9 Chickweed Lane

2-21-2023

Ok so either Edda and Amos are leaving mere seconds after everyone in the group has arrived so they can go and... eat spaghetti???... or "spaghetti" is their public code word for "fuck." Or spaghetti is foreplay? Either way, Hugh and Xiulan have already been deserted by Seth and Fernanda and thus will have been stood up by everyone in their party except for Mary who is a stranger and who Has Baggage. I enjoy spending time with my husband but if I put on a tux and went out to meet two other couples and they both ditched me I'd be really hurt. If I were 10 months pregnant and waddled my ass over there only to be abandoned by so-called "friends" so they could streak home and fuck I'd be incandescent with rage. Absolutely incandescent.

While it looks like Edda is coming on to Mary/inviting her home for some of Amos' home made spaghetti and "something else" (fucking) McEldowney is surprisingly prudish when it comes to characters other than the main cast. So no.

You've got sluts, and you've got people with destined true love who fuck on table tops, and never the two shall overlap.

Anyway, the Anchorage Daily News dropped 9CL along with some other strips.

I'm still under threat of intervention, by the way, or this would be considerably longer.

Considerably.

Longer.

Good things about the strip though: Mary's body language and face in the first panel is excellent, Edda's predatory sexual body language and face in the final panel with Mary leaning back is kind of scary! Edda's going to EAT HER and Mary doesn't know it but SHE WILL LOVE IT. Lol jk Edda would never kiss a girl that's where cooties live.

2-10-2023

Is there a reason you shouldn't ask to cut in?

Is there a reason you should?

Amos doesn't remember you and Edda has been insulting you this entire time. Why would you want to cut in?

Anyway, it's probably for the best you haven't cut it... Amos just broke Edda's back, thus needing to carry her off.

Some folks have been talking about them having a threesome but that's not going to happen, McEldowney has some pretty glaring sexual hangups and a big ol' slutty adulterous slut like Mary is never going to grace the bed of these two destined pure lovebirds.

Art wise... Mary's legs are too short which is surprising given McEldowney's usual focus on legs. Her arms, meanwhile, are terrifyingly too long. Should I create an egregiously bad art tag? I don't know.

2-8-2023



I just... I mean. I'm not even going to discuss Edda's anatomy here.

Ok, that's a lie, I am. Look at her. LOOK at her.

Her pelvis has to be like two feet wide for her hips, and thus thighs, to be that far apart.

Amos is holding her up by one thigh and her hand, or else she's actively launching herself groin-first at him?

The way her waist is twisted, and the length of her torso?

Professional artist and comic-strip-er David Willis broke her leg issues down on Twitter.

Anyway, one of the big issues with not having any backgrounds while also having poor pacing is that it looks like Mary is in her bedroom or some sort of sitting room or maybe she's powdering her nose in a fancy bathroom? And then she leaves that room and will enter the room that Amos and Edda are alone in. The empty vacant room that's attached to the room she was in previously.

McEldowney could have given her any hairstyle, any hairstyle at all. It's been ten years since we've seen her. She could have grown her hair out. She could have curled it. She could have gotten an undercut. She could have bleached or dyed it. Instead her hair has remained essentially the same except now she's "styled" it to look like Mark's or Janice's, or like Isabel's hair but straight and spiky instead of curly.

What I would love - what I would absolutely love - is for Mary to just be goth, you know? She just so happens to be at the same tango salon meeting someone else. Edda has some kind of confrontation only to be shot down by the fact that Mary doesn't actually plan her life around Amos and Edda. Like Mary enters, Edda marches over and starts lecturing her, someone intervenes and asks Mary if she's ok and they go off together.

But that won't happen.

Not when there's a chance to further humiliate Mary, I guess.

Is it worth making a tag for broken anatomy?

2-6-2023

A hoof.

She has a hoof.

Anyway...

I cannot restate this enough times: Amos had an engagement ring in his pocket (for Edda) when he met with Mary to proclaim his love for her. He then vomited, which proved he loved Edda.

You know, normal relationship stuff.

But he was hung up on her into adulthood. She was the what-if for him and he’s the what-if for her apparently.

People growing & changing is GREAT and it’s an interesting story.

That’s not what we got, though. We got Mary being humiliated so Amos can declare his love for Edda.

Edda wasn’t “his universe” in school. They both had crushes on other people, she actively dated a lot of guys. That’s normal. And it’s ignored. And that's a shame, because "friends realizing over time that they love each other and also are IN LOVE with each other" is really interesting. "Two people always destined to be together drift into a marriage and kids and perfect career together" isn't that much fun. I mean, it CAN be if they have to overcome obstacles but they didn't have any obstacles but themselves.

And the ultimate “punchline”, apparently, occurs the Monday after that story line is seemingly resolved because this man SUCKS at pacing.

Or we’ll have another week of them declaring undying love with legs splayed all over the place. I really am not in the mood for a week of Amos describing how much he loves Edda using the most florid, purple prose he can possibly dredge up. Somewhere their battered thesaurus is weeping over its broken spine and dog eared pages.

Meanwhile, here Edda is looking like a Barbie doll that's fallen out of a toybox, hips moving in ways human hips can't move. It's so important that her entire leg be visible that McEldowney mangles her foot (hoof) and has a speech bubble coming out of her cootch/Amos' lower back so it's not obscuring anything.

Which brings us to, you know...

2-4-2023

He saw her front constantly.

He saw her front as she spoke to Edda.

He saw her front as she spoke to him.

He saw her front as she asked him over and over and over to stop stalking her.

He saw her front as she asked him to get up off the ground so she could walk to where she was going without having to step over him.

He saw her front as she politely invited him to join her youth orchestra (he declined).

He saw her front as he, an adult with an engagement ring for Edda in his pocket, informed Mary that she was the only person that he'd ever loved.

He saw her front when she, an adult, stayed him Amos and Edda in their apartment during a visit to New York.

He saw her front constantly.

2-2-2023

"Amos, here is someone that you know."

"Oh wow, this person is trying to get your attention!"

"Amos, I am a person that you know and I am trying to get YOUR attention."

"Well, I'm not going to respond in any way or acknowledge you, but I am going to mention how embarrassing this is."

Sometimes people want to hug you and you don't want to be hugged and that's fine. But you can stand there and stare at them, or you can tell them that you're not a person who hugs. You can deflect the hug to a handshake or a wave. Just standing there staring at someone greeting you is a real dick move. He hasn't even said hello to her yet. Even if he doesn't recognize her somehow, one of the baselines for civility is to respond when someone greets you. He hasn't done that. Even when she addressed him directly he hasn't responded to her. Instead he's uttered two asides to Edda. It's coming across as him actively snubbing her, giving her the cut direct.

The best read of this is that Amos doesn't recognize her and is embarrassed by his lack of recognition of someone who obviously knows who he is. Edda not only refuses to clarify who this person is, which leaves Amos feeling shame and embarrassment, she's also enjoying Mary's discomfort and embarrassment. She's leaving both people to twist in the wind, feeling embarrassed, so she can feel superior to Mary over... having married Amos ten years ago, or however many it was, after having dated him for even longer.

This is the second time McEldowney has dug up a very minor character who hadn't been seen in a decade real-time, not in-strip-time, to have other characters treat them like shit.

The biggest example, of course, is when McEldowney reintroduced Mark solely so Seth could cheat on him, marry a woman without telling Mark he'd been fucking someone else and gotten engaged while still living with Mark and then painted Mark as the bad person who was acting irrationally about his live-in LONG-term boyfriend cheating on him, getting engaged without telling him, marrying someone else, and refusing entirely to talk about it. Ever. That someone, by the way, is a homophobic bigot who has done nothing but insult Mark both generally and also specifically because he's not masculine and/or straight. Everyone in the strip treated Mark like a real buzzkill who was over reacting.

Again, his long term live-in boyfriend was actively living with him and sharing his bed while also fucking somebody else - somebody who'd regularly verbally abused him and with whom Seth had already cheated on him with. His long term live-in boyfriend was actively living with him and sharing his bed when he got engaged to this person. His ex boyfriend, who he'd been dating for twenty years and with whom he'd lived for some amount of time we'll never know, who shared a bed with him, refused to discuss ANY of this with him and verbally abused him when he tried. And everyone apparently agreed this was... normal behavior, this is how you treat someone you've been with for twenty years, this is how you treat someone who loves you, this is how you treat someone who shares your bed.

There was absolutely no reason for McEldowney to bring Mark back as a character. Seth could very easily have been single, or only dating people casually. The only reason to bring him back was to be cruel, and to have all the other characters reinforce that cruelty as normal and correct.

That story line, which kicked off on June 1st (Pride month), culminated in a hot woman triumphing over a gay man, claiming Seth as her own. This current story line apparently is about Edda triumphing over Mary, someone who has been entirely irrelevant for a good decade now.

I want to restate this: Mary is entirely irrelevant.

Edda's kids are somewhere between the ages of 6 and 10, maybe slightly younger if they're extra precocious. Mary apparently didn't know Edda had had kids. The pregnancy was high risk and Edda was in the hospital toward the end of it. Mary did not know that Edda's pregnancy could have killed her.. Nobody invited Mary to Edda's baby shower (assuming she had one? none was shown). Mary has not spoken to Edda or anyone in her family for at least six years. At least. Mary has been married, and divorced, twice. Edda has not gone to either wedding, apparently did not know that she'd been married at all.

"How have you been?"

"Well, I've been married and divorced twice."

That's what you say to someone you haven't seen in years. The more recently you've seen someone the more immediate the news is. "I got a promotion last year!" "I paid off my student loans five months ago!" "Frank signed the paperwork for our divorce. At last!" "I finally tried that sandwich shop last week!" "OH MY GOD you will not BELIEVE what new bullshit is going on at work!"

Edda is gloating at someone over something that happened over a decade ago. Edda is letting someone suffer social indignities over a ship that sailed over a decade ago. Amos very clearly has no interest in Mary. Amos very clearly is massively invested in his life with Edda, their daughters, and their career. Mary is in no way a threat and frankly never was. But McEldowney brought her back so we can see how Edda is better than her, and by "better than her" I mean small and petty and vindictive.

This is weird. This is weird behavior. Mary's going to go home and tell this story and people are going to laugh at how weird it was, but Mary won't be the butt of the joke. Her weird-ass musician friends who are still heavily invested in the social dynamics of 11th grade will be, though, and rightfully so.

1-29-2023

This is a cute enough comic. Nice body language on Amos.

I hate the tangled tails of the speech bubbles in the final panel. It's overly complex and ridiculous.

Just have them talk.

1-27-2023

The punchline is that they're going to have sex.

The punchline is always that they're going to have sex, unless the punchline is that they are currently having sex or just had sex.

And once again McEldowney has managed to take a story line about small children and turn it into a punchline about how these two adults are going to fuck.

And I just... need to put this in context.

These two little girls invented a board game that they're really excited about and have been enjoying playing.

They tell their parents about it.

Their dad is excited to play it, in part because you get to scream "doom," and their mom keeps prompting him to be upset about the game for some reason.

They both sit down with the kids, around the board game, then they get up and leave.

They get up and they leave so they can talk about fucking.

I do not understand what Edda's objections to this game are, especially as she was a violent child AND this is extremely normal behavior for kids the age these girls are. I also don't know why she's leaning on Amos to "do something" or "say something" or whatever. She's a very opinionated person who has NEVER had an issue expressing her opinion before to the point that it's a defining trait of hers. It feels like we're veering into some gender essentialism here, some gender essentialism that was mostly lacking previously.

We came so close to seeing these two parent their kids, to seeing their kids as people. These kids made a fun sounding game. Their parents sat down to play with them. Their dad was excited to play with them. We came SO CLOSE to a STORY, to something HAPPENING.

And then veered away at the last second.

It's so incredibly frustrating.

It also makes me want to play Bitin' Off Hedz, which I haven't played in a good 20 years.

1-25-2023

I have no idea why this would necessitate "a stern lecture."

I would play the heck out of this game, if I haven't already.

This reminds me of Amos' earlier writing as a kid who was really into physics, astronomy, math, etc. and who regularly predicted the end of the world. This is the face of a man who enjoys screaming DOOM. I'm hoping we get to see the rest of the week follow them all playing this board game.

Kid-invented board games are amazing.

1-23-2023

There's a lot! Going on! Here!!

I assume he's referencing a strip or strips that he's got a beef with, the way he's beefed with "Doonesbury" (in a very one-sided way).

The other explanation, of course, is that he's poking fun at his own strip.

If he uses this as a springboard to get out of the constant fucking and back to stories I'll be thrilled.

Because here he is, the Monday after a full week of "erotic music playing" strips that culminated in Edda essentially wearing lingerie on stage, talking about strip creators who run out of ideas and just do the same thing over and over. Apparently afraid that THIS strip is running out of ideas Amos shreds his turtleneck and throws himself upon Edda's sexual mercy.

Is he wearing pants? Did he rip those off as well, or was he just wearing a long coat? A turtleneck dress? This is really the best "new idea" he could come up with? More sex?

Well, Amos wearing less clothing than Edda is different, I guess.

The two of them acting sexually outside isn't, though. I assume they're outside, they're both wearing coats. But really they could be anywhere.

But! Let's focus on the most important thing!!

HOW can one mention Richard Wagner underpants AND THEN NOT SHOW THEM? Comic strips are a visual medium! We didn't even get a background here! Just Amos in white boxer shorts (white trousers?) and then a description! Is it the BACK of them that's decorated? What are they decorated with? His face? A Valkyrie helmet? Some iron crosses?

One can also ask how one's spouse can remain unaware of this sort of novelty undergarment, or why one would not include their spouse in the "select crowd" that knows they exist. One could. If one felt so inclined.

I have to wonder if he's a member of a "classical composer underpants of the month" subscription service, a service which could probably milk some money from a certain kind of nerd.