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Comics archive!
July, 2007
Cathy, 7/31/07
It’s possible that the Cathy powers that be have decided that we need to be distracted from the loathsomeness of Cathy and her parents and have thus created a family that is even more hateful. Or they may believe Cathy’s family to be a perfect little group and that this is the depths required to register on their awful-o-meter. Either way, the point is that Irving’s family are terrible people, which has been the thrust of the “jokes” in Cathy throughout this family reunion plot, which has been going on for … well, I haven’t been keeping track, but it seems like about a year and a half. Today’s different, though, because we actually get to see the other members of Irving’s clan all in a row, and learn that they’re all terrifyingly identical Hillman-Bots, presumably just released from the factory. The fact that they all look like either Irving’s mother or Irving’s father indicates the unseemly amount of inbreeding required to produce these grinning, dead-eyed clones. Hopefully these abominations of nature are being lined up against the wall so they can be shot and this horrible perversion of science ended once and for all.
Mary Worth, 7/31/07
Mother of God in heaven above! After reading your comments, I thought I was prepared for the awful hideousness of Dawn’s outfit, but now I know that no human could ever be ready for this. I think what disturbs me most is the obvious care she’s taken to match find a pair of bike shorts and an extra-long t-shirt in precisely the same offensive shade of purple. The appliqué of a two-headed kitten sitting in a stewpot is just the revolting icing on the repulsive cake.
The Phantom, 7/31/07
“Maybe I should just start appearing out of thin air! With my gun! Um. Gun. Yeah. First person who asks what kind of ghost needs a gun to fight bad guys gets shot, by the way.”
At least faithful reader Bootsy will be placated by today’s featured stripey ass presentation.
For Better Or For Worse, 7/31/07
Must … not … make … joke … about … a person … being … inside … Becky …
Gil Thorp, 7/30/07
Thank God the helpful narration box tells us that Gail Martin’s tour has hit the weirdly specific spot of Wheeling, W.Va., because based on the soul-crushing Stalinist architecture on display in panel one, I would have guessed that she was just finishing up three triumphant nights in Bratislava’s Štadión Petržalka.
As many of you have noted, Gil Thorp’s trademarked Hideous Disembodied Claw-Thing™ makes an appearance in panel three, but there is hope for humankind: when you compare it to its previous appearances you can see that it’s losing fingers. Soon we’ll be safe as Earth’s corrosive atmosphere causes it to dissolve altogether!
Mark Trail, 7/30/07
“And by ‘come check on you,’ I mean ‘shoot you in the face with his enormous shotgun.’ Don’t worry, I’ll be right here, lurking safely in the bushes until you distract him with your screams of agony!” Christ, it’s no wonder that Sam is attempting to withdraw her head into her shirt, turtle-like.
Family Circus, 7/30/07
Man, that’s a great, subtle expression of brief hope flickering out on the face of Pipey McMustache there. It’s almost a little cruel to drag it out in a rerun to make him feel that disappointment again.
Apartment 3-G, 7/29/07
For shame, Margo Magee! I seem to remember that a certain young brunette was very pleased to received all sorts of aesthetically unsettling knickknacks from total strangers celebrating her liberation from white slavery. So don’t begrudge the brain-damaged girl her moment in the sun, OK?
Unless Eric’s note features magical talking handwriting, Tommie doesn’t know what it is that has Margo so excited, but we can all still join her in a hearty “Where?!” Eric said “dinner at my place tomorrow night”, Margo. Either she’s planning on spending a full 24 hours primping for their reunion, or she’s going to burst into his apartment early and catch him in the arms of his sister-in-law. Either way, it’ll make for four to six weeks of good fun.
Shoe, 7/29/07
I’m really starting to worry about Shoe. As I’ve noted, the strip suddenly seems fixated on wasted lives and impending death. Today, as if five consecutive panels of a sobbing, emotionally distraught Perfesser weren’t enough, in the first panel we actually get to see Gilmore the Goldfish’s last moment on earth, his heavy-lidded eyes solemn with the sudden realization that for him, the veil separating this world from the next was about to part and he would forever transcend to the beyond. Then, for good measure, we’re shown his corpse. Bizarrely, the whole thing is capped off with a nonsensical joke. It’s as if Roz is telling us that the only way we can escape the crushing pain that comes with the knowledge of our own mortality is by taking refuge in the deliberate nonsense of Dada.
Funky Winkerbean, 7/29/07
The Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For is here, more or less, though surely Darrin will spend weeks moping aimlessly with the knowledge that his birth mother is dying of cancer before he actually works up the nerve to talk to her. I mostly wanted to point out his look of stunned horror as his face looms above the “BEAN” in Winkerbean in the first panel. It really nicely encapsulates the mood of the strip, though it does leave us wondering about his mouth — a perfect O of shock, or a grimace of emotional distress?
Finally, today’s Mary Worth is too horrible for me to contemplate, but I did want to share this pic from faithful reader Dan, who offers it as proof that tiny, tiny horses like the ones Drew and Dawn are riding do exist — in Mongolia!
This frankly opens up a number of wonderful possibilities. Are Drew and Dawn training in the art of nomad horsemanship? Will they join a fearsome horde of warriors, swooping down upon the settled folk, burning their homes, stealing their gold, and leaving piles of bones in their wake? Will Charterstone be their first target? Please?
Mary Worth and Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/28/07
Maternal visit or no, I certainly could not let these two explosive comics from Saturday go unremarked. I’d urge you to try to reproduce the bizarre angles of Drew and Dawn’s approach in panel two at home, but you might then be tempted to photograph it and send me a picture, the prospect of which makes me distinctly uncomfortable. I’m pretty sure the lines of radiance represent the aura experienced by epileptics just before a seizure, because that’s the only reasonably explanation for the awkward poses and facial expressions of otherworldly detachment from reality.
Meanwhile, in Rex Morgan, M.D., stuff (and here I mean “stuff” U English sense to mean woolen fabric, specifically the woolen fabric in the very U Hugh’s suit) blows up. Even more exciting than that, though, is seeing June say, “Did he grovel for you like he did for me?” That very well could have triggered the explosion — the explosion of sexiness.
Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois, 7/28/07
Meanwhile, although I’m usually left cold by golf jokes (and WE GET IT CARTOONISTS YOU’D RATHER BE GOLFING THAN DRAWING FUNNY PICTURES) and Beetle Bailey generally, I have to admit that Saturday’s Beetle Bailey golf joke actually made me laugh aloud. I do wonder why Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC doesn’t have team meetings once a week to prevent this kind of overlap, though.
They’ll Do It Every Time, 7/28/07
And once again TDIET is Curmudgeon-inspired! Gabe Owens is in fact faithful reader Gabe. Since Gabe is in the Navy, this cartoon could have featured some epically outdated uniforms and insignia, possible from World War I, but I guess that’s Beetle Bailey territory; when you’re in a TDIET, you toil away in a generic Eisenhower-era office and you like it, buddy. Gabe has used his real name (and rank? I thought MC2 was some variation on “Master Chief”, but I couldn’t find any evidence to that effect online; maybe it’s his rap name?), so he’d better hope that having “The Urge” isn’t a court-martialable offense.
Hey, kids! Been having a good time … mom says hello to everyone, though she did demur on picking a comment of the week. “I’m not worthy!” she says.
Anyhoo, here’s this week’s top comment, picked the old-fashioned way:
“You know, any thoughts of Miss Buxley in her undies were distracted by General Halftrack’s veiled references to incontinence. I bet he’s peeing right now and there’s not a thing we can do about it.” –Citric
And the runners-up! Also funny!
“What’s with the unnecessary honesty on a first date? Can’t wait for tomorrow when she tells him she’s already been imagining their wedding and babies, gambles on dogfights, and once killed a hobo.” –AlmostAGhost
“FW: (to the tune of ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’): Your birthmother’s dying of cancer/ Your birthmother’s dying of cancer/ Your birthmother’s dying of cancer/ and the Post Office wants you to know.” –Professor Fate
“Liz the Vet is slowly worming her way into Garfield’s trust. Tomorrow: poisoned lasagna.” –Inspector Dim
“Darin’s closing his P.O. box because he’s opened a new one — in his girlfriend’s pants!” –NaughtyNatureLover
“I suppose Wilbur is a widower. I mean, Dawn’s mom had to have died of shame, right?” –Trilobite
“I’m guessing the second lady is the hired muscle: ‘You want I should mess them up a little, boss?’ No-one should work at home without a sassy Prohibition-era she-goon.” –Old Bean
“I believe the answer to how Alice manages to suffer through each day with Henry and their WC Fields-nosed offspring lies in her very full wine glass.” –Mack
“Ruff seems to be eating the detritus falling from his own greenish, filthy coat, like a self-sustaining ecosystem of animal neglect and ropy, mop-like hair.” –SecretMargo
“Screw ‘Everybody’s Different.’ Play ‘Tarzana Nights’! C’mon! ‘TARZANA NIGHTS’!!!” –Mollie
“Does Mary Worth’s mission as official Charterstone advice-giver include advising close friends to abandon laughably inept combovers? Apparently not.” –rich
“Since Josh is wondering what was the deal with Albert Pinkham Ryder, I may as well share my pet theory. In the afterlife, the great dead American painters foresaw that if Luann were allowed to continue painting, her awesomely bad artwork would threaten to destroy art in America altogether, like a bomb exploding with the force of a 100 million Kincade cottages. So they sent Ryder to destroy her. He has failed miserably, and now is sweating in terror at the dead painters’ meeting. Seated behind a glass tube and stroking a white cat, Winslow Homer says, ‘I do not welcome failure, Number Six.’ He pushes a button that sends electricity coursing through Ryder’s chair, destroying him instantly. An unseen brass section vamps dramatically. Next — they send Thomas Eakins to succeed where Ryder failed.” –ChristianPinko
“What I love about Derle is that his business is called Fly-by-Night and his prominent tattoo declares him to be a tax evader. Look for Derle in the yellow pages under SMUGGLING-OPIUM.” –Artist formerly known as Ben
“What I noticed about today’s strip is that those are enormous bowls of ice cream. I guess all those calories are just the trick to give Kaz all of his pummeling power. Of course, I don’t recall off the top of my head ever having seen anyone in (DT)GT actually in the act of eating. I’d like to believe that they simply unhinge their monstrous alien jaws and swallow their foodstuffs whole.” –Paperback Rifler
“For someone who pledges to take his own life before the tyrannical government can force him to pay his taxes (an illegal act), I’ve got a problem with Derie’s sudden concern for the legal ramifications of his actions. It’s like he took a page from the Autobiography of Hugh Avery: From Aristocrat to Wuss in One Day.” –Hogen Mogen
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I’m hoping to get some actual comics up later tonight, but wanted to set you up with COTW action to tide you over. In the meantime, you might also enjoy this Carter-era team-up between Spider-Man and Planned Parenthood to teach kids about birth control and fight off green-skinned big-headed slave masters/“jive turkeys” (really). My wife works in the education department at Planned Parenthood and so this had them quite amused over there when it hit the Internets the other day. It was also through my wife’s work that I was able to treat you to this delightful document.
Gasoline Alley, 7/27/07
For the last several years — or, oh, let’s say decades — Gasoline Alley has been guilty of crimes against humor, the comics medium, and its own storied history; the “Slim keeps his neighborhood white with a meteorite he bought on eBay” is only the latest outrage, though it is by no means the worst. Much of these transgressions are unforgivable, but perhaps we can accept as a mitigating factor the fact that this hippie/’Nam vet/militia type just referred to a course of action that might lead to incarceration as “jaily”, which may be the most delightful new adjective I’ve encountered all week. I don’t really live a life of danger on the edge of the law, but I will try to use the word “jaily” in conversation as often as possible — or, if circumstances dictate, “finey” or “community servicey”.
Gil Thorp, 7/27/07
Never mind Coach Kaz’s false modesty, or Kelly’s brutally honest assessment of his earning potential. What the hell happened to our soda jerker’s chin in panel one? It looks like he’s all bandaged up there. Did Kaz get him with an uppercut just to keep in practice for when the next drunken lout comes along? Or did he hit his chin on the counter when he emerged from the time vortex that brought him and his little paper hat here from 1958?
Mary Worth, 7/27/07
Dawn’s sitting on the world’s smallest saddle, but that’s OK because she’s also sitting on the world’s smallest horse. I’m no equestrianologist, but I’m pretty sure that a horse’s head is usually larger than a human’s head. I do note that you can’t see the horses from the withers down, which may indicate that they’re made of fiberglass, perched atop a giant spring, and sitting in front of a Wal-Mart.
Meanwhile, in panel one, Mary waves at a total stranger in a desperate attempt to stop talking to Wilbur.
Mark Trail, 7/27/07
Ohmygosh, do you think he’s going to release more birds soon? THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME!
Hey, everybody, my mom’s coming to visit for the weekend, so posts might be a little sparse on the ground for the next few days. COTWs coming on schedule Sunday, though, don’t you worry about it!
