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Spider-Man, 6/11/10

Just as Spider-Man the character within the Spider-Man newspaper strip is a pathetic failure at whatever he attempts, so too is the Spider-Man strip itself! For instance, surely one of the whole purposes for its existence (somewhere on the list below “entertain millions of readers around the country,” something else it doesn’t do properly) is to help build awareness of and affection for the Spider-Man brand, along with the brands of other major characters and properties owned by Marvel and its corporate parent, Disney. Thus, you’d expect that the strip would be tasked to do its small part to add to the marketing blitz for the Iron Man sequel, the release date of which was presumably set months if not years in advance. But it turns out that on May 7, the day Iron Man 2 hit movie theaters nationwide, Peter was being wowed by his wife’s ability to operate a camera. No, the Spider-Man strip is only jumping into the game five weeks later, because doing anything better than a half-assed job at anything would be wholly incongruent with the strip’s general vibe of ineptitude.

Blondie, 6/11/10

I would argue that the less Blondie does to draw attention to the Bumsteads’ bizarre living-room layout, the better. Still, I suppose this strip — in which Dagwood, tired of staring numbly at a screen while his wife faces away from him, tries and fails to figure out a more amenable position for the two of them — is some kind of coded story about their fading sex life.