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Luann, 1/15/10

Toni is happy now to leave Shannon with Luann and “Billy the Bookworm,” but will she be prepared to deal with the inevitable PTSD that will result when Shannon actually sees Billy in all his worm-cocked glory?

The Lockhorns, 1/15/10

The Lockhorns are spending the weekend indulging in the one pastime for which they still share an abiding passion: huffing paint thinner.

Blondie, 1/15/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because Dagwood’s dream was crushed!

Ziggy, 1/15/10

Ziggy is racist against squirrels.

(Psst! I’m off on a trip for the long weekend — Sunday and Monday strips will go up Monday evening.)

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Mary Worth, 1/5/11

Look at panel two in isolation and you’d think that Mary views father-son bonding as a spectator sport. “Here we go!” she thinks, as she pops something tan and oblong into her mouth. “They’re gonna hella bond! This is going to be great!” But check her out in panel one, looking blissed out as she shoves something or other up between her gum and her upper lip. I’m assuming it’s something hallucinogenic. “Here we go!” she’s saying in panel two. “Oh, the colors!”

Gil Thorp, 1/5/11

Much as I’ve been trying to avoid bringing it up, I feel have to acknowledge that the Gil Thorp basketball season plot seems to have set its two new characters — a Jesus-happy basketball player and an almost-certainly-gay teen as imagined by someone who’s heard of gay people but never actually met one — on a collision course. This certainly won’t be awkward, at all!

Gasoline Alley, 1/5/11

Speaking of piety, Gasoline Alley has continued its attempt to ditch its goody-goody image by dabbling in blasphemy. Today it suggests that the Holy Bible is best used as a weight-loss aid.

Spider-Man, 1/5/11

Spider-Man has lost interest in the middle of his own comic strip and let his mind wander. And who can blame him, really? I only wish he weren’t wearing his spider-mask in panel two, because it would be great to see his slack jaw and the little bit of drool emerging from the side of his mouth.

Luann, 1/5/11

Dear Luann,

Never use “finger” as a verb ever again.

Sincerely,
The Comics Curmudgeon

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Luann, 12/7/10

Oh my gosh, long-despised villain Dirk is suddenly going to become a hero! Some might find this to be a shocking turn of events, but it’s the logical conclusion of the same process by which the strip’s ostensible protagonists have become completely unbearable.

Mary Worth, 12/7/10

You thought that Mary Worth couldn’t get any better. You thought wrong. Panel one is a delight: I love the fact that Mary has escalated from a single hand to the mouth to two, and I’m practically hypnotized by the droplet of ketchup-wine suspended in mid-air within Jill’s glass. And then she gets out of her chair and karate chops Scott in the face.

Apartment 3-G, 12/7/10

“Yes, architecture, the practice of designing the buildings we live in every day with a modicum of art and grace … I’m sure it bores a bohemian like yourself to tears, as it does me. Oh, I’ve tried to really express my innermost self through my hobby, clothing design, but it’s about time I admitted to myself that my combination scarf-cravat — or ‘scarfat,’ as I dreamed of hearing it called on the runways in Paris and Milan — is never going to catch on.”

Judge Parker, 12/7/10

Ha ha, that classic Sam Driver smugness is still in full effect. “Some poor crazed woman out there who pines for me but can never, ever have me? That’s more intoxicating than this extremely expensive wine!”

Mark Trail, 12/7/10

Faced by the sudden and terrifying prospect of a woman in his room, Mark covers his genitals the only way he can: by bellowing out the largest word balloon his lungs can muster.

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Luann, 12/2/10

When it comes to Brad/Toni slash fiction — oh, sorry, I mean, when it comes to the actual Brad/Toni comic strips that appear in newspapers across America — I’ve gone through some kind of abbreviated Kübler-Ross cycle of grief. First game the visceral disgust, of course. Then came the anger. So much anger! But now I’ve settled into just a sort of bafflement. Is there an audience out there who finds these characters compelling, and, more specifically, who finds their glacial trajectory towards physical intimacy arousing, or at least interesting? Is today’s strip blatantly pandering to America’s small but intense calf-massage-fetish community, possibly as a result of a bribe or a lost bet? Has anyone read Luann this week with a feeling more positive than mild distaste? I honestly want to know the answers to these questions, for real!

Mark Trail, 12/2/10

However, I feel confident that the comics-reading public is regarding this week’s Mark Trail with excitement and anticipation. Just as Kelly Welly is leaning back in that chair, gripping the armrests and waiting eagerly to see Mark naked, so too are we sitting back in our respective sitting-oriented-pieces of furniture, waiting eagerly to see Kelly see Mark naked.

Apartment 3-G, 12/2/10

Comics readers are also intrigued to see how this beret-wearing cab driver’s honest masculine advice will help Aunt Iris bed the bicyclist that she, in some way that I never properly understood, caused to be hit by a car. Under the cabbie’s tutelage, she’ll show up at the cyclist’s apartment with something that’s still alive, like a puppy or a stripper.

Gil Thorp, 12/2/10

Comics readers are somewhat uncomfortable with the notion of people being loaded onto buses and interned in camps far from their homes, but for the Milford football team, they’ll allow it.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/2/10

Ha ha, Jamaal, that chat room is full of other people trying to live out their fantasies! You’re just there to, uh, find out how to get away from there. Due to this strip’s trademark nonspecificity, we have no way of knowing exactly what perverse text-based lusts are being expressed in this online sin den. It’s probably a hot Brad/Toni calf-massage slash fiction site.

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Luann, 11/18/10

I’m a little embarrassed by how much I’ve enjoyed watching Dirk act like a mature (albeit mildly smug) adult while Brad shrieks incoherent threats at him like a furious child over the past few days. As we all know, Dirk can credit his newfound unflappability to Jesus, which makes his gnomic pronouncement in panel one somewhat intriguing. Is the Rapture coming? Has Dirk got advanced notice of the Rapture? Will we be allowed the joy of watching Dirk float triumphantly up to heaven, while Brad’s beady little eyes stare uncomprehending at his ascension?

Dick Tracy, 11/18/10

Good lord, Dick’s spent so much time in the company of hobos, and a significantly larger number of people pretending to be hobos for various incomprehensible reasons, that he’s forgotten the rule of law that he’s sworn to protect. Fortunately, America’s greatest arbiter of morality, Young Richard Nixon, is there to give him a refresher course on right and wrong.

Family Circus, 11/18/10

There’s something undeniably hilarious about the insouciant way little Jeffy is lying on the bed, propping up his head oh-so-casually, just waiting to deliver the punchline that will make his grandmother feel like a jerk for trying to spend time with him. It’s OK, Grandma! You can’t make yourself like him, and you don’t have to try! Don’t you have some friends your own age you can hang out with?

Ziggy, 11/18/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because Asians are good at martial arts! Also, Ziggy is going to be brutalized by his waiter.

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Mark Trail, 10/21/10

Some of my readers rushed to declare Friday’s Mark Trail, in which our hero leaps over a barbed-wire-topped fence to knock a rifle out of a senator’s hands, to be the greatest Mark Trail ever. Well, I hope you all feel a little sheepish now that you’ve seen today’s strip, a glorious single-panel tableau in which Future Governor Frank kicks a fawn in the butt while his stepdaughter, Mark, and the man whose political patronage he’s been so desperately seeking all look on in horror. We of course can’t declare this strip the best of all time — for, in a world that has brought forth such wondrousness, how can we put limits on the potential joys of the future? — but it sure is pretty great.

Shoe, 10/21/10

Something doesn’t seem right here: I thought that, in the Shoe world, Roz serves coffee and comfort food from a diner counter on a tree branch, whereas booze is dished out in smoky bars that do not appear to be tree-based structures. But this is mere nitpickery, I know! I should just enjoy the hilarious joke here, about how the strip’s main characters use their crippling alcoholism as an excuse for being cheapskates.

Luann, 10/21/10

So, yeah, I haven’t really been able to bring myself to comment on the “Brad and the gang deal with the serious problems of stalking and domestic violence with Three’s Company-worthy hijinks” plotline over the past few weeks. But then I got to today and saw Brad and TJ talking about ladies underwear, and I thought to myself, “No way in hell am I suffering through this alone.” SO HERE IT IS! LOOK AT IT! LOOK AT THEM TALKING ABOUT PANTIES!

Judge Parker, 10/21/10

Ha ha, it wouldn’t be a Judge Parker story if one of the already wealthy principals didn’t become even richer at the end of it. Sam plays golf with a guy for 10 minutes and sees him get killed? Boom! A $100,000 advance check for Judge Parker! Sam violates legal ethics willy-nilly to sort of half-assedly solve a mystery? Wham! A cool hundred large for him too! Now the hour or so he spent helping Jules set up an Excel spreadsheet will net him a third of what will no doubt turn out to be an insanely lucrative business. It’s a good thing his house is so big, because he’s going to need someplace to put his huge piles of stupid money.

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Dennis the Menace, 10/4/10

The Mitchells’ pastor ought to be concerned about young Dennis’ decision to turn away from the Christian God and instead offer his worship to Skynet, the superintelligent computer network that will soon destroy us all.

Jumble, 10/4/10

As usual, I’m too dumb to actually solve the Jumble, but I do want to point out that “vomiting” would fit into the solution blanks nicely.

Luann, 10/4/10

After setting this foolproof plan in motion, TJ will head off to his job as a master cat burglar/puppeteer.

Mary Worth, 10/4/10

Let’s hope Jill Black at the hospital has some knife fighting experience, if that oh no nobody’s horning in on MY meddle expression on Mary’s face in panel two foreshadows things to come (and please, please, let it foreshadow things to come).

Slylock Fox, 10/4/10

Shady’s new membership in the Bloods is about to be revoked with extreme prejudice after the other gang members find out he obsessively hoards golden kitty-kat figurines.

Crankshaft, 10/4/10

“Also, we might occasionally be allowed to experience joy!”

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Luann, 9/21/10

Brad, I will say words to you now, so squint up your eyes and make the “I hear you” face. If you tell the girl “Now that Dirk is back you and I should wed”, you should not tell her “Dirk must not be the boss of us”, too. You are the one who wants to make him the boss of you, so you two can wed! It is wrong to say both things! It is like you and you in some kind of big talk fight! Stop it — got that?

The pants of this girl rule your mind!

And don’t just say all kinds of stuff when you get mad! Think hard, and try to make it sound like you want to make sense when you talk! Girls like it a lot when you try hard to be smart for them! I know it hurts, but you have to do it — keep your mind on the pants!

What, once more? You say not so fast this time? Here you go: pants!

And oh, yes: nice truck. Why do you two have to stand in front of it all the time like that? And talk so much? By “so much”, I mean “at all.” And by “in front”, I mean “where we can see you.”

Apartment 3-G, 9/21/10

Whoa! After years stuck in the early ’60’s, A3G stomps on the accelerator — no sooner does Tommie get a makeover than a woman of color shows up! I’m pretty sure that’s a first, and if they keep up this pace, I hope the gals watch out for flying cars ’round about next week or so. Ted Forth’s gonna be so pissed.

Pluggers, 9/21/10

You bet, ’cause you know if it were, this guy would be right there with his épées, vaulting pole, and rowing shell.

Thanks to everybody who contributed yesterday — don’t forget that if you want to send Josh a check or something, I’ll be happy to send you his address. Just email me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net — I mean what the hell, it’s not like it’s my address or anything!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Funky Winkerbean, 9/13/10

Oh, Cayla, this is just getting pathetic, now. Do you think that this new hairstyle will win Les’s heart back from Susan? I mean, have you seen her hair? Les doesn’t prefer Susan to you because she’s young and hip and sexy. He prefers her because she’s a dead-eyed emotional wreck who loves death. You can’t get that from any salon!

Mary Worth, 9/13/10

Speaking of misguided optimism, check out how excited Dr. Mike looks in panel two! He clearly believes that the way to a woman’s heart is through a heartfelt story about how he’s relationship-shy because his father spent decades as a drunken failed vigilante. Perhaps he thinks that he’ll seal the deal by casually suggesting that they have sex in the very bed where his dear old dad finally “found peace.”

Gil Thorp, 9/13/10

What’s really sad is when you see a couple who’ve lost that spark and are really just going through the motions. Gil used to really put his heart into it when he made up contentless answers to Marty Moon’s bullshit questions. Now they’re not even making eye contact!

Also, is it really traditional to put decisions on high school sports captains to a popular vote? That seems like a good way to end up with teams captained by Justin Beiber and Jesus.

Luann, 9/13/10

This is what’s known in the business as “fan service.” Specifically, it’s providing a service to those fans with a keen interest in Brad/Dirk scat-themed slash fiction. They make up a small but intensely loyal group, and it’s nice to see them finally get a shout-out.

Shoe, 9/13/10

I’m on the record as finding the “Shoe birds desperately flirt in a smoky bar” strips crushingly depressing. Today’s installment, in which a depressive is romanced by someone with a presumably domestic-violence-themed restraining order against him, nicely demonstrates why.

Jumble, 9/13/10

Alas, it appears that the Man isn’t ready for Jumble Jeff’s guerilla art installation. But Jeff, why isn’t your “street tag” LUJBEM FEJF, as it is on this blog? Are you afraid that hoodlum graffiti aficionados can’t handle anagrams? You do them a disservice, sir. Jumbles are for everybody!

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Mark Trail, 9/11/10

Have you ever had a moment when something you’ve looked at every day, for years, suddenly reconfigures, and your entire worldview shatters and reforms with searing clarity? Well, that’s what happened when I read this Mark Trail, which reveals that “Mark,” “Cherry,” and “Rusty” are actually three adorably frolicking horses — horses that like to imagine what it would be like to be human. Everything is explained: the unnatural dialogue (based on the deliberately child-like and stilted speech that humans use when they talk to animals), the freakish morphing forms (can we really expect interspecies facial recognition to go off without a hitch?), the fact that human society as depicted has less and less basis in reality the further we get from Lost Forest. It’s sort of heartbreaking that the weirdly malformed humans we’ve spent so much time with are actually these beautiful galloping animals. Too bad Frank is going to lure them into his hunting pen and let his political buddies shoot them for sport.

Apartment 3-G, 9/11/10

Do you think that comics colorists simply have too much pride to admit when they make a mistake? I mean, technically there was no indication when Lu Ann appeared on Thursday what color her hair was supposed to be, so red was as good a guess as any. But now that we learn that Lu Ann’s hair is supposed to be a “rich brown,” and our colorists are refusing to take the hint. “No, damn you! The Lu Ann of my masturbatory fantasies is a redhead, and a redhead she will remain!”

Gil Thorp, 9/11/10

Ha ha, look at how happy Gil and Kaz look! It’s because they’ve once again found someone who, as a result of some gaping emotional wound, is willing to do their jobs for them. And before the first game is even played, too!

Luann, 9/11/10

After Dirk strangles the DeGroots, the strip’s narrative will (literally) violently change directions, as it gets renamed The Talented Mr. Dirk and follows its new title character’s unseemly adventures.

Ballard Street, 9/11/10

I only discuss Ballard Street here when its “insane lunatics doing baffling things” schtick crosses over from “bonkers” to “unsettling,” and I think today’s panel, which features a sour-faced old woman engaging in harrowing self-harm, more than qualifies.