Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Meaningless Dialogue Almost too Expansive for the Meaningless Images that Surround It

1/14/09

What I hate most about Jack Elrod's style is the progression of time within the context of his medium. Let's face it, everyone's actions over the last week are justified. Patty should have left after Mark returned, and Cherry and Mark should seek out Patty after finishing up breakfast. Nobody's being impolite, overbearing, or unreasonable. All I'm wondering is why we have to be present for all of these fucking scraps of minutae. Three small panels at a time.


We didn't need to watch the Trails saddle up the horses for their woodsy ride. Do we need to see Doc holding up plate after plate of breakfast items? Do we need the constant references to Cherry's revolting haircut? We get it -- Mark's hair would look identical if he grew it out. Get a fucking story going here, dammit. I'm running out of things to make fun of.

3 comments:

x said...

This is horse shit, pun intended. At least in Dragonball Z, when they spent three full episodes on Vegeta screaming louder and louder, glowing brighter and brighter, it ended when he blew himself up with the force of 10 A-bombs in an attempt to destroy Maajin Buu and save the world in an episode of sublime heroics and self-sacrifice. Something tells me that Patty is not going to insist that the only way to save the swamp is for her to strap dynamite to her chest and gain access to shrimp boat in the guise of a loose hooker. Do you think whoever's writing this actually knows what's wrong with Patty? Cause I don't. In fact, I think you should start a contest. I have five bucks that says Patty's worried that the shrimp boat terrorists are capable of awful things, and that it will take 15 more panels for her to reveal that concern.

Keith said...

Hmmm... I've already posited some hair-brained theories regarding Patty, but I will go back over them because this comic strip fucking blows. 1. An alligator is eating her pet chihuahua and she needs help pushing the rest of his little body down the gullet of the lizard -- she's always secretly hated that damn dog. 2. There is a warren of rabbits overrunning her bedroom, as 2 of them managed to get in just a week ago and, due to the ever-popular "fucking like rabbits," she now has 24 of the little bunnies, with 12 more on the way. Really, she wouldn't mind it so much except for the little pellets of rabbit turds, or 3. Patty is really a dude and just ran out of his estrogen prescription; he needs to fill it immediately if he ever wants that operation, but the swamp tractor blew a gasket. (in school, "Patty" went by Patrick, but changed it after graduation. For future reference, I will just refer to him as "Pat."

Unknown said...

"Flaaahhp-Jaccckkzzzz! Flaaahhp-Jaccckkzzzz! I lovvvve Flaaahhp-Jaccckkzzzz!" - Andy