Prior to any long automobile trip (it’s five hours to Boise — with 4 kids in the car, tha qualifies as “long”) we have to stock up on travel treats.

Prior to stocking up on travel treats I was surfing for movie trailers and ended up watching the latest King Kong trailer several times. The scene where Kong fights a T-Rex looks very, very promising.

Later, at the grocery store, I bought a couple of boxes of fruit snacks.

Back at home Sandra commented on my choice of fruit snack themes (dinosaurs and “Curious George”) by saying “hmmm… dinosaurs and monkeys. I know what YOU’RE thinking about.

Honestly, I didn’t plan it that way.

–Howard

Today’s Dilbert, found here (for another 29 days, anyway), is an example of great writing and crummy cartooning.

Now many of you may argue that Dilbert has ALWAYS been an example of crummy cartooning, but I strongly disagree. He does a great job “emoting” with the simple and simplistic character art of his strip, and Dilbert has long been one of my favorite strips.

Today’s though… the PHB tells the “Boss’s Pet” interviewee to show him the face she’ll use when bullying employees behind his back. She growls and bares her teeth and scowls all at once, and he says “nice use of forehead wrinkles. You’re hired.”

The problem? The faces are so small you can’t see the expression properly. I suppose at 300dpi on newsprint it’ll look a LITTLE better, but looking at the enormous amounts of white-space around the characters, I’m forced to announce that the strip is poorly composed. If the faces had been just a little larger – say 50%, or maybe even double their current size – we could have really SEEN the forehead wrinkles. Scott Adams is capable of doing a convincing “angry” face, but when he limited the space in which he could render it, he blew it.

This piece of criticism has been brought to you by the letters “I R E A L L Y S H O U L D G E T B A C K T O W O R K” and the number “NOW.”

–Howard