The Funny Pages

I kept meaning to mention this last week but things kept coming up that pushed it into the background, and every time I rediscovered it, it was "oh, yeah, right, I have to do something on that" and then the cycle went into repeat. Anyhow, the point is: early last week, while indulging my love for "Dilbert" and "Pearls Before Swine," (and, truth be told, my disturbing fondness for "Luann") I ran across the (as of last week) most recent "Tank McNamara" series, which begins here and which, as the week wore on, became more and more unfunny.

The strip is off this week lampooning the Brett Favre unretirement, so I assume they're just bouncing from topical sports storyline to topical sports storyline. Nothing wrong with that. But is it just me being an offended Bengals fan, or were the T.O. strips last week remarkably unfunny?

I know comic strips are drawn in advance (thought these couldn't have been drawn that far ahead) and so from ones that rely on current events for their subject matter, I expect a certain amount of license. But this was just blunt-hammer "ha ha, Bengals signed ball-hogging douchebag" stuff.

I know, I know, some of you are saying: well, duh, Terrell Owens is a ball-hogging douchebag. Others are saying: Luann? Really, Luann??? But I digress. The point is, making fun of T.O. hardly stops at his desire to be the A-No.-1 target. And to their credit the strip does, in the initial and probably best of the cartoons, reference his reality TV show. But from there, with all the possibilities offered by T.O. plus Chad Ochocinco, or T.O. plus all the other characters on the roster, or even T.O. + cheap Mike Brown gags...what do we get? T.O. grabbing Carson's helmet to tell "Wade" to call his number.

Sheesh. Not only can't the Bengals get any respect from the sports media (though I see The Cryptkeeper has flipped from Baltimore to Cincinnati, though because of injuries to the Ravens, not anything the Bengals did) they're apparently even not worth the effort for cartoonists.

Well, maybe we get the last laugh early next year. When, I'm sure, "Tank McNamara" will find it funny to draw T.O. absconding with the Lombardi Trophy before Mike Brown can hoist it.

OK, well, that would be kinda funny...