Ray Billingsley describes
himself as “trying to influence his young readers in positive
ways,” but I’m struggling to see how. By egregiously abusing the quotation
mark
to connote disapproval of such modern-day terms as “rap” and “knack,”
Billingsley perpetuates the misleadingly non-misleading use of
quotation marks on handpainted store signs (“Special Sale!”) that
should have died away with the invention of the italic and bold font
styles. But more to the point, Curtis is one scary future-wife-beating
misogynist:

Curtis’s visage in the last panel is downright “I’ll whoop yo’
ass bi@tch”
frightening. Now I know tomorrow’s episode will feature some kind of
ego-deflating comeback that will put Curtis back in his place, but
I’ve seen him do this to Michelle enough times to know that this
mad-eyed control freak is a repeat batterer. Makes you wonder if
Michelle is
the one with her head on straight for constantly spurning Curtis, while
plain ole Chutney’s crush on Curtis just shows that she’s got bad
taste in men…

Update: As per the usual
upshot in this supposedly family-values-oriented comic strip, Michelle
ended up giving Curtis a black eye. Childhood violence sure is funny,
isn’t i?

Well, we have it… Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
A little anti-climatic, really — Rachel’s employer’s bookstore was
allowed to distribute books to “employees,” and I think they
interpreted the concept a tad broadly, so she had the book in her hands
by 5pm tonight. Anyway, while the Globe’s Sidekick stupidly recommended
picking up the book at the Harvard Coop (which is nothing more than a
Harvard-skinned
Barnes & Noble), I have fond memories of standing on line last
summer, eating an ice cream cone and waiting with all the other adult
kids for the stroke of midnight when we could start picking up Order of the Phoenix at Curious George Goes to Wordsworth. Sadly, Wordsworth itself closed between then and now. Thanks, Sidekick, for kicking indie bookstores in the stomach.

Unfortunately, we’re leaving tomorrow morning for New York. Maybe I can get Rachel to read it to me in the car?

Well, in the Boston Globe comics showdown, Pardon My Planet is off to a bad start this week. Today’s strip doesn’t even make any sense (I checked with Rachel; she doesn’t get it either):

OK, so what’s going on here? Is the waiter screwing up a gift
for the nice ’80s girl, or trying to shame the big leprechaun guy on
the right? Is that a pie on the table, or the shredded remains of a
credit card? What, exactly, are the couple doing with their hands? And is that art on the wall, or does ’80s Girl think in
abstract squiggles?

Right now Red and Rover is beating Pardon My Planet 4:1 on the faceoff on the Comics Curmudgeon forum… cast your vote for your favorite now.

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence of timing, but for the past few days the Globe’s new addition, Prickly City,
has given Mallard Fillmore’s daily screed the full stereo effect. Now,
going through the strip’s archives I’ll grant that PC might actually be
funny. So far, though, it feels like more dead weight added to the
burden already imposed by Doonesbury, Non Sequitur, and our friend the duck.