
Blowback
A clean, well-lit place to vent
Please feel free to contribute to this frequently-updated forum, which posts selected commentary on our favorite comic strip. If you’d like your critique to be posted, please note that civility, if not approbation, counts. Click here to submit a comment.
I totally relate to Joanie and the pressure for one's 'hotness' being held just as important as doing a great job. Good luck with the paint pots, Joanie. It was such unspoken harassment in my State job that pushed me into an early retirement.
I am disappointed in the tone of this week's comic. I thought Sen. Warren was above all that looks-over-brains stuff. One would think her minions would be of like mind.
Oh darn. I missed the seismic shift, again. For so long, attractive women were considered less than intelligent. Now that my youth is past, female competence is measured in looks and grooming. I can't decide if I need another degree or an esthetician. Help!
I've been a fan of yours since reading The Doonesbury Chronicles at age 10 in 1980, and admire you for your intelligent grasp of events and your integrity about holding to your own standards re media exposure. The only area of perpetual disappointment I have had is that Joanie's son Jeff is such a negative character. I don't recall a single cartoon since he was born that showed him in a positive light or enabled me to feel any sympathy for him. He's a boring, selfish, uninteresting, ungrateful, shallow, unlikeable person. And why curse Joanie, an intelligent and sensitive person, with two awful children? At least JJ was a likeable and sympathetic character, even if her life did go off the rails and on balance she didn't turn out well. With Jeff, there's nothing to redeem, and I have always found that very disappointing and hard to believe.
Alex and Toggle have the main ingredient to a long lasting marriage. They feel comfortable enough to express all their feelings, not just the noble ones, trusting they will still be loved and deemed "worthy." Alex did not sit on these concerns and simmer them, she is outspoken as ever about her self doubt, and spousal doubt. Toggle recognized a keeper and he can feel secure he will not have to second guess her thoughts for long, or whether it would be okay to indulge any attractions he might feel toward another. It is all out there on the table like it should be. Good going, Garry. Thank you for keeping your 2D characters multidimensional in personality, genuine and likeable.
'Humblebrags' ? Too long a word for today's media elite. For Roland's tweeting attitude, might I suggest 'humbris'?
Alex just isn't very likeable on the hormone trip. She's OCD enough under normal circumstances!
B.D. used to be my least-fave character. He reminded me of my older brother, two-dimensional and violent. Alex used to be my fave character. She was so awesome in the MyVulture.com days. B.D. has come right off the page since he lost his leg. He wins the prize for coming the farthest in his journey through life. Meanwhile Alex is turning into my ex. I pity Toggle. First he loses his eye and speech centers to an IED, now he will lose his dignity to this harpy. He deserves better.
Being pregnant can make you act like a crazy b****. Alex may be trying to make Toggle the source of her anxiety, but she's really thinking "Have I done anything that might have harmed the babies? If something happens to Leo, how will I raise them alone? Babies need adults to take care of them and we're still kids!" She needs to find someone (not J.J, not Joanie, maybe Boopsie) who has kids and can help her think rationally.
Today's strip sounds strongly like a '40s movie treatment.
Frame four today: Wow. Alex really is her mother's daughter.
What with Toggle/Skye and "Veronica Mars," Kickstarter is having its best week ever.
Hmmm. Fantasy-wise, Alex and Jeff are definitely related. "Red Rascal" for him, "Paris with the babies" for her.
It is not the hormones. It is not carrying twins. It is hormones, carrying twins with a laundry list of neuroses, and a wild, vivid imagination. and the worst is yet to come. Please, Toggle has suffered enough: PTSD, TBI, losing one-eye, and aphasia. Don’t make him go back to Afghanistan.
Welcome to one of the major tests of love for a couple. The questions change, the right answers aren't, and this counts for your overall grade.
Poor Toggle, he is finding out the hard way that pregnant women can have a lot of fear about things, both imaginary and real. I also think it is worse when you are carrying multiples. It must have something to do with the hormones.
Yippee! Toggle is back. He and Alex brighten my day. Best married couple since Darryl and Wanda of Baby Blues, or Amos and Edda of Chickweed Lane.
I'm reading today's strip from our honeymoon, at a party hostel in Budapest. The kids don't eye-roll at us, but I'm more in the 8-track line. I know people who've used Kickstarter. It helps to either have friends, or have a project that goes viral -- which is a little like winning the lottery. Now, if you'll excuse me, the Beatles are popular here and I want to listen to "Eleanor Rigby."