14 June 2007

Paper or Plastic

In today's Dinette Set, clarity is not the order of the day:
  • The meaning of Burl's punchline, such as it is, is not clear. It may be as simple as implying that if he hadn't opened the door his mother in law (the bag) would not have come in. But that's a fairly unsatisfying interpretation for such a convoluted setup.
  • I know Timmy is the babe-in-the-woods of The Dinette Set and as such perhaps he might not know why a person puts cucumbers on their eyes. But, realistically-speaking, his only function is to cover for the artist's inability to clearly illustrate cucumbers on Ma's eyes.
  • Ma's pose is clearly meant to be a quotation of Manet's Olympia, but the purpose of that quotation is not clear.

1 comment:

Eric said...

Technically speaking, locking the front door wouldn't "get rid" of bags. It might "prevent bags" or "force bags to starve to death in your front room as you left them locked in the house while you were on vacation in corn country" but it wouldn't "get rid" of them.

That and- The magic whiteboard is fascinating to me. I want something like that, something that reflects my innermost thoughts in pithy format.

I wonder if this strip would be better or worse if the art were improved.