B.ulging F.reakish F.rankenstein!

Lots of disconnected thoughts today, so each one gets its own short paragraph.

Any more appearances like the above and I swear I’m renaming him “Elmer the Slack-Jawed Mullet Yokel.”

Where is Panel 1 taking place? An enormous tepee?

Mysterious object alert: Yokel lunchbox? Illegal Immigrant tracking robot? Futuristic napkin holder? Stolen cash register?

If that is indeed Lisa Wyche…she wins for “Most Improved-Looking Character in the Whigham Era.”

o-4 for Brendan-Oyl? Start the suicide watch. Apparently even the happy kitty shirt can’t cheer her up.

Holy rippling Gil muscles, Batman! Looks like someone misses drawing superheroes. Are we going to have to start drug testing in this comic?

What’s your point Gil? That only American citizens can play baseball? C’mon, man. Even Marty Moon realizes it’s no longer 1953.

I hope Kaz isn’t jealous of Gil cheating on him with a new running partner.

Mimi wins for the most awkwardly phrased expositional phrase of the week. Why would she drop the “B.F.F.” acronym* to her old fart husband?

Looking at the quaint yet insane scenery, maybe it is 1953. Or the apocalypse.

*For those not in the know, B.F.F.=”Bulemic French Fry”, which is what all the kids are calling each other these days. What’s with these kids today?

Someone’s Been Doing His Homework!

While nobody would mistake this artwork for a Frank 1.0 train wreck, it does show that the new artist has been doing his homework on how to add a bit of extra Gil Thorp weirdness.

Creepy shadow crowd? Check!

Spontaneous confetti at every win! Check!

Marty Moon interview featuring Marty holding some mysterious non-microphone or tape recorder object? Check!

(And while it’s waaaaay to small…) At least one Kaz earring? Check!

The check-list of positives is just enough for me to overlook Kaz’s hair. (At least it’s still rather odd looking I suppose.) I’ll just stay chipper with Gil and leave it at that.

Gil visits city, attends inning of baseball game.

Dunno about you, but I really enjoyed today’s comic! Despite the fact this game won’t end for another week or so, there’s a whole lot to like here.

The first panel gives us an absolutely demented-looking Marty Moon, with a serious case of sausage fingers, as well as a very special onlooker: Sam Cassell, the NBA’s favorite alien.

Then the second (bonus-wide for big, big action!) panel gives us something close to resembling an actual slide into second base. Though the longer you look at it the weirder it becomes. For instance, I think #7’s legs are somehow simultaneously in front of him and behind him…is he sliding torso first? Additionally, he may be called for interference for inserting his hand into the fielder’s glove. And can that really be a regulation helmet? Or did Seton CC design special backless helmets to allow the full glory of their players’ mullets to shine through? (If so, we need to get Elmer one of those.)

Moving along, we have what I’d guess is Gil and Kaz in the dugout, but for all I know they might just be in prison watching the game on closed-circuit television. But what the crap is Gil wearing? My best guess is he was recruited by Big Ray to join the Jungle Patrol, where someone chopped of his right hand with a machete. Meanwhile, the depiction of Kaz is more promising than the last few attempts…with the moderately fluffy hair and all. He’s also closer to the numskull we’ve grown to love, as he feels the need to point at his own face while speaking. (”Me Kaz! Kaz knows to talk when pointed at by Kaz!”) However, I’m going to have to give him an incomplete grade for the day, based on the fact that inexplicable portions of his shirt are simply missing. Maybe they were chopped off with a machete as well?

Unleash that slider or I’ll all but force you to the Bucket!

According to my in-depth calculations, at the speed this game is going it will be completed next Monday, and the Milford baseball season will likely conclude in 2011.

Forgettable Bill Hawkins does his best one-legged Bill Ritter contorted limbo impression to score the game’s first run. Lucky for him the opposing catcher never heard of the concept of fielding the throw in front of the plate rather than behind it.

But whoa, hold on…this game is moving way too fast! We better call time out! (Only Tyler Jay does his best to hide his dialogue in the corner of the panel where I completely missed it upon first reading.) I wondered why a nimrod who’s suffered so much self-inflicted brain damage would bother wearing all that catcher’s equipment. But pan back in the third panel and it becomes clearer: By court order, since he refused to stop beating himself with blunt objects, self-clubbin’ Tyler has had an entire catchers outfit fused directly to his body! And in the absence of Crazy Coach Clambake, Tyler has had to step up and become the wacky pitch advisor for the Mudlarks. Why not Gil, you ask? Because he’s still sitting in his vast basement, trying to figure out what that strange guy at the Rotary Club meant about amnesty for illegals. (“Damned getting involved with the students lives…Now I remembered why I stopped caring in the first place!”)

Andrew goes all Tancredo on us

5/3/08

Branden-Oyl and her freakish fingers are right, Elmer. This isn’t really a thing you should tell the entire school about. You may think these folks are your friends, but if you look closely, some of them are actually douchebags with sunglasses on top of their head that you thwarted years ago using your Jedi flipper hand waving. And apparently at least one of your baseball teammates is a total Tancredo.

But of bigger concern to me here is: what is that unidentified blob in the bottom left of the final panel? Does whiny Jim Gross have a giant uni-man-boob? Or did the jerk (that turns out to be Andrew) carbon-copy his left shoulder and place it in front of his friends as part of his immigration stance (“Look how America must shoulder the burden of illegal immigration!”)

5/5/08

Oh boy. So I guess Andrew “Formerly known as Curley-Horse before he started wearing a hat and a different artist drew him” Gregory is the requisite dick of the moment. Neal Rubin has really been all over the map with this character…first he was an arrogant jerk, then a lovable do-no-wrong big brother with a heart of gold, and now he’s back to being the dick of the school. (Perhaps the real Andrew Gregory pissed off Neal, then made up with him, then pissed him off again?) So how long ’til Andrew has another change of heart and complete character turn? Depends on you, real Andrew Gregory! Let us know when you send your next apology to Mr. Rubin.

At least Elmer can confide in some scarred faceless weirdo while he changes into his Tron gear and prepares to ride his lightbike around the locker room.

Meanwhile, Binghampton, New York-based Seton Catholic Central High School travels to Milford for some moderately confusing baseball action. Discuss!

What’s Spanish for adios? I think it’s “Week of soul-crushing exposition.”

Elmer isn’t scared of being deported. Because when INS comes for him he’ll just bitch slap them with those giant mitts of his then drive off in his pimped-out Geo Tracker. But what the hell does “We’re like a TV family” even mean? Does it mean his family consists of an overweight, unpleasant, unfunny guy married to an unrealistically hot wife, with three wisecracking kids spout one-liners that no real child would ever say? If so, please kick them out of here immediately. But seeing as how this is weird, weird Milford, it’s more likely they’re a TV family from some weird Mexican novela.

Meanwhile Mimi is being groped by cloud boy!

Juan Valdez works for my dad

“So, Elmer, you’re gonna continue this story yet another day, eh?”
“Yup! I figure if I’m gonna bore you with details, it might as well be all week.”
“It’s gone on so long, my wacky hair ball has doubled in size! And your mullet has gotten so long and flowing…Sexy!”
“Hold that thought. We’re headed to another flashback! In this one, we see how my dad’s massive hands and tiny blank clipboard got him far in the world of brick magic. After Old Man Dolan kicked it, there was nobody in charge, so Dad started showing up to work in a tie, yelling and pointing a lot, so folks figured he must be the asshole in charge. Eventually with his slick hair and groomed moustache, he was promoted to ‘Evil county commissioner villain in Mark Trail‘ but soon realized that he’d rather return to Gil Thorp than get punched in the face by Mark Trail’s fists o’ justice…so here we are.”
“Yawn.”
“Also, he installed a ceiling camera in our living room so he could monitor my mother and sisters at all times.”
“Fabulous. But will I get to hear more tomorrow?”
“Presuming Gil is still passed out drunk…yes.”

Brick-a-Brak

Thank god for Chief Whigham’s wacky angle artwork! If Frank Bolle had drawn this comic I would probably have ended up in a coma like poor Danny DeVito. But now at least I can see what a conversation about paperwork looks like from the interior of a shoe store! Then get an inside look into Mr. DeVito’s wood-paneled office lifestyle! Then be confused along with Armando as a dude with pizza dough on his head flashes gang signals in the hospital, while KAZ-BOT keeps ol’ Danny on life support!

As for this plot, I’m reminded of what Marge Simpson once said to Apu after he explained how circumstances led to him becoming an illegal immigrant: “What you’re saying is so understandable. And really, your only crime was violating U.S. law.”

More importantly, you can now order “Armando Vargas, Brick Magician” action figures! (Note, may be mislabeled as “Brak’s Dad.” Don’t worry. That’s just a typo.)

Armando Vargas: “Poof Mason” Cover Boy

Unlike his father, a magician with bricks (”And now watch as I make all Shaqille O’Neal’s free throws disappear!”), Elmer is a magician at waste management. He’s already managed to fit a building, a tree, a traffic signal and Brendan-Oyl into an ordinary trash bin…and now he’s going to squeeze a conch shell in there!

Meanwhile, in the past or something, baby Elmer is so frightened of being over-swaddled by his parents that, magic mason be damned, he’s frantically searching for the nearest emergency exit.

Finally, the boring conversation of the day is kept almost interesting by Brendan trying to walk with both legs inserted in the same pant leg, and a giant plumber’s crack ruining the left side of the panel.

Money panels exchanged for store credit only

I’m back from wherever it was that I was! But besides a couple insane action baseball games, looks like I didn’t miss a whole lot. Until today, of course which is just action-packed with….ugh, yeah, I can’t sell this comic as exciting, sorry. But at least there are a few things I can pretend are exciting. Like Elmer’s new goatee and experimentation with collagen lip injections…or his father’s rapid descent from cool lookin’ Vito to lame lookin’ Fredo.

The third panel is today’s money panel*…Not only do we have dialogue so stupid I’m not even going to try to  explain just how stupid it is, we also have the first documented appearance of NOMAR GARCIAPARRA’S EXTREMELY WIDE SANDWICH AND CHEESE EMPORIUM, a lamp post tagged by the Valley Central vandals using both colors, and faceless Brendan-Oyl and Elmullet denting up the newest car in town, a 2001 P.T. Cruiser, by smashing in the hood with their fat asses and an industrial-sized block of cheese.

*Approximate panel value: 12 cents.