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Monday, June 21, 2010

That damned Card

What's Mallard raving about today?

Father's Day, Cards.

I think Mallard's attempting honest sentimentality.

Unfortunately, the only facial expression he knows how to draw (or, rather, the only emotion we've ever attached to the one facial expression he knows how to draw) is smug disdain and superiority. So, it looks like that guy is mocking his son.

At that level (being an asshole), it fits in with the rest of the Mallard Fillmore oeuvre.

That said...Father's Day was yesterday you fucking moron.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll admit that this one is kinda cute, albiet in a "Family Circus"-esque way. Still, why Tinsley had the papers run this one today is beyond me. I guess that moaning about those durn kids couldn't wait a day or so.
(And I'm with you-Dad's expression looks so smirky at first I thought the punchline was going to involve kids being to cheap to buy real Father's Day cards, or something similar.)

Randy said...

You aren't suggesting he'd be so lazy as to publish a one-panel strip on a Sunday, surely, are you?

Tog said...

C'mon, guys, give Batshit a break. he was really, really busy--grousing about how kids today are utterly worthless and infinitely shallow--when he made yesterday's strip. There's nothing remotely ironic about that, by the way, so stop saying that.

Let us all mourn Dave's hair, which has gone all electrocuted-scarecrow, just like Chantel's (not that we see her anymore).

...But hey, don't you get it? "Re-read!" That means he didn't forget! He just saved it for this brilliant punchline! Seriously! ...Are you buying this?

I'll give Batshit this much: he went for sheer sentimentality with this, exactly the sort of weepy emotionalism Rush or Beck would savagely attack in liberals ("Love?!? HAW! Man up and read some porn, gay!!") despite their own histories of bawling their lungs out in front of an audience. Over in Luann, on the other hand, Greg Evans once again used the occasion to whine that dads never get their due; the exact same strip he does every year at this time.

On the other hand, this the sort of child Batshit thinks is ideal: flinching and worshipful. God only knows what his own (purported) children are like.

Ducky is Right said...

Don't forget ducky's patented "Jew-y liberal" face.

The grammar's a little sloppy in this one. "to world's best dad", "the more times you re-read them". Guess we're gearing up for another, "schools these days done.... not teach our kids... good learning......" strip.

Kip W said...

Maybe the front of the card (not shown) said "To Whom it May Concern," thus making today's strip a pungent commentary on the sad state of out-of-wedlock sex among the vaguely beige community.

rewinn said...

" Mallard's attempting honest sentimentality."

On the few occasions that he's not not recycling fox news three weeks late, we get trite observations on how everything is worse today than in the old day, with no pants and/or cloying sentamentality .... basically, a clinically depressed Ziggy with feathers.

Toots McGee said...

"Hope is a thing with feathers."
Emily Dickinson

"Mallard is a clinically depressed Ziggy with feathers."
rewinn (for the win)

dlauthor said...

On the one hand, the kid who made that card (L'il Rush? Who can tell?) used a three-dot ellipsis. This is a marked improvement over Brucie himself, even if a four-dot ellipsis would arguably (and ironically) have been more appropriate.

On the other hand, "to World's Best Dad?" Is that the father's proper name? Or was Tinshley so blotto* that he forgot what the word "the" is for?

* No doubt mourning the fact that his kids didn't get him any gin for Father's Day this year, either.

Rootbeer said...

You can tell the card was handmade by a child, because the lettering is identical to Bruce Tinsley's jagged scrawl.

Michael Foley said...

That child is clearly not Rush; Dave had a kid out of wedlock, who knew?? Poor Dave is falling from Tinsley's token "model minority" to his more typical "that damned minority".

GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Though I would never bet against Tinsley's racism, I think in this case you're seriously overestimating his drawing skills, not to mention his ability/inclination to look up for reference a character he doesn't care about and only draws maybe twice a year.

Kip W said...

Let us not criticize Tin for never drawing this character the same way twice. He doesn't have to give him a particular face or remember how to draw him. He simply indicates "off white" for the colorists, and that takes care of it, as this is his "off white" character.

Marion Delgado said...

Chantel was one of three things:

1. his dream girlfriend who appears to tell him he'll have to change the sheets tomorrow.

2. a "Real Doll" bought directly from a manufacturer in India called Chantel Real Doll Companions - tinsley saw the label when he drunkenly opened the box.

3. Mallard(or Tinsley)'s mummified older sister.