Product Placement in Milford: FAIL

2/27/09

Panel one failed product placement: “Cheezy Poofs! Like Cheesy Poofs, except Cartman has a nose, I guess.”

Panel two failed product placement: “Bob’s Bruise Cream: Heals a shiner on a black guy’s face (or whatever ethnicity he might be) in several weeks, or maybe it doesn’t.”

Panel three failed product placement: “Zagnuts: For when Shitty Nutboys are just too good for you. They’re free and taste like manure!”

2/28/09

Back at school, where product placement is a bit harder to sneak into the comic, Bryce continues to harass Ashley as she studies at the only workstation in Milford’s library. (The only other station is apparently being used to store  Speak n’ Spells and other mysterious crap.) Ashley has taken to working extremely hard, even taking the “Read or Die!” poster a bit too seriously, to the point where she forces Bryce to take her to the worst event ever (besides a Gil Thorp fan convention): a school dance!

Panel 3 Answer: No, but you do look like the mutant patrol.

Hey baby, check out the meat belt holdin’ up my trousers!

Sure Bryce could go to the Bucket with Steve and either jerk Andrew or boringly reformed Cully,(seriously, can anyone tell the difference?) …but he’d rather not be seen in the company of a guy wearing an “Anus Gear” shirt featuring a giant sphincter on the back. After all, his “Public Enema” shirt is waaaaay cooler.

No he’d rather head off to the Shitti-Mart to purchase a surprisingly overpriced Slim Jim to complete his “sticks-o’-meat” belt. It might look like dynamite, but it’s really composed of hot dogs…Armour hot dogs! (“What kind of man wears Armour hot dogs?” – Super-Nintendo Chalmers)

Me fail English? That’s Unpossible.

Today a new feature at This Week in Milford: Ralph Wiggum speaks to Chief Whigham! Ralph will offer some of his classic advice, and I’ll translate for poor Whigham…

Ralph on Panel 1: “Your eyes need diapers.”
Translation: Stop trying to draw sweat on characters. It just looks like hideous warts.

Ralph on Panel 2: “I bent my wookie.”
Translation: Hey, guess what? People’s arms don’t bend at 180 degree angles at the elbow, at least not without them screaming in horrible agony.

Ralph on Panel 3: “Your hair is tall and pretty.”
Translation: Keep up the good work on the random mullet appearances. (As long as you never show us Elmer Vargas again, that is…)

and bonus commentary:
Ralph on the current plot: “This feels cold and hurty.”

Pity their poor offspring

Bryce breaks protocol from the giant chess game in progress, presumably to alert Ashley of her myriad of problems (i.e. entire face explosion, her ankle tracking bracelet is showing, she appears to have pinned her wrist to her mini-skirt…)

But no…in a shock to absolutely none of you, he asks her out on a date. No doubt this will lead to children with the freakiest gigantor hands and lips ever. Luckily Rubin will drop this storyline well before we get a chance to see such abominations of nature.

Meanwhile, just outside Jerkwater Town, U.S.A…

2/21/09

2/23/09

Is the Swifti Mart the only place to go shopping in this down-market dump of a tank town? Or just the only place formerly rich Bryce can afford? Because I find it rather odd that he’d travel to a convenience store located outside city limits to shop for his crappy snacks, especially when he doesn’t appear to be purchasing Nutboys*.  Maybe he came to laugh at the ridiculous new visor Swifti Mart employees are required to wear (so which is it? Shop smart, or shop S-Mart? Lord knows it can’t be both…)

Ashley, after showing off her lip and eyebrow implants, as well as her fancy S ear tattoo and morphing earrings, feels the need to psycho-analyze why Bryce is a jerk. So you think it’s because he’s upset about living in Milford? Well since that would make everyone in town a jerk…(hmm, maybe she’s on to something after all?), that  can’t be it. No, I think some people, like Bryce for example, are just assholes, plain and simple. Although maybe this guy is   because his head is melting by the end of today’s comic.

*They’re shitty, at least since December of last year!

Blunder Twin Powers Activate!

What have we learned from today’s strip? Apparently that the Larkin household is a serious deathtrap. From killer cabinets to slippery stairs, it has been injuring everyone lately! At least that’s what I figure must be going on, because by no means would any character in this comic ever be less than truthful. After all, who would want to imagine some sort of secret sado-masochistic abusive sexual relationship between twins? Oh…you weren’t thinking that? But you are now? Well, you’re welcome for that.

Now that I went too far, I’ll back off a bit and ask a few pertinent questions: Like why is Bryce’s breakfast smiling at him? Why didn’t we get to witness any physical violence, only see the after-effects? Why does Brenda have rings around her hair? (Has the floor polisher in their danger-house gone wacko as well?) Finally, when Brenda’s freak hand got knocked off, why did she re-tape it back onto the wrong arm?

It’s not really torture if nobody cares.

….and Jason’s sabbatical from this blog is now over! Where was I, you ask? Well, let’s just say I used to work for Apex Industrial. Fortunately, my current employer allows me to stay at home all day. (On the down side, my boss is not potty-trained, unable to walk or form a coherent sentence, and doesn’t pay me a dime. But hey, at least she’s cute as a button!) Please all give a gigantic thanks to Ned Ryerson for pinch hitting again at a moment’s notice. I feel horrible I may be responsible for killing so many of his brain cells, but I suppose that’s the risk we take to bring you this mind-crushing commentary.

And on to the comic! First, we’re witness to the punishing torture within the Larkin household: Brenda must stand perfectly still as her parents scuff around the carpet and then zap her with copious servings of electric shock! (which they learned from their lame neighbor, Electro.) Then after an appropriate length grounding of approximately five years, Brenda is tortured even more by her idiot brother, who likes to use 103 year-old terminology (that I’ve never heard used in my life) to insult Milford and her loser boyfriend. Naturally, this makes her eyes explode.

While you were slippin’ out, somebody else was slippin’ in

2/18/09

Phew, I’m glad the raccoon people transformed back into Dylan and Steve Rosen (who I thought must have been another Steve yesterday as I was thrown by whatever lighting conditions Whigham was trying to depict – the darkened interior of a school bus, I suppose). Now Dylan can paint a picture of his and Brenda’s nocturnal activities.  I hope Steve’s brain is handling the image better than mine.

Today’s crown jewel, however, is that last panel. Mr. Larkin catches Brenda slipping out. I’m just going to assume that Mr. Larkin leads some sort of double life where he has to slip out in the middle of the night and his slipping out or in schedule just happened to coincide with Brenda’s. I don’t know why else he’d be lurking around the outside of the house complete with necktie in the middle of the night. Also, the sight of Brenda humping the window sill just makes me laugh. It reminds me of this old George Carlin bit about a girl awakening sexually while sliding down the banister and eventually introducing her parents to her “love interest”:
Mom, Dad, I’d like to introduce you to the banister.
What do you do for a living?
I’m a handrail.
Do you think you can support my daughter?
As long as she hangs on to the handrail.