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Family Circus, 7/4/08

232 years ago today, the leaders of the British colonies on the east coast of the American continent took a fateful step, authorizing a Declaration of Independence that would make their fractious home states into a new nation. If the corpses of the men who had been present that day in Philadelphia were revived through some sort of voodoo magic, what would they think of the country they had made? If “pleasure” was an emotion that could penetrate into their monstrous undead souls, they would probably be pleased that their descendants were spending the day goofing off from work, eating huge quantities of meat, and firing off weapons-grade munitions (or, in some places, actual weapons).

But if their mouldering, skeletal fingers were to turn to the funny pages, their empty eye sockets would come to rest on today’s Family Circus, and then their rotting, unbeating hearts would be filled with the one feeling we all know to be possible for zombies: rage. Because the flag is there, and the notes are there, but shouldn’t Dolly be adorably mangling our national anthem (“And the rock heads will blare/ The mom’s purse strings are there”) or some other patriotic ditty (“For space and skies/ For Pam’s full plate of grain”), and not some pestilent tune about picking up male prostitutes on the Jersey seashore or whatever the hell it is she’s singing? What I’m trying to say is, if you see a shuffling mob of undead patriots in moldy powdered wigs attempting to eat the brains of the degenerates who currently live in the country they started, don’t come crying to me.

Apartment 3-G, 7/4/08

I suppose Gabriella is fainting because, as an ethnic, she’s tuned into the spirit world and can thus detect the ghostly/demonic presence that lingers over Lu Ann’s paintings. But I’m hoping that she stumbled on to Alan’s stash.

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Wizard of Id, 7/3/08

This is one of an alarming number of Wizard of Ids that make me laugh due to sheer immature misanthropy, but since I’m the Comics Curmudgeon, after reading it I paused to see if I could figure out how to make it even more immaturely misanthropic. And the answer quickly became pretty obvious: the punchline in panel two should clearly be not “your sister” but “your mom”. Am I right? Is there no room for “your mom” jokes in the funny pages? Some sort of conspiracy of good taste? Would not every strip benefit from a healthy dose of “your mom” jokes?

Mary Worth, 7/3/08

“This reminds me of a similar situation! I have a suggestion … why don’t you convince Mr. Abner’s long-standing girlfriend to go out on a date with another man, and have her picture put in the paper, humiliating him, and then she shouldn’t return any of his phone calls when he tries to work things out? Because that’s what happened to me, and I feel totally 100 percent fine, so I’m sure he’ll feel fine when it happens to him, right? Yeah, I feel pretty great. Doing fine. Yup!”

(Alternate punchline: “I have a suggestion … I’m going to go do your mom. Later!” See, isn’t that a nice change of pace?)

Curtis, 7/3/08

Hmm, “Honeystump,” that sounds kind of suggestive, but what sort of specific thing could it be a reference to? Well, I suppose … no, wait that’s disgusting; or maybe — no no no ew no! But it could be yargh that’s not an image I need in my head so early in the morning. Thanks, Curtis, thanks a lot.

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Gil Thorp, 7/2/08

Don’t get me wrong, a two-week Sicilian vacation is pretty awesome. There’s nothing like opening up the window in the morning and looking down the hillside to the Mediterranean below, knowing that in a few minutes you’ll be splashing in its delightful blue waters. But then, there’s also nothing like getting up in the morning and seeing the total insanity that is Gil Thorp, so I can’t stay on vacation forever. I suppose that’s supposed to be Bugs McCoy standing on the dock there, but it looks more like some escapee from a nightmarish genetic research lab, its unformed potato-like head glistening facelessly in the morning sun. Then there’s panel two, in which Elmer proves that “average high school arm” is some sort of code for “disproportionally and hideously plump sausage-thing.” Upon deportation Elmer will be trapped in legal limbo at the border, since Mexico will refuse entry to this obviously dangerous mutant.

Marmaduke, 7/2/08

Given that Marmaduke can wear clothes, write English words, order bones over the Internet or possibly by phone, and, um, smoke cigars, I’m not actually convinced that we can rule out smoking in bed. I do admit that it seems more likely that some terrified citizen, tired of Marmaduke’s rule of slobbering canine terror over this hapless suburban community, has attempted to burn him to death while he slept.

Hagar the Horrible, 7/2/08

That’s pretty big talk coming from someone who appears to be wearing a hand-torn burlap sack. To say nothing of those damn potato-feet.

Luann, 7/2/08

dun da dun da DUNNN dun da dun da dun dunn