Invisible Cleavage Clasps

By Crumblord
(Promoted from comments)

Today, with April and Becky's trip to the VaVaVoom store ... well ... One-Boob April? Color me disturbed

Today's "strip"

The Weather Here Is Fine

We see speculation afoot that FBoFW is on the prowl against FBOFW commentary blogs. A couple have wondered: Did the fuzz close down this particular outpost of FBoFW criticism?

Not that we know of -- though maybe the hammer will come down now that some of our blogging bretheren have cited us by name. (Thanks for that, all. "Hey, Mr. Nazi, I hope you don't hassle Mr. Goldberg over there.")

Was this blog down for some amount time over the past few days? Could have been. Seems to happen quite frequently. We believe that has something to do with how much we paid for this service. Which would be...nothing. Blogger.com is our Lovey Salzman. It just wants to love us and make us comfortable, despite all those nasty people smoking big cee-gars elsewhere on the Internet.

Does the occassional screen capture of an FBOFW image constitute a copyright violation? Not surprisingly, copyright law (created for the copyright holders, not the potential infringers) is a little vague on that point. The various comic strip critique blogs could make the argument that we are offering literary/artistic criticism, and that few pixels of FBOFW-generated images we use don't compromise the value of the original work, don't represent the bulk of what's being offered and don't produce any profit or other benefit for us.

Problem is, if it comes down to it, that's an argument we'd need to make in court. And, frankly, it ain't worth the time to do that just to make fun of Elly's nose and Merrie's lack of bladder control. (And, come to think of it, John's too.)

So, then, if we haven't been sent to the slammer, why has Elly's Revenge been strangely silent these past few days?

Partly confusion -- aren't a "fracture" and a "break" the same thing? Deanna's ongoing distinction between the two keeps throwing us for a loop.

But, mostly, the culprit is sheer boredom: We're beginning the third week of FBOFW documenting the travails Mike and Deanna have encountered by moving up one flight of stairs. (Broken beds! Busted arms! Smelly new neighbors! Evictions! Civil unrest in the foyer! And Lovey's getting an ulcer..oy!) Just imagine if they'd move up two stories...or, heaven forbid, a few blocks away!

Anyway, with FBOFW stretching out two minutes of action over three weeks, it seems a bit, well, obvious to point out that characters aren't drawn realistically or that their actions don't seem true to life. When Lynn or her minions start giving a damn again...so will we.

Until then -- or until the FBOFW posse comes and strings us up from the highest tree -- others are welcome to post and we'll promote meritorious comments.

Living Upstairs from Satan

By Zephyra
(Promoted from comments)

All right, today's comic firmly establishes what I think many of us have suspected for some time now.

Mr. Kelpfroth is, in fact, Satan. Exhibit A is today's strip. Exhibit B is here. I imagine Mrs. Kelpfroth is some sort of lieutenant demon.

Hopefully, the Forces of Light will exorcise the evil Kelpfroths from the building. Once the baby Pattersons start interacting with the Kelpfroths, it'll be like kryptonite to Superman, guaranteed.

Today's strip

Today's FBOFW Is Really Funny

The mind reels -- there's so much to comment on today. (e.g., Why can't Mike and Dee carry their umbrellas upstairs? Why does a tape outline empower Mike to leave his junk in front of his neighbor's doorway? Why is Melville's groin the focal point in two of the drawings? Why is Mike's peculiarly drawn head jiggling in the last frame? Is Mike clever enough to include the entryway in his part of the foyer, so the Kelpfroth's can never get in...or did he give them the door, ensuring that he and his family can never leave?)

But, since everyone's pretty much outlined the inanities of today's strip over at Foobivese, there's no reason to spend any more space rehashing them here.

But, I do want to say: I think today's strip is one of the funniest FBOFWs in the last five years.

No, it's not the "I object/objectionable" punchline. (Keep working those homonyms, Lynn; you're bound to strike gold one of these days!)

Today's laugh outloud moment is in frame 1: Our hero is busy at work, doing the Les Nessman thing. And, his thought bubble reads, "Snort, fume, grumble."

Not his voice bubble mind you. If it were the voice bubble, then it would be like the tape dispenser saying "striftt" in the same frame, yet another example of LJ's bad onomatopoeia -- which ceased to be laugh outloud funny six or seven years ago.

No, "Snort, fume, grumble" is what Mike is thinking. These are the deep thoughts bouncing around in that profound, saintly, senior editor brain of his.

Snort. Fume. Grumble.

For some of us it's hard to put our thoughts into words. For Mike, apparently, it's hard to put his thoughts into thoughts.

Bravo!

Makes me laugh just to think about. Yes, sir, you are truly laughable.

Today's Strip

P.S.: I also like how Lynn assumes we won't get the fact that Mike is unhappy unless she -- or whoever is drawing it these days (since none of today's renderings of Michael P. show him looking the way he used to look...last week) -- gives him the classic comic strip upside down smile. Oooh, happy...he's so not!

You Expect Different from a Shiksa?

By Zephyra
(Promoted from comments)

As the daughter of a Jewish mother (and the granddaughter of a Jewish grandmother, and so on and so forth), I can say with authority that today's strip is staggering in the amount of cognitive dissonance it's giving me. In the first panel, we have Lovey exclaiming in the most Jewish way possible. Then in panels two, three, and four, she absolves Deanna of most of the blame for allowing her young daughter to play unsupervised on the stairs. Lynn has apparently never been introduced to the concept of Jewish guilt. A Jewish mother's tirade would've started with the lack of a baby gate on those stairs and gone until she ran out of steam around "next thing you know, little Robin will roll off the changing table, God forbid."

Oy, today's strip

The Funny Side of Child Neglect

By marciamarciamarcia
(promoted from comments)

So Meredith fell down the stairs while, presumably, riding a rolling toy unsupervised in the public stairwell of an apartment. Who wants to be the first to call SRS on Deanna?

Today's strip

Hello from Downstairs

By The Heckles
(Promoted from comments)

Hey! It's us! Your downstairs neighbors. It took us almost no time to move into the apartment you vacated. We didn't really appreciate the potporri and diaper pail odor you left behind. It took you hours and hours and hours to move. We skulked in the hall patiently for you to get your butts out of OUR apartment. It only took us four hours to move in, because we're not nit wits after all. At first we thought we'd let you be, you're obviously dumb kids. But then, we found out that you're Pattersons! Pattersons for the love of God!!! Is no one safe from your kind anymore? We've decided that we're going to make your lives a living hell so you'll go back from whence you came, to the hell that spawned such offspring as yourself. Just wait until you find out we are relatives of Lovey's, and alternatively Kortney and Therese. No, Lovey is not going to protect you from us!

Love,
Mr. and Ms. Heckles

Today's strip

Predictions

By Anonymous
(Promoted from comments)

My predictions for the strip aside from the obvious "Mike and Deanna buy the Patterson family home..."

Grandpa Jim dies of a heart attack during an erotic nap. Iris finds Dixie chewing on his body and loses her mind. Elly makes news by adopting the now-demented Iris as her third daughter, occasionally paying Lovey to come over and babysit and bring her delicious oigevaydens and schlopnik.

Edgar dies saving Meredith from being hit by a truck driven by none other than Kortnee. The truck flips over and Kortnee dies, killed by her own badness. Elly and April share thoughts on Kortnee's long overdue fate for two weeks.

In a bizarre karmic twist, both Therese and Deanna's mother ram their cars into each other while en route to the mall and both are killed in the crash. Elly and April spend a month of strips sharing thoughts on how the victims were killed by their greed. All Pattersons (by birth or marriage) are shocked by the outrageous cover charge and two drink minimum at Therese's funeral.

Widowed at the age of 82, the progeriatric Anthony takes Francoise to the enchanted land of Mgitakwi to her newer, better Mommy, Elizabeth. Francoise's innate French-Canadian wickedness is quickly tempered by the innate generosity and purity of the native Mgitakwians.

Shiimsa dies saving Francoise from a polar bear attack.

Elly does indeed hand over the shop to Moira and teams up with the aforementioned Lovey and Candace's Auntie Roo to start up a mobile meddling service. Days are saved all throughout the greater Toronto area.

Concerned by flagging readership, Lynn Johnston drops another bomb when April reveals that all this talk of getting "the look" from boys and "morsels" was a front to conceal that she is a lesbian. This news keeps Elly's sphincter in knots until she finds a punny homily to save the day. Two weeks later, there is a tasteful, non-greedy, non-French Canadian wedding held in the backyard of what is now Mike and Deanna's house, joining April and Shannon Lake in holiest matrimony.

Butterscotch dies saving Robin from choking on one of Lovey's handmade shlapklatzyns. John dies while digging yet another grave beside Farley's tree. Elly looks at sunset, thinks platitude. Strip ends.

Tenants Beware: Don't Rent from this Woman

Clearly, Lovey the Landlady doesn't get into the niceities that most propety owners follow. It's customary, after a tenant moves out of an apartment for the owner to have it cleaned and painted -- even if the previous tenants were as saintly as Michael, Deanna, Merrie and Baby Robin^TM.

Not so with Lovey. As she might say, "What? You want I should clean the apartment? Oy, what am I, baked kugel?" Check out this time line.

Day 1: Mike and Deanna check out the new apartment. Ewww, it's a mess. Gross -- pizza boxes and professor dander. Yuck! Deanna spends all day cleaning. Tired from watching Deanna clean, Mike can't finish the moving job, so the family drives across the Toronto metroplex to Ma and Pa Patterson's (at least an hour away, we've previously been told), so Mike can spend a restful night in the beloved house of his beloved mother. (Oh, gosh, I hope those kids can buy that house someday!)

Day 2, morning: Mike and Deanna drive back to wherever the heck it is that they live. Again, another hour. So, let's assume they got an early start and again began moving by 7 a.m. Since Michael dragged his friends over to the house, there must have still been junk to move out of the old apartment. (You don't bring in your friends to move around boxes that are already in your apartment, do you?) But, with at least three able-bodied guys handling the job, they should get everything out of there by lunchtime, right? But...

Day 2, evening: "It's too late to buy a bolt," somebody -- probably Lawrence -- declares. This suggests the move was completed some time after 9 p.m. Otherwise, a quick run to the hardware store would have solved this otherwise insurmountable creaky bed problem. Mike and Dee lay their misshapen butts (shout out to Foobiverse) into bed. And immediately the new downstairs neighbors pound on the ceiling.

That means the "older couple" taking the smaller downstairs unit must have started moving in within seconds of the Pattersons' exit. (And strangely enough, even though they are quite old and undoubtedly moving in from another location, instead of from just down the stairwell, those fogeys appear to have gotten their move in completed in about the time it took Michael et al to assemble one bed.)

And, this in turn means Lovey the Landlady couldn't have really done anything in terms of cleaning or painting or general preparation of the apartment the Pattersons left.

This suggests to me that Lovey could use an introductory course in building management. Or, maybe, that FBOFW needs an introductory course in comic strip continuity.

Today's evidence strip

Nothing Like Excitement

Is there anything so thoroughly exciting and enjoyable as reading about people moving around boxes? This is going to be a really great week of FBOFW! Tomorrow: putting things in drawers! Wednesday: honey, where did we put the nail clippers? Thursday: I sure hope I can live at my mommy's house someday. Friday: Let's watch the paint dry!

Today's (yawwwwwn) strip

The Odd Quintent

By Zigibot
Promoted from comments:

From Sunday's megastrip: If you need more evidence the Pattersons/Johnstons are one strange crew, consider frame 7: "I found this pearl necklace in the closet." In this house (a) it's not unusual for a teen to be rooting around in closets (since John's reaction is not "Hey, what the f*** were you doing in my closet?" but rather a triangular smile in profile); (b) it's not unusual for parents to stash expensive jewelry in the closet (since April's reaction seems to be, "Oh look daddy, I found another several-hundred dollar piece of gift lying around unopened"); and (c) John apparently buys so much women's jewelry he can't even keep track of it (I bet if we could see his thought bubble it would say, "I was going to give this to Dr. Everett, but I guess I'll give it to my mother...er, wife instead.")

Today's strip

Another Moment of Awkward Silence....

...As we contemplate the subtext of today's installment: Mike married his mother.

Today's strip

Rejoinders from Elly

"When you were a teenager you couldn't wait to move out of this house. Now 10 years later you want one just like it. Strange”

“You bought a car 5 years ago. Now you claim you need another one. Odd.”

“When you were a baby, you insisted that your corn be served strained. Now, when I serve it to you that way, you hardly eat it. Curious.”

“You bought a printer cartridge last week. Now this week, you would rather buy paper. Peculiar.”

“Yesterday after dinner you said you were full. Now this morning you say you are hungry again. Weird.”

“Last night you couldn't wait to flush the toilet. Now you want to fill it with pee again. Wacky.”

“When you were little, you said it was creepy to share a bed with a mother. Now you sleep with one almost every night. Ponderous.”

Today's strip

Thanks for the Reminder, Elly...

Because, without today's concluding thought bubble, we might have momentarily forgotten that the senior Pattersons' reward for all their overflowing goodness is having more money and property than they know what to do with.

Let them slurp soup!

Today's strip

Feeling Fahrvergnugen

Well this is a shocker: According to both the Yiddish Dictionary Online and Ectaco Online Dictionary, Lovey’s “schmutzic” and “ungevorfen” appear not to be real Yiddish phrases. So, for those keeping score at home: Teen lingo: Too busy, can’t get the real words. Yiddish vocabulary: Don’t be such a nudge. (Checked it – that is a real Yiddish term.) Dental terms: 100% accuracy.

Looks like we are in for a week of "poor, put upon Michael Patterson" strips. First, Mikey’s ex-roommate forces him to clear out his crap years after he's moved out of their apartment. Then, poor Michael must endure the indignity of watching Deana clean their old apartment. And, now, he must suffer the pain of his new, Lovey-subsidized abode not being fit for King Patterson.

(Actually, the villain of today’s piece would seem to be Lovey, rather than the unnamed ex-tenants. Upon exit, don’t renters customarily return their keys and don’t landlords do a walkthrough of the property? Today’s strip implies this is the first time Lovey is seeing this balagen -- it’s Yiddish for “mess.” Unlike Lynn, I looked it up.)

In such an unjust world, small wonder that, in their arguments, Deanna apparently advocates buying weapons for little children.

Today’s strip

Yesterday’s indignity

Even more suffering