Victor Hugo or Ed Wood?

February 17, 2009


Panel 1: What's up with Mark, today? Kind of looks like he's practicing for the role of Quasimodo in the Lost Forest Community Playhouse version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Panel 2: This panel certainly doesn't dispel my sense that something is wrong with Mark's back. It does, however, make me wonder what kind of lighting the Jackelrod Sphere is envisioning for his art. Mark and the horse are shadowed as if lit by the sun (i.e. high and to the rear [kind of like Buck's preferred approach to Patty Frampton]). The squirrel, however, has the sort of lit-from-below effect one usually associates with middle school camping trips and cheesy haunted houses. What's his light source?

Panel 3: Y'know Mark, if a bullet "grazed" me, I'd pretty much consider myself wounded. I don't think Buck is going to appreciate your glibness.

GI Joe arms.

February 14, 2009


Panel 1: Cherry silently eyes Patty Frampton, wondering whether the platinum blond in her hair is real and scheming how to find out.

Panel 2: Cherry makes her move. Having undone her top button (that brazen hussy!), she invites Patty Frampton to spend the night. Her hand, slowly slides down Patty Frampton's pea coat-clad back.

Panel 3: Cherry vows to herself that she WILL help Patty Frampton forget about Bucky. A stoic titmouse gazes on.

February 16, 2009


Panel 1: I'm sorry. Why, exactly, does Patty Frampton want to talk about adopting with Ken the Kung-Fu Master? He hits her (or tries, at least), he throws glassware, he shoots at pets and, it turns out, his wigglies don't really wiggle. Basically, he's a piss poor husband. Why does Patty Frampton think that he'll be any better at being a father?

Panel 2: Forget about buggery and murder, take a look at what Mark is doing with his left arm. That's some crazy angles there.

Boobles.

February 13, 2009


Panel 1: Patty Frampton seems to believe that just because Mark wears a khaki unitard and writes for a "nature" magazine he knows about animals. Sure, Mark can give us our Sunday exegesis on the dining habits of planaria or the calcium content of antlers, but what does that mean in the real world? Does it mean that Mark knows how to track a philandering ungulate to his hide-out along the Mexican border? I doubt it. If Buck isn't in Mexico as I predict and is, in fact, wandering through the Lost Forest dazed and confused by the grazing blow he got from a chicken beak, how is Mark's "book learnin'" going to help? I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Interstitial Time Cue: This one is pointless. Really pointless. If we assume that the characters' experience of time is linear (and nothing suggests otherwise), then any scenario in which Patty Frampton goes to Mark's house one panel after deciding that Mark can help is, by definition, later.

Panel 2 I bet those mammary-like pillows Cherry put on the couch make Mark really, really uncomfortable. No doubt, they remind him of those icky things that Cherry makes him do behind closed doors.

Panel 3: "Patty, you ignorant slut! Of course Buck isn't alive. The only logical explanation for the disappearance of his body is that giant invisible spiders carried him away while you weren't looking. Now, forget about the deer."

Absurdist Bolds: A Poem by the Jackelrod Sphere

Not great
Patty! Patty?
Mark!
Kill it!
What’s this?
Hurry Honey!
Please don’t want
Patty and Trail?

This special edition of the Androgynous Naturalist has been brought to you by the Jackelrod Sphere. It is composed of all the bolded text which appeared in the January strips. I think it does a nice job of capturing the insanity of the Patty Frampton saga so far. In fact, I like it so much I'm going to make it a regular addition to this blog. Come back in early March and get a taste of February!

Unexciting commentary at best.

Panel 1: The Great Omniscient Porcupine Narrator reveals that Buck was not a total failure in his quixotic attempt to catch Ken the Kung-Fu Master's Chikn-Shock bullet. But, as they say, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, and Buck is, as I predicted, on the lam.

Panel 2: Wow, appropriate bolding. I'm almost speechless.

Panel 3: You'll likely never find him in the light either, Patty Frampton. He's gone, I say, gone! Maybe he's not in Juarez, maybe he's not in Mexico at all, but if that ungulate has an ounce of sense in that drab brown body of his, he's gone from Lost Forest and he's never going to come back.

18 hours late...

Panel 1: Actually, Patty Frampton, this is where you saw Buck try to catch a flying chicken beak in his antlers. This is NOT where you saw him fall. If you'll go back and review the slo-mo from February 7, you'll see Buck cavorting and between him and the enraged Kung-Fu Master is a log much like the one you're currently looking at. However, if you jump ahead to the freeze-frame from February 9 you'll see no log. Instead, Buck appears to have tripped and fallen in patch of ferns. So, Patty Frampton, you'd better keep on moving if you're going to find your lover.

Panel 2: We now have further evidence that the Jackelrod Sphere is transmitting its comic from the 1950s. Note the belabored avoidance of the split infinitive. "He may be still alive." Are you fucking kidding me. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, born since 1960 has EVER not split an infinitive in day-to-day speech. If we didn't split infinitives, we'd all sound like robots...or worse, like Barbie dolls in mom jeans.

Panel 3: Blegh. Is it me or does Patty Frampton look like she's going cross-eyed and blind at the same time? Also, what's with all the extraneous dialog? "Where is he?" would have gotten the point across just effectively, especially since the "I saw him fall" is basically a recitation of panel 1. All in all, this panel sucks.

Apparently, it was merely a flesh wound.

February 10, 2009


Panel 1: Wow, this is an awesome panel! Yesterday we saw Ken tell Patty Frampton that he had to leave for a couple of days. I assumed he meant the following day, or maybe even in a couple of hours. Nope. Apparently, our Kung-Fu Master had his bags packed and merely took a few minutes out of his day to get pwned by Mark Trail, abuse his wife, and take a couple of pot-shots at a philandering deer. With that accomplished, he's grabbing his tiny, gray valise and heading for the door. Note that he's not so rushed as to miss the opportunity to shout a random word.

Panel 2: Hey Jackelrod Sphere, here's a little tip for you: Women built like Barbie dolls do NOT wear mom jeans; women shaped like Barbie dolls are typically made of PVC and wear nothing but a merkin and some gaudy lipstick.

Panel 3: Patty, Patty, Patty... Once your husband starts shooting at your lover, you can pretty much write that adulterous relationship off. Unless your ungulate friend there is even stupider than we think he is, he's packed his rucksack and caught the Greyhound for El Paso. In a couple of days, he'll be hiding out in the bush outside of Juarez trying to put the mack on your Mexican counterpart.