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Baldo
Slylock Fox, 11/13/09
Some readers have claimed that in my past commentaries I have unjustly slandered the reputation of the noble raccoon, and perhaps this is true! But I am certainly not alone in fomenting negative media images of these clever creatures. Check out this masked fellow, tightly gripping onto his “lunch,” a wide-eyed still-living fish gasping for oxygen in the terrible waterless realm outside his home pond. “For the love of God,” it begs with its eyes, “put me out of my misery! This is agony!” But the raccoon just grins mischievously. “Oh, this? Yeah, I scooped this fish out the lake. I’ll probably eat him, eventually, but I thought I’d just carry him around for a while and let him thrash first. So, what have you been up to?”
Baldo, 11/13/09
Oh, look, it’s comics crossover fun in Baldo! This strip is actually surprisingly realistic: most crossover strips show comics characters laughing it up at some big party, but if you think about it, if you saw a group of fictional characters, all with wildly differing proportions and basic bodily structures, you too would react by staring at them in silent, wide-eyed horror, as everyone in the third panel appears to be doing.
Mary Worth, 11/13/09
“My advice? Oh, Adrian, dear, you know I don’t like to use that word! It implies that you have the option not to obey me. I prefer the term ‘unbreakable divine command.’”
Pearls Before Swine, 8/12/09
Hello, anonymous rude denizens of the Internet! You have driven Stephan Pastis into his Internet Happy Box, so I hope you’re satisfied with yourselves. Actually, when people started emailing me about this strip this morning, I had a weird moment of déjà vu, as I thought this had run months ago. In fact, Stephan e-mailed it to me when he drew it, but that was back in April thanks to the high-tech distribution system that underlies the newspaper comics industry. Anyway, at the time I promised to rip him a new one when this came out, except he hasn’t been doing any of the terrible pun strips lately. SO UNTIL NEXT TIME PASTIS. You stay in that box just to be safe, though.
Baldo, 8/12/09
I went to college at Cornell, which is in the absolutely lovely (some might even say “gorges” HA IT’S A PUN GET IT) city of Ithaca, New York, which, despite being lovely, does not have much going for it in the way of malls. When you grow up going to Cheektowaga’s fabulous Walden Galleria, it’s a bit of a letdown doing all your enclosed chain-store shopping and food-court dining at the Pyramid Mall. This establishment appears to have since changed its name to “The Shops At Ithaca Mall,” which I find extremely amusing — oh, there are shops at the mall, you say? Anyway, I always used to mock the Pyramid Mall’s smallness by referring to it as the “Petite Mall”; I thought this was hilarious and everyone else was either more or less indifferent about it or thought it was actively offensive to people who have seizures. This is a roundabout way of saying that, why yes, I do feel validated by having essentially the same joke used in a Baldo strip 15 years later, thanks for asking!
I originally felt like there might be only about fifty-fifty chance that my terrible seizure joke was in fact the intended reading of this strip, but then I realized that there was no other obvious humor content here, so I figure that has to be what’s happening.
Hi and Lois, 8/12/09
It has not escaped my notice that quite a few of the recent Trixie-centered Hi and Lois strips have featured the pre-verbal infant girl wandering around outside apparently unattended. Maybe her parents are hoping that she’ll be adopted by a local wolfpack or some other band of animals and they’ll be relieved of responsibility for her; unfortunately, they hadn’t counted on the effectiveness with which the builders of their suburban subdivision cleared it of most wildlife. Trixie’s only option is to take up with a colony of frogs, which will go fine until she hits puberty and heads to the culvert under the arterial road with amplexus on her mind, only to be bitterly disappointed.
Hagar the Horrible, 8/12/09
Ha ha! He finds his wife’s mother so irritating that he’s going to hand her over to savages who will use her as a slave or a sacrifice to their pagan gods! MOTHERS IN LAW, am I right, people?
Funky Winkerbean, 6/26/09
“You see, Kayla, eventually, like everything I touch, you will die, in pain. The question is, will you have made enough of an emotional impression on me to leave me wistful and emotionally bruised for the next decade? Will your brave but ultimately doomed fight against mortality bring a wistful, noble tear to my eye, and to the eyes of millions of readers across the country? Will you have finally broken through Summer’s shell of reserve, leaving her shattered at the knowledge that she might have had the mother figure in her life that she’s always needed? In short, we need time to build up that kind of emotional baggage, and frankly I don’t think we’re going to get there by enjoying ourselves, with sex.”
Family Circus, 6/26/09
It’s kind of true: since Billy isn’t allowed to wander outside the compound walls or to watch the devil’s “television” box, his only guide to appropriate behavior is the Old Testament, which, for all of its merits, has relatively little information on children’s leisure activities.
Baldo, 6/26/09
Tia Carmen and Baldo have a shared interest in very specific kinds of fetish pornography, a bond that draws them closer but that they very rarely acknowledge.
Crankshaft, 5/12/09
If the signature facial expression in Funky Winkerbean is the smirk that can’t come close to masking the pain, the signature facial expression in Crankshaft is the overwrought look of stricken horror that accompanies social embarrassment or discomfort. “Oh, no, my old father-in-law has forgotten that he will die soon!” “Oh, no, someone expressed an intimate sentiment in public!” “Oh, no, my son’s entry-level job doesn’t pay well!”
I have no idea why Pam is horrified today, mostly because I have no idea what the ’Shaft’s granddaughter is talking about here; probably she’s glad the robe is all-covering because she’s going to go streaking, or wear a bikini, or get a tattoo, or something, in which case Pam’s facial expression would mean “Oh, no, she’s planning on celebrating her graduation by having a good time!”
Baldo, 5/12/09
Tia Carmen is ever haunted by the grim specter of death, and her single slice of birthday pie cannot make her forget the creeping dread.
Lockhorns, 5/12/09
Meetings of the Hemlock Society are never particularly lively.
Mary Worth, 5/12/09
“You should judge everyone based on his own actions! For instance, you should judge your new friend based on the fact that he’s starting up an inappropriate romantic relationship with a key witness in an ongoing criminal investigation!”
Apartment 3-G, 2/19/09
No Apartment 3-G girl can find happiness in love, so obviously the next box Margo receives will contain Eric’s neatly packaged non-transplantable organs, courtesy of the Chinese government, but for the moment let’s just appreciate this gesture, in which he lets her know that her many, many previous sexual partners don’t bother him. If we’re really lucky Margo will let Tommie play dress-up with it, to mock her, because it’s the closest she’ll ever come to getting married, or having anyone love her.
Baldo, 2/19/08
Notice that the customer is blushing in the final panel. The only legitimate response to a sub-pun this awful is to be terribly embarrassed for the perpetrator.
Crankshaft, 2/19/09
Oh, that Crankshaft, always combining corny, unoriginal jokes with death! Our flight attendant looks wholly uninterested in saving her own or anybody else’s life in the case of emergency, and will probably cap off her little safety talk by hanging herself with the demonstration seatbelt.
Family Circus, 2/19/09
“No, Jeffy! You know full well what the judge said.”
Marmaduke, 2/19/09
“Why are you so restrained, for once?” Phil thinks. “Go on, eat him!”
Hagar the Horrible, 2/19/09
HAW HAW HAW THE FEMINISM
Apartment 3-G, 10/7/08
Haley is so weak from dope-sickness that she can’t even sigh aloud; she can only think the word “sigh.”
Baldo, 10/7/08
Baldo’s sexual services only merit a B-.
Luann, 10/7/08
To everyone who’s been writing to Greg Evans and United Features Syndicate demanding to see Brad’s nipples: I hope you’re happy now, you bastards.
Pluggers, 10/7/08
A plugger moves through life leaving a trail of failure and economic ruin in his wake.
Beetle Bailey, 10/7/08
Otto has been “assigned” to Sarge’s “unit.”
