BrookeCat43ullus, thank you for your epithet about me, and let me be clear that I have no problem with your calling your wife “the Pert”. It’s precious, but that’s in character for you. I’d ask you, though, to spend less time defining words that we either know or can look up & spend more time checking your spelling of said words. The adjective form of “paronomasia” is “paronomastic”. As a poet (though without any awards) & lover of poetry, I would love to read some of the Pert’s verse. Where does she teach? Where does she publish? ==================================================== Thank you for the address of Ralph McGinnis’s article that includes Art Spiegelman’s remark. It’s interesting that Spiegelman considered verse & comics similar because of how each must condense & distill. This is one of the characteristics I miss in BrookeMac’s work. Ten years ago, he did the shooting of Edda in twenty strips, including her recovery & Amos’s brief time at State-Of-Siege High. He has spent 35 or more on this really silly notion, in which we can see the ending coming a mile away. In both of those matters, 9 CHICKWEED LANE is an anti-KRAZY KAT, where the denouement was quick & frequently a surprise—not to mention the elaborately charming drawing style & use of language, neither of which BrookeMac can achieve. ================================================== On the other hand, those much-maligned parodies did use Spiegelman’s challenge. They found utterly different topics but kept their remarks to the given space of the original strip. Did you see that one of LUANN where the original had eleven words & the parody had exactly the same? This ain’t no sonnet, I’ll grant, but it was, obviously, a verbal exercise. ==================================================== Oh, well, with BrookeMac’s being so thin-skinned & prone to hissies, I don’t expect that we will see any more daring parodies. Speaking of which, I note that you don’t bother to support any of your—or BrookeMac’s—accusations about the 9 CHICKWEED LANE comments page or about the parodies, an omission that I take as concession. Thank you. The internet is open & free-wheeling, but the moment that someone gets his feelings hurt, it turns into the old Soviet Union: that’s sad & pathetic. ============================================================ Your wife is the Pert & your cat is Bert. Hmmmmm.

It posted twice?! Damn! I am really really sorry. I HATE multiply posts!

H.P.D., you’re becoming hysterical (nudge, nudge, get it, Freudians?). Cat43 (a.k.a. BrookeCat) is as welcome here as anywhere. We all can discuss MONTY’s strips. His analysis is fairly weak, but he’s just starting. Varnes isn’t doing much better. Fleshy, a mauve male cat (although, in my opinion, a badly drawn one; do cats stretch Jim Meddick’s talents too far?), is dreaming of being a mauve poodle in a classic cut & a grey bra, chasing Freud, in a grey suit, up a tree. We don’t know whether the poodle is male or female. I suspect that the poodle is a cross-dressing male. ===================================================================== “Troping”, BrookeCat? No offense, but my god, you ARE a wanker. If only your twin, BrookeMac, HAD ideas. For the last five weeks, all he has had is a half-baked notion & a full-out infantile resentment when his site garnered comments that were unlike yours, i.e., comments that criticized his strip. I am surprised that he can shut down the comments site, but there was no libel, no anti-feminism (although your calling your wife “the Pert” isn’t what I would call pro-feminist), and no threats. Note: He couldn’t specify any of this. It is this blind allegation of libel, &c., that encourages one to see you as BrookeCat. ===================================================================== Since BrookeMac’s !$%* hit his fan, I visited the PIBGORN site. You all “play nicely” if by that you mean that you hang in effigy anyone whom BrookeMac dislikes. ===================================================================== I appreciate 9 CHICKWEED LANE, PEARLS BEFORE SWINE (which is sometimes stupid but sometimes brilliantly funny), GET FUZZY, & MONTY—among others. Each is worthy of analysis. I’m with Spiegelman. Good citation: Where’s it from?

Does Monty wussie up and back off his stance in order to "gain some leverage" with Gretchen? Since he's dead accurate doesn't it reinforce the idea that she is a reach well beyond his grasp? ______________________________________________________________________________ Art Spiegelman suggests that we read the best cartoons as if they were poems--MONTY seems to me to qualify. _____________________________________________________________________________ I also see a visual pun here since M. is groping around in that chip bag when he could be...trying to fumble with a certain article of clothing which resembles it.

I'll try to restrain my troping [see Oxford American Dictionary, Ox. U. Press, 2001 (I think) for both meanings and use as a verb] to the PIB site, which is MUCH easier to use, anyway. __________________________________________________________________________________- But MONTY plays with ideas in much the same manner as Brooke and the nature of the web and comment boards have opened up fan participation: instant metafiction. You cannot base your strip on MONTY PYTHON concepts and rely heavily on tired old puns and cliche instances of Rat/Bucky-is-so-dumb-and-mean or Pig/Satchel-is-so-clueless-but-kind and Oh-where-is-that-K.Kelly-brick-it-appears-magically. Pastis did that Kr.KAT allusion last Fall in one of his better efforts. ________________________________________________________________________________ Closing of the board was entirely up to Brooke, who was unamused by the public libel of his strip and by the anti-feminist maunderings and threats these last few months. We try to play nicely over at the Pib site.