/16/08
I've always had mixed feeling about Fred Basset. These feelings mainly stem from the fact that it's not funny, and generally doesn't try to be, and the fact I've always derived enjoyment out of the way Michael Martin (the artist of the last several thousand strips) draws dogs. I cannot defend that statement -- that' s probably the worst reason to read a comic.

The one thing I consistently notice in Fred Basset, though, is that, even moreso than other legacy strips, it feels old. Not like it's from the past, but like it's some direct mind-to-comic transfer of an British octogenarian's thoughts. This is the best explanation I can come up with why two hippies are listening to iPod-esque machines, double-tied around their necks in a manner I can hardly recommend in some terrible mixture of the past, present, and completely wrong. The world of Fred Basset is a swirling mixture of the time periods its creator neither gives a crap about nor approves of. I'd bet you ten bucks those iPodesques are playing, respectively, the Bee Gees and Michael Jackson.