A wizard wears precisely what he wants. That Dungeonmaster-looking 45 year old failure ought to know that. It isn't the wizard hat that makes the tie look bad - it's the fact that Heathcliff is a fat, furry basketball with a head and a pulse.

Is that Hitchcock in a wig going up the escalator?

Well played, Mr. Gallagher. This is the first of 45 Halloween strips, and I'm sure that tomorrow will bring the suck like last year, but I'm willing to hope that all of them feature Sleepy Hollow references, capes, garbage cans with eighth note handles, badly drawn Pac Man, nighttime garbage collecting, one of the Pac ghosts, and the possibility of Jughead getting doused with garbage, count me in.

Heathcliff, undaunted by The Amazing Spiderman's display of wanton Hispanic nudity, retorts with Mr. Nutmeg, naked in a tub with Heathcliff, his lower half probably kicking at the poor Nowhere Man in the Sea of Holes.

Kitty Korner makes light of an evil, laughing cat. Par for the course, I guess.

Ho, a golf joke!

Somebody love me.

Holy mother of God, Mr. Nutmeg's mustache has grown a baby's arm, and it's looking to punch him in the tonsils!

Aaaaaand we're back to normal. I'm kind of surprised that Heathcliff isn't batting from a penalty box, but hey, potentially breaking the laws of physics when Heathcliff hits the ball counts for something, right?

No, I guess it doesn't. I fail.

Heathcliff is becoming painfully aware of just how life works this day and age. I'm slowly becoming convinced that that huge backstock of steroid strips has melted away, forcing Gallagher into a mad dash to produce socially relevant strips. Yesterday's bailout strip wasn't half bad, and today's is about as good as one panel legacy strips get. It's like...well...it's like somebody is trying to get rid of me.

Please, Pete...don't put me out of a job! These are tough times, and I'm an obese looser at 20! Where do I go from there? Huh? Huh? Don't do this to me.

9/29/08


"It was back when Bobby Darrin and Elvis Presley were on the hydrogen jukebox. Man, you had to know what you were doing back then. You had to treat that guitar like she was the woman you were singing about. Angel headed hipsters husking and busking down sidewalks and beaches, looking for a hit and paying their dues. Today? Today you give a cat an instrument; hep cat, alley cat, pussy cat; you give any kinda cat in the world an instrument and they think they're great. They're not great. Frank Sinatra...now that was greatness. Old Blue Eyes himself, my friend. This cat? These cats? No. They're in it for the money, the fame, the YouTube hits. That ain't music, man. That...ain't...music."

9/30/08

Strips like these make me regret that I have a blog about Heathcliff. First, there's no joke. Second, how am I supposed to mine a coherent joke from the punchline I'm presented with? When Heathcliff makes with the normal punchline/abstract art format, we clearly all lose.


10/1/08
Turns out they don't give bailouts to anybody these days. What, did the U.S. Mint run out of ink?