A Thin Moon Rises

The parade of strangers continues? Or is Tim Mills badgering Margo, now just wearing a bad flip wig?

In any case, NO, Margo, no one can tell you where you are unless you know where you're going. I think I got a graduation card a that said that.

Simple Explanations

It's like Tommie and Lu Ann's outfits are sucking them into a carnation turtleneck singularity.

This strip is making it very difficult for me to stick to my resolution to be less harsh on Frank and more harsh on the writing.  I mean the writing is pretty terrible, but Tommie's hand looks like a sea lion's flipper and Eric has rapidly deflated between the first and second panels. 

Must criticize the writing...focus...OK, we've got it...Margo's acting really bizarre.  Can someone please do something about it so we can move on to whatever fresh hell awaits us in the next storyline?

Tommie, Please!

Ommie-Tay, this is my oss-bay, please try to be ool-cay. Okay?

Actually, I wonder if this sudden turn of events will inspire Lu Ann to immediately reverse her decision to quit the gallery and return to painting once again?

An Old Friend

"Hey guys, it's me Eric Mills. I haven't talked to Margo yet about how Eric Mills I am, I thought I'd reveal myself to you guys first so we could gossip about her."

"LU ANN, go in the other room, I'll talk to the man. I've changed into a collared shirt to project power and confidence. Eric Mills imposter, you getttt ouuuuut!"

Missing Person

Things not to worry about besides Margo's disappearance.

1) That burglar stole all the squiggle art and kelly green décor.
2) That everyone believes Margo is overworked even though she has no clients, fired all her coworkers and hasn't been to the office in months.
3) Tommie growing her hair out to an awkward length.  Keeping the bangs was a mistake.
4) That Tommie and Lu Ann are wearing bizarro outfits and rotating around each other in a white walled room.

Nurse Dawkins Has Set Me Free!

WHAT IS GOING ON.

Are Tommie and Lu Ann talking about "celebrating" how Tommie was "set free" from work earlier than usual, using the most unnatural and overblown language possible?

OR, has Nurse Dawkins set Tommie free from her already-tenuous grip on reality, baptizing her into the Cult of White and Carnation Pink? Is Tommie entering a new era of her life, where she can leave her important (and salaried) work in the medical professional to spends months on end in a cabin up in the woods, meditating and taking care of animals WAIT, NO, EFF, THAT ALREADY HAPPENED.

7 Years in Tibet

"I have been waiting to reunite with Margo for many, many years.  The thought of her tightly coiled raven bun and delicate feminine turtleneck collection kept me going through the painful recovery at the hands of the Tibetan nuns.  I think our strategy of waiting here on this street and cryptically speaking to her while she is wandering in a rage fog is softening her resistance.  Let's stick to plan A."

Margo and All

Well how damn cavalier of Tim to support his brother, who literally moved mountains (in an avalanche) to rescue him. Also, I agree with Casey, I don't know where this aggression towards Margo is coming from, she totally did grieve, in her halting Margo-like way. But yeah, THANKS Tim, for fighting through your Margo-related hang-ups to support your brother.

Also, doesn't anyone have a job in this strip? These two boobs are just wandering the streets waiting to bump into Margo? Reclaim the Mills Gallery, Eric! Lu Ann won't be there anymore to louse it up with her squiggle art!

Long Ago

Wednesday, August 19

What??? One-panel A3G?? And like, clearly driven by sheer laziness right? Shulock was all, "Eh, I can't think of another way to repeat the exact same sentiments in another panel... Frank, could you just draw this all as one panel and have some completely random and irrelevant woman in-frame so that it seems like there's some purpose to the one-panel format? Don't worry, by tomorrow everyone will forget she was ever there." I will say, maybe they should just keep this format - Frank's art seems slightly better when he has more space to work with, and the dialogue never really warrants two panels anyway, right?

Thursday, August 20

Hey Tim, what the hell, man?? Margo totally grieved and went to freaking India for him! India! Also, how could you say that after you shared such a touching moment?
But no need to grieve for her, Eric, she had that fat wad of cash you left her so she was cool. Hey, can he take that back from her since he's alive?

Vague Talk

I think I'm in agreement with Maggie's comments from a while back.  At this point, the art is what it is.  Frank puts in characters that would pass in a lineup for the people who they are supposed to be, slaps in minor background detail so we know if we're inside or outside and we go with it because he's 90.  I'm not even going to comment on how Tim's part changes between the first and the second strip because that's not even why I'm mad.

But the writing is just terrible.  I mean you only have two panels.  That's at most three talking/thought bubbles?  But every...single...day a character says something incredibly vague with their thought bubble like "Margo is not what you think," which is completely incongruous to anything that has ever happened in the strip.  It's mostly that it's poor writing, but as a blogger who has to comment on this it's excruciating.  End of rant.

She's a Mess

I gave a long explanation about the Mills brothers in the comments of last Friday's strip, but the summary is: Eric saved Tim from rotting away in a Chinese prison, and then disappeared in an avalanche. And Margo got to meet the Dalai Lama. It's worth looking in the LLoA3G archives for July to August 2008 to see Margo in India. The white part of India, I mean.

 Anyway, the fact that the Ghost of Eric Mills is now having a conversation with his brother Tim likely means that Eric isn't a one of Margo's hallucinations, but is actually just your typical soap opera avalanche survivor. I am shocked that he didn't come back with an eyepatch and amnesia.

Blast from the Past

Whoa!  Eric Mills of the avalanche/art gallery fame?  It looks like his time underneath that massive Nepalese snowdrift has aged him prematurely.   So much so that Margo hasn't recognized him the three or four times he's riddled her in the streets.

I'll leave it to Maggie to give us all the scoop on the Brothers Mills.

You Need Help

Thanks but no thanks, random stranger dude who's probably some form of Eric Mills! Margo's ready for a fight. With one upward stroke of her index finger, she's obliterated Main Street, USA. Next, it'll be your almost-but-not-quite-matching blazer. Margo don't play.

Eric Appears and...

Whoa, did the narration box just spill some major beans about our perfect stranger? Is this Eric? Eric Mills? Eric Mills of "The Mills Gallery" fame? Eric Mills, assumed to have perished in an avalanche? Eric Mills, who left Margo a boatload of money? Eric Mills, whom Margo cried brave tears over? Eric Mills, who gets his spot blown up by the freaking narration box??

Well, nice to have him back I guess? And Margo doesn't know yet, so of course, she makes the natural assumption that he's The Spy Who Is Trying to Make Me Crazy... the lesser acclaimed sequel to The Spy Who Loved Me. This is the hallucinogenic gas leak talking, mark my words.

Someone is Playing a Trick on Me!!

Okay, so I think the thing I've been worried about recently is that 91-year-old Frank Bolle is struggling to maintain any semblance of consistency, relevance, or general order in his illustrations. (All things, including this riviting storyline, being equal.)

BUT!

I'm really not sure what's going on with the writing anymore either. Is Margaret Shulock inspired by the erratic and sometimes surreal art with this storyline? Are we witnessing some kind of experimental newspaper comic art house piece? OR, duh, I can't believe I just thought of this. Diane Devine is piping a consequential but imperceptible amount of Nitrous Oxide into Gabriella's apartment and it's effecting everyone's judgement and making the house evil. BAMMMMMMMMM everyone!! Mike drop. I'm out.

...kind of liked the idea of art house A3G though.

Aimless Wandering

Margo's been wondering around the streets for a month muttering to herself and she has just now realized that she has no idea what's going on?  Welcome to how we've been feeling this whole storyline Ms. Magee.  Seems like the perfect time for the brown-coated stranger to pop out, use Margo's Christian name and then disappear. 

A Great Friend

I really thought this would turn into a big reconciliatory roommate bonding thing, with Tommie and Lu Ann chipping in to help save Marbriella's wedding. But no, I guess a random waitress introduced in the last six months is going to jump in and fix everything. Score another point for Margo McGee's amazing organizational skills!

Nothing Looks Familiar

When you wander the streets of Manhattan in all-consuming cloud of rage, there's only one of two places you're going to wind up: the top of the Empire State Building, or Diner. I'm so glad we're at Diner! No need for an absurdly long menu, I already know what I want: coffee, ice water, and mashed potato marshmallows in beef gravy, served in a bowl. Pie on the side. Thelma. you've gone back to your natural color and I have to say, you look exquisite.

Hyperbolic Rage

Please note that Margo thinks evil incarnate is the "psychic" grifter who tried to overcharge her mother on a wedding venue.  Not the former assistant who tried to explode a bomb wrapped in graph paper at her apartment.

I mean "evil incarnate" is reserved for like Hitler or Charles Manson.  Diane is just your average flim flam artist, trying to make a buck or several hundred thousand by exploiting extremely gullible, wealthy older brides.  I'd say that rates a "barely menacing" on the evil scale. 

Drained

Yep, Margo's right where we left her: wandering into traffic. She had been musing that she needed to find "the perfect crew" to execute her parents' wedding. Dollars to donuts, that means enlisting Tommie and Lu Ann, who are about to bump into her on the street and, seeing Margo's distressed state, make the fatal mistake of asking: How can we help?

Either that, or it's time for yet another encounter with the Perfect Stranger, who will reveal himself to be a combination hairdresser and caterer.

The Hunt for Margo Magee

A waist!  We have a waist!  Albeit, one ensconced in the wide elastic band of a sweet peacock windbreaker suit, but I'll take it.  And I think Lu Ann's turtleneck is starting to eat her thumb and index finger.  Maybe you guys should go check the street corner again for Margo...that's the last place we saw her.