CSotD: Here comes the Judge (again)
Skip to comments
Judge Parker is one of the few continuity strips left and, of those few, one of the even fewer that seem to take the form seriously. As you can see from today's strip, the previous story is wrapping up and a new one is about to launch, so this would be a good time to add it to your daily reading list.
Actually, while the start of a new episode made "Here comes the Judge" an irresistible headline, this past story was one of the few in which the Judge was a major player. He's long retired from the bench and has become a successful author, and the story was about a book tour that began with his publicist being killed in a traffic accident, a young assistant being put in charge of the tour and the Judge averting a suicide.
It even featured that most chilling of contemporary dilemmas, the attractive woman who is nearly falling out of her top but is so straight-out-of-college young that you're embarrassed to look and yet why else would she prop them up like that and show them to everybody? It provided nearly as much suspense as watching to see if the other woman was going to hurl herself off the building.
Neither one of the women used the line, "Hey! I'm up here!" in part because the team of Woody Wilson and Mike Manley are better than to trot out that already-tired expression and in part because the cheesecake in Judge Parker is just part of the traditional cool crime story setting, most often seen in the easy-on-the-eyes form of an intelligent, competent, irreplaceable right hand like Della Street in "Perry Mason" or Peggy Fair in "Mannix."
In this case, the intelligent, competent, irreplaceable and, oh, yeah, stunningly beautiful right hand would be Abby Spencer, now married to Sam Driver, the fellow in the green sport coat above. Abby and Sam used to be the Judge's go-to people, but long ago took center stage in most of the stories, to the point where it became a bit of a joke that Judge Parker never actually appeared in "Judge Parker."
You shouldn't take "Judge Parker" any more seriously than you would take "Perry Mason" or "Mannix," but you can enjoy it much on that level — it's well crafted and worth your time.
That's a rare commodity in a comics genre that perhaps is fading because it is most often done at a level which makes you wonder if they are being intentionally campy or are simply that ham-fisted. There are people who enjoy these daily train wrecks, but, if any of the artists and writers are trying to be so-bad-they're-good, they're sure not winking at the audience while they do it.
"Judge Parker" is worth reading and the writing, pace and presentation will remind comic aficianados of this needs-no-introduction classic, which, as it happens, is not only lovingly preserved and presented each day by cartoonist Dan Thompson but also, by a happy accident of timing, is starting up a new story as we speak. And which also occasionally features a bit of cheesecake.
Consider this a two-fer and bookmark them both.
Comments 2
Comments are closed.