Monday, November 13, 2006

Bliss


Phew, things are back to normal today. Just three:

On the Fasttrack by Bob Holbrook
Piranha Club by Billy Grace
Sherman's Lagoon by Joey Toomey

One of my favorite single-panel cartoons is Bliss. I love the haughty chuckle I get from a good New Yorker-style cartoon. I love to sit in my library with a glass of Cabernet and say to myself "oh, how delightful." But is there something I'm missing here in Monday's Bliss? Is there something about Abbot and Costello that I'm ignorant about that keeps me from truly appreciating the delightful cleverness of this gag? Please help.

12 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i don't know if this is limited to print only, but i found this one:

http://www.pbfcomics.com/archive/PBF195-The_Pacific_Council.jpg

10:36 PM  
Blogger Mike Podgor said...

The Abbot and Costello joke is probably just a reference to all those "Abbot and Costello Meet" movies they made where Abbot and Costello met pretty much every movie monster owned by Universal.

Also, if the SPP isn't limited to print comics, I'm going to start putting SPPs in my webcomic .

10:39 PM  
Blogger Carl Caputo said...

Mike P is probably right about the "Meet" part, but the humor is supposed to come from Snoop being able to hold his liquor and his drugs, where A & C cannot, since they're passed out on the couch. (A rougher gangsta might have killed them, but not Snoop. He just smoked them up, but they were lightweights.)

11:58 PM  
Blogger Brubaker said...

Believe it or not, the guy who draws "Bliss" used to draw cartoons for New Yorker, which could explain the style.

Don't understand that panel, though.

5:50 AM  
Blogger Charles CĂ©leste Hutchins said...

um, maybe because they're dead now?

8:46 AM  
Blogger Dave said...

I'd say that Snoop killed them, which doesn't really seem like him. I would bet that those guys could hold their own in a drinking match with just about anybody. They were from the drinking times, man. Small times, when everybody was drunk at dinner every damned night.

11:51 AM  
Blogger Illaqueability said...

prickly city had three silent panels (including an SPP) that ended in utter nonsense.

1:46 PM  
Blogger Raznor said...

Yeah, my impression it's just that they're dead. Whereas Snoop Dogg, he's very much not dead.

2:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'd have to agree, the premise is that Abbot and Costello couldn't handle whatever could've been in those aluminum cans, or whatever it is Snoop is smoking- but it is true they are dead...

The best Bliss I ever saw was a couple holding hands, and each person thinking "Should I dump them now?" with the caption: Soulmates.

4:18 PM  
Blogger Dave said...

You know, with the very thorough, longstanding deadness of A & C, maybe the joke is that Snoop had them exhumed and dumped on his couch to party with him? And he smokes it up and knocks back a few while they just lie there?

This panel gets less funny the more that I look at it.

12:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I presume that webcomics don't count since (a.) if they did then every attention-seeking comic artist on the planet would deliberately include them, (b.) there are way too many crummy webcomics to keep track of, (c.) Achewood would have to be featured just about every single day.

3:43 AM  
Blogger Skinner said...

Er, Snoop Dogg is known to smoke a lot of the "mary jane". A lot. I believe he has, as the kids say, "smoked out" Abbot and Costello.

11:52 PM  

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