Please excuse my slightly awkward sentance structure tonight, as I am very tired.

T Campbell and Gisèle Lagacé have a pretty decent little comic going over on Keenspot: Penny and Aggie (T's the brains, he writes it; Gisèle is the brawn, she draws it). Penny and Aggie's stated purpose is to be Mean Girls for webcomics, and at that I can say it's succeeded- of course, I say that because I was ambivalent about Mean Girls, too.

My reason for bringing it up is that I hope T isn't still wishing/hoping/planning that Penny and Aggie will be some kind of crossover hit with actual teenagers (or at least, those who aren't reading a lot of other webcomics anyway). I hope this because any chances of it becoming a hit of that nature died with today's installment.

To my mind, one of the hallmarks of truly knowing something is that you start to forget that other people don't know it. For example, I know a lot about Spider-Man, but I don't think I realized how much I know about this fictional character and his supporting cast until the movies hit a couple years back. After Spider-Man 2, the topic of Harry Osborn's likely fate in the third movie started coming up in conversation. "He's going to become the Hobgoblin", people would say. "No," I'd gently correct, "in the classic comics story, Harry became the second Green Goblin. The Hobgoblin was someone else entirely- just some random guy who found Norman Osborn's weapons stash and recolored it" (of course, Marvel Comics then went on and did make Harry the Hobgoblin in their highest-profile alternate universe, the same source from which they also appear to be drawing their interpretation of Venom for the third movie, but I digress).

Conversely, if you went around bragging how much you knew about breathing, you'd sound like an idiot. And that's sort of what T Cambell is doing here: the implication in the third panel is that he and Ms. Lagacé have been "portraying real, honest-to-goodness hyper-hormonal teenagers" for the run of the strip so far. I don't think that's so. Certainly the characters in Zits, by-and-large, strike a more realistic chord with me than the P&A teens.

Thoughts while watching the premiere of Who Wants To Be A Superhero? on Sci-Fi Channel

So I'm watching Who Wants To Be A Superhero?, and while Nitro G has the best costume, my choice (from what I've seen so far) is Feedback. I mean, c'mon, he started his origin with "My father died when I was young" or something. He's got it made. He's also got an impressive costume- looks very durable and practical.

Although I have to say- Cell Phone Girl? Call me, call me, any, any time. Hotcha! She's also got some fairly well-thought-out powers, judging from the bio online. I may have to root for her...

Levity, who immediately self-identified as homosexual, got knocked off right away. Northstar could've told you, dude- gay superheroes always get the shaft (pun very much not intended).

Stan Lee has a framed picture of Stripperella on the wall behind him whenever he appears. That's kind of creepy.

Oh, no, Feedback blew right past the extremely-unconvincing crying little girl. Oh, Feedback, you dope. Didn't you ever see Spider-Man 2?

Whoo! Cell Phone Girl's stopped to help! Good for her. :-) She did have to think about it a little, but she came through in the end (plus she's hot). She wins. Spider-Man would be proud.

Oop, Nitro G blew it too. So did Honor Greek Guy, Vegan Ho, Creepy Gun Dude, and Fur Bikini Lass. Way to fail to be superheroes, dopes. Mr. Incredible-by-way-of-Bruce Cambell Man, Makes-Power-Girl-Look-Modest-By-Comparison Woman and Fat Momma (can't beat that name) all passed. Good for them... I guess.

What?!? He ditched Nitro G and kept Creepy Gun Dude? I mean, Nitro G really, really failed the costume-changing test, but c'mon, Stan, vengeful trigger-happy 'heroes' went out of fashion in about 1992. Even your famously-out-of-touch self has to have figured that out by now. The producers are probably hoping that if they keep Gun Dude around, he'll do something outrageous before he goes. I just hope he doesn't pull it together and end up winning. That would be sad.

In conclusion, I'll probably tune in again next week, if only for Cell Phone Girl. She can possibly give me cancer whenever she likes. ;-d


Now, the highly-anticipated television premiere of The Amazing Screw-On Head! If you didn't see it, don't worry- the whole thing is available online, for free. Don't miss out!

Look at the smug little grin on that bastard: he knows what he's doing.

Today, Dennis the Menace sows seeds of marital discord between his parental units. Now we're getting into "menace" territory. Tomorrow: Dennis pushes Mr. Wilson down some stairs, makes it look like an accident.

Love is never easy in the comics.

It would seem that at some point when I wasn't really paying attention- possibly as long as a year ago- Jeremy, the protagonist of Zits, and his sometime girlfriend Sara "broke up". Jeremy seems bummed about it, though neither that nor the breakup has stopped Sara from coming up to his room to "hang out". If you're still getting the "benefits", J, it doesn't matter if you're "unemployed". Quit your whining.

Meanwhile in Misfile, Ash, the teen drag-racing delinquent who was a boy but has been reality-shifted into a girl thanks to a clerical mix-up in Heaven (hence the comic's title) seems on the verge of confessing his feelings for Emily, who regressed in age by two years (except in her own mind) due to the same stoner angel's error. I hope he gets the girl- if anyone deserves a little lesbian action, it's this poor guy. You thought Marten in QC had it bad, that guy has nothing on Ash. I'd link to a whole bunch of examples, but while the Misfile comic is excellent, the site design is less so, and it seems to have been intentionally made difficult to search. So, just read the whole archives and see for yourself. C'mon, it's not like you have anything better to do.

It's interesting that, now that I think about it, we've never seen Ash as a guy. In his first appearance, he was already female. Huh.

Now, he will SHOW THEM ALL!

It's been nearly six years in coming, but in Narbonic, Shaenon Garrity's brilliant, modern-classic webcomic about the life and times of a mad genius, her evil intern, and the put-upon techie who works for them, Dave, the aforementioned put-upon techie, is finally blossoming into the full flower of his own latent evil-genius-ness. It's at the worst possible time for all concerned, of course, and may end up causing the destruction of mankind, but man- this is going to be good. I like the text styling she uses here as Dave gets excited and his mind fills with twisted possibilities. It's the little touches like that that make Garrity such a master.

Speaking of things long-suppressed, this past weekend Greg Evans finally gave in to his darker urges and presented Luann the naked exhibitionist while Bernice, who apparently is actually a fifty-five-year-old woman who failed ninth grade a lot, made a remark that surprised nobody. Today, Tiffany is kind of a racist, which is also not surprising. It looks like the "Luann And Bernice Trick Tiffany Into Thinking She's Going To Be A Movie Star But It's Not That Funny Because Really They're Just Crushing Her Hopes And Dreams In A Way That Will Lead Her To Murder Them, Hopefully, Because That Would Be Interesting" plotline is going to be resolved without actually getting rid of Tiffany, though where there is life, there's hope. Hope for a character to get brutally killed off. C'mon, Evans, seven years after the fact is just about your speed for tackling Columbine! Go for it!

...wow, I'm morbid tonight.

Compensating just enough

Today's installment of Overcompensating is an excellent use of drawn images superimposed over photographs. I wonder what will become of Joanna the undead cat now, and whether Catcoon is involved.

Basically you just need to read the whole archives of this comic, it is awesome.

From the Luann Files

Luann and Bernice decide to prank Tiffany/"Sheraton St. Louis", their eternal nemesis who can't possibly be as stupid and whorish as she is portrayed. Tiffany does every dumb-ass thing they think of, because she thinks she's going to be a Hollywood star. Because she's a stupid whore, she 'hires' local Jughead-ripoff stoner Knute as her agent. Knute wrangles resident nerd Gunther as publicist. Gunther displays actual competency at the task.

Could this actually work? Will Tiffany/"Sheraton" be going to Hollywood? I hope so, because then, like Luann's longtime pseudo-love-interest-crush Aaron Hill (who moved to Hawaii, of all the lame soap-opera twists), she'll be out of the strip and we can get back to what's really important here: The Saga of Brad.

Today: In response to Tiffany's burgeoning stardom, Luann takes some time off from her busy schedule of being self-absorbed and insecure to be a smug, condescending bitch. Way to yank Tiff's chain, Luann. Your co-dependent hatred of her is fooling nobody.