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Hey kids! Before we launch into today’s comics, I need to back up a bit, because I didn’t give credit where it was due yesterday. Seems that Monday’s TDIET was submitted by faithful reader Klipper an his wife, better known no doubt as Zoe‘s parents!

They’ll Do It Every Time, 9/24/07

It’s OK, Klipper! You can just get up and change the channels with the little buttons on the TV set itself, you know. No need to cuss. Kudos on the green plaid pants, by the way — most people wouldn’t have the nerve to pull that off.

And now on to today!

Archie, 9/25/07

Ignoring the glaring problem with the dates (perhaps the AJGLU 3000 refuses to embrace the papist conspiracy that is the so-called “Gregorian calendar”?), I am quite pleased by the vision of these four teens lined up at the Learning Bar, each with an iconic symbol of their favorite summer activity, to wit:

• Jughead: Surfing.
• Archie: Naked basketball.
• Betty: Being carried aloft on a litter by a team of manservants, one of whom is extra-hunky and shielding her from the hot sun with a fringed umbrella of the type employed the by the queens of the Orient in days of yore.
• Veronica: Putting on her cleverest disguise and prowling the night as the Black Cat, Riverdale’s greatest — and sexiest — rug thief!

Mary Worth, 9/25/07

“Mary, please don’t say ‘I told you so…'” HA HA HA HA HA HA

Poor Drew! He’s managed to botch relationships with two perfectly nice women, he has to go admit to his father’s awful not-girlfriend that she was right, and if this little couch scene is any indication, he probably just walked in on a little Dr. Jeff-Mary make-out time. So in panel two, he’s responding the only way he knows how: by shrugging the most epic shrug that human shoulders have ever attempted. I mean, look at that thing. He’s even putting his knees into it. He’s going to need some long hours at the chiropractor afterwards, but his form is so perfect, it’ll totally be worth it.

Luann, 9/25/07

Actual, not-made-up discussion my wife and I had last night as we were falling asleep:

Me: Hey, does TJ have a job or anything?

Her: He’s a vest salesman! …no, a vest model.

TJ apparently only uses his snazzy sweater vests as formalwear, though: when he’s cooking for his hard-working man, he wears a more casual black button-up white collared number. Today, Brad suggests that his friend might make some extra money by serving as the firehouse’s sexual plaything, a proposal that’s not being dismissed out of hand. Oh, TJ! You’ll do anything to avoid getting a real job!

Apartment 3-G, 9/25/07

Yeah, you know, “family matters.” Like in junior high, when they separated the boys and the girls and showed them filmstrips about “family matters.”

True Margo-watchers know what that vibrating index finger presages. Eric and Nora need to get down on the floor now and cover their heads with their arms if they want to have any hope of coming out of this with their pretty faces intact.

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Ahh, a new week stretches before us! And what better way to avoid the degradation and sleaze that’s oozed into every corner of American life than to spend a little time with those good, old-fashioned entertainments: the soap opera comic strips! Let’s check out the narration box in today’s Judge Parker! It certainly won’t be a series of thinly veiled innuendos.

Er. Well, uh, how about Mary Worth? The chances of some seemingly random object in the background being carefully placed so that one of the characters will appear to have an enormous erection are pretty slim, right?

Jesus, for once I’m really glad I read this feature in color.

Well, what about Rex Morgan, that handsome, upright representative of all that is good about American manhood?

Wow. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds … it sounds very, very wrong. OK, screw you, soap opera comic strips!

Dick Tracy, 9/24/07

Boy, this sure is an exciting episode in the adventures of America’s toughest crime fighter! There’s something naggingly familiar about it, though…

Dick Tracy, 9/22/07

See, this is another thing that I have grown sort of fascinated with in Dick Tracy. I wouldn’t say I like it per se, but it also doesn’t anger me as much as you might think it would. I’m pretty sure that continuity strips by mandate must include some repeated information for the benefit of those who only tune in every third day or so. You could take the Gil Thorp hackery route and just use this as an excuse to repeat panels from the previous day. Or you could do what Dick Tracy does, which is to recreate the same basic sequence of events that occurred in the previous strip, with all newly drawn panels featuring slightly different dialog and “camera” angles. It gives the strip a dreamlike quality in which the narrative thread slips backwards and forwards in time, sometimes echoing back at us slightly different versions of the same moment for days or even weeks, and sometimes lurching violently forward into action that seems to violate all laws of logic and continuity. In something of a bravura performance, today’s strip actually manages to leave the plot less advanced than it was at the end of Friday; fortunately, the Baron will probably manage to mention sotto voce that he’s already set the fuse for at least two of the next four days.

Dennis the Menace, 9/24/07

Dennis is actually a being a lot more menacing here than you might think at first: he’s essentially telling the good reverend that he’d make a better savior than Jesus. And since the combination of peanut butter, jelly, and fish would taste vile beyond imagining, we get a good look at the sadistic impulses that underlie his fantasies of omnipotence. Imagine the multitude sitting around on the grass, choking down the weird combination of fish and jam and peanut butter, while Dennis the Messiah glares down at them saying, “Whassamatter, you don’t like the feast I’ve prepared for you? Are you a bunch of ingrates?” They’d have no choice but to avoid his gaze and say “It’s good that you did that, Dennis.”

For Better Or For Worse, 9/24/07

Today’s Foob flashback reveals the most harrowing aspect of Grandpa Jim’s stroke-induced aphasia: it renders him incapable of bending his grandchildren to his will with threats of violence, as is his wont.

Pluggers, 9/24/07

Thanks to their court-mandated rehab program, pluggers have had their one pleasure in life taken away from them. Also, they’re badly constipated.

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Hey everyone, do you know what time it is? That’s right … it’s COMMENT OF THE WEEK TIME!

“‘I came east to help cousin Lu Ann, but I had selfish reasons too, Aristotle.’ Yikes. I just realized the guy’s name really is ‘Aristotle.’ I thought Ruby was just being sarcastic. You know, like: My life in Dallas wasn’t going so well, Einstein. I needed a change of scene, Copernicus. Maybe permanently, assface.” –SmartPeopleOnIce

And the runners-up — extra hilarious, this week.

“It occurs to me that Slylock Fox isn’t so much doing good detective work here as being the douchebag who shouts out how the magician performs his trick. ‘Count Weirdly said that his assistant had dirty ears, and pulled out a shiny quarter to prove it. Slylock suspects the quarter didn’t come from behind the assistant’s ear. How did Weirdly do it?'” –posiduck

“Dawn can seek ultimate revenge by seducing Vera’s alcoholic brother and spending his vast fortune. Or she can just walk over and throw lye in Vera’s face. It’s her call.” –Anonymous

“Prof. Aristotle comes out of hiding to take the weak member of the herd. ‘Hey, you must be feeling lonely and far from home … let me cull you.'” –Frank Parsnip

“That ‘child,’ with its grim, resigned expression and a head ringed with the same dark matter as Les’s, looks less like an adopted orphan or even the product of an ill-advised spree of sperm shopping on the part of Bull, but rather a long-lost elder sister of Les’s who’s been run through a dryer until she’s suitable to play out these two men’s forbidden, androgenetic fantasies. She looks like she’s already calculating the best time to slip outside for a smoke.” –SecretMargo

“I strongly suspect that Mr. Wilson has, on a regular but gradual basis for the past decade or so, spiked his wife’s baked goods, inevitably mooched by Dennis, with either strong sedatives or hallucinogens, or both. Thus why he’s not at all worked up about Dennis and smilingly shoos him out. George Wilson is finally master of his own fate, and if the price to pay is the neighbor kid turning into a spaced out lei-wearing stoner before he’s even 10, so be it.” –Andrew Leal

“If ever there were a couple that did not suggest a sexual attraction or emotional connection, it would be these two. And in a world populated with Garys, Alans, and whatever-the-hell-his-name-is-Margo-is-about-to-kills, the standard for this sort of thing is already pretty darn low.” –A New Day

“I hate to break it to Dawn, but in the first panel Drew’s paper has her rock beat.” –Inspector Dim

“[Drew]’s one tactical opportunity to avoid severe damage to his effeminate features is to run behind Vera and let her take the pulping while he makes a frenzied break for the car. Elsewise he may as well drop into a fetal position and shriek until help arrives, half anticipating the usual shamed look on his father’s face upon seeing his son having been pummeled by a berserk waif in a pink blouse.” –Sunny Mel Blatherscythe

“Nobody needs saving from rain and floods like aquatic waterfowl do.” –Jym

“Men and women are totally different, but their crotches look exactly the same.” –Lisa Simpson

“I think this Sunday’s MT should be on ducks. Ordinary ducks like Shirley, but with unusual and little-known facts like ‘Ducks can swim’ and ‘Ducks can have more than one nest’ and ‘There are too many damn ducks in the world already, and they’re infringing on corporate development, so kill all the ducks you see.'” –Concrete Queen

“YEAH BABY! A TECHNOLOGY JOKE! Technology’s always funny, right? I’m going to make a comic where it’s nothing but a young person saying ‘iPod’ to an older person all day. And I’ll win the hearts of millions.” –Cheeky Wee Monkeys

“Drew, on the other hand, might be in for a rough time. There’s actually some hidden potential for drama in this story, as Mary will have to decide whether her sexless ‘relationship’ with his dad should affect Drew’s punishment for the crime of Not Taking Advice. Will being Jeff’s son let Drew get out of this with nothing worse than losing both his incredibly easy co-ed girlfriend and his ponytailed office-drone inamorata and sitting through the mandatory finger-pointing parade of platitudes? Or will the silver-haired she-beast demand more from him?” –Trilobite

I should add that I have no idea which comic the next-to-last comment, about technology jokes, is referring to, but it’s really pretty much always a timely observation.

Also! Many of you have successfully purchased Bob Weber Jr.-designed Cassandra Cat items from the Comics Curmudgeon store. But do any of you look as adorable in them as the daughter of faithful reader Klipper?

“My wife and I discussed whether the Cassandra Cat onesie would be appropriate for our 10-month old daughter, Zoe. Unfortunately this was after I’d bought it. Ultimately we decided that she has no idea what she’s wearing — if she had her druthers she’d run around naked and covered in poo — and this can’t be any worse than the multitude of pink kittens and bunnies and crap that she has to wear every time we visit the relative that bought her the outfit. And if she does somehow understand it, the Cassandra logo will only influence her to become a strong woman who cuts the balls off disrespectful or otherwise predatory men … and I’m ok with that.” He adds that he also bought an Right Fist O’ Justice magnet, “suitable for all ages.”

Anyway, tons of you purchased Cassandrawear, and while surely none of you look as cute as little Zoe, you should totally send in your pictures anyway.

Finally, would a week be complete if we didn’t give didn’t give thanks to our advertisers? Definitely not!

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