Speaking of Superhero Spin-Offs

One Big Happy 7/30/08
I am really hoping the figure glaring at Ruthie in the fourth panel of today's One Big Happy is not merely sullen-eight-year-old Joe, but zombie-sullen-eight-year-old Joe. The stoop, the empty stare, and Ruthie's extreme reaction all suggest some brain-eatin' is about to commence. This can only mean one thing: a beyond awesome spin-off comic, most likely called "Ruthie Lombard: 6-Year-Old Zombie Hunter." In this comic I can imagine Ruthie (and most likely the poor kid, James) taking various weapons to the hordes of walking dead while reciting adorable malapropisms. and selling homemade art.

Heck, anything to get rid of that creepy Avis lady.

The Good (and Horrible) and the Bad (diffrently Horrible)

So, just to be counter-intuitive, I'm going with the truly bad first:

Gasoline Alley, 7/25/08:

It's pretty impressive for a comic to, non-self-referentially, just do an entire strip in darkness. It's impressive in the same sort of way a Hummer's fuel-efficiency is, though. My favorite part is how the strip makes no use of the utter darkness except to reference that it is, in fact, dark, and to stretch a two-panel comic (yelling, crashing) into a three-panel comic (yelling, crashing, explanation of the crashing).

The real tragedy is essentially the only thing I actually enjoy about Gasoline Alley is the pleasantly old-fashioned cartoon style of art. Thanks for making my reading of you even more unpleasant than usual, Gasoline Alley.

And now, the good, which is good because of just how awful/awesome it is:

One Big Happy, 7/25/08:


The comics proved me wrong! Cancer is hilarious!

I've stated before I like One Big Happy. Well, I really liked today's. I think dealing with symbols we've come to associate with tragedy (here the bald head indicating chemo, but elsewhere things like wheelchairs or whatnot) from a child's perspective is refreshing and often hilarious, but not in a mean way. That bordering of humor and tragedy can bring out the best of both, in my experience, and this strip made me laugh more than a newspaper comic has in a very long time. Plus, come on, just look how excited she is in that last panel. That alone is hilarious.

One Big Happy Burrrrn

One Big Happy 7/21/08:

I'm going to break comic blog taboo here and write about a strip I actually enjoy. I can explain my enjoyment of One Big Happy in no better way than to say that Ruthie is inexplicably adorable. She just is -- I'm not willing to contest this. That being said, there are three things I really enjoy about this strip:

1.) The dis factor: Nothing like calling an old lady old and shriveled to her face. I hear they love that.
2.) The irony: There's a likable irony in trying to reveal mortality to a comic strip character. Of anyone, they are the most immortal. Ask Dagwood, who, assuming an age of 22 when introduced (not an improbable age) should be over 100 now (for pete's sake, the main plot of the early strips was that he was the son of railroad barons and married a flapper girl).
3.) The implication of terror: There's a reason Ruthie's "YOU" takes up a solid fifth of that last panel and is accompanied by sheer, wide-eyed horror. The thought of a creepy old woman haunting your mirror? Pretty genuinely terrifying.

And this brings to a close today's chapter of "I explain why I find a comic funny." Come back later today (and every other day) for "I explain why a comic is stupid."