If you've been paying attention this week, and I know you have, then I have no doubt that everyone has already figured out what lies at the heart of this particular panel.
We start with the theme of Dale and Burl's patrician cruelty towards and manipulation of Timmy, which has been a fairly common thread in The Dinette Set.
Add the narrative structure which bespeaks promises made and promises broken, plus the intense parsing of language to allow maximum possible flexibility for later denials.
Factor in Burl's role as behind-the-scenes-manipulator, which permeates this panel and most panels that have Dale as their primary focus. Having no heir of his own to torment, Burl must play Warwick to Dale's Edward IV and derive his pleasure from directing Timmy's psychological damage from the shadows, rather than inflicting it directly.
Finally, take in the unambiguous marginalia terms like "spinner," "brain trust," and "polygraph."
Taken together, the artist is once again preparing the American pysche for today's Midterm elections.
The voters have spoken, and they have chosen marginalia:
- Given the to-do sign and the chairs, I think we can assume we are in Dale and Marlene's house. How convenient that they have the same joke-bearing surfaces (phone with post-it, key rack, to-do list) as Burl and Joy's kitchen.
- Dale's mug says "Old" something. The last line is cut off by the bottom of the panel, raising the question of why it was included at all.
2 comments:
Notice, if you will, that young Timmy is the only character whose eyes can be seen by the reader. This is quite telling. I was going to go into some long words here, but I think I'll just wrap up by saying that one day Timmy will see how the adults in his life have undermined and ridiculed him, and he will go on a monstrous killing spree, eradicating everyone in the neighborhood except for Joy and Burl's daughter who I kind of have a crush on. Then Timmy will turn his meat cleaver on himself.
i do believe that mug says "old FART". which is hilarious.
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