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Apartment 3-G, 11/25/08

You know, most people would be sick with worry for the safety of their loved ones if said loved ones were off on some mysterious but almost certainly dangerous mission way on the other side of the world. Thankfully for all of us, Margo is not most people, but is rather a gorgeous, tempestuous firecracker of a woman held tight in the grips of cocaine-driven paranoia. “The way I see it, Eric is either at the bottom of a ravine with a Chinese bullet in the back of his head, or whoring his way through every brothel in Lhasa — and he’ll be lucky if its the former.”

Spider-Man, 11/25/08

I’m not sure what’s more hilarious about today’s Spider-Man: that Big-Time’s real name is “Bigelow,” or that his flat-top Spidey-impersonator-for-hire is looking on in undisguised terror as he has a catty conversation with his ex-wife on his circa-1986 cordless phone.

(Bonus question: Is “Bigelow” funnier as a first name, or a last name?)

Blondie, 11/25/08

I’m pretty sure one of these guys has finally gotten up the nerve to make a pass at the other, only to have it fly by completely unnoticed; I’m just not certain which one was the passer and which one was the passee, yet.

Lockhorns and Hi and Lois, 11/25/08

In the new Great Depression, all comics will be about huddling together for warmth in the enormous suburban homes whose mortgages are so expensive that we can no longer afford to heat them.

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Apartment 3-G, 11/22/08

Tommie’s long period of non-dating is showing, I’m afraid. I don’t consider Gary’s baffling panic at the prospect of his love for Tommie going public to be typically male or typically anything other than typically baffling. Still, I’m glad Tommie has reached this emotional point, because it means that we get to see her delightful rage in the third panel of today’s strip. Tommie’s fist wobbling menacingly at the end of her skinny forearm must be just one manifestation of the anger radiating out through the neighborhood; her foul mood is also causing the temperature in the air to drop, prompting Margo to clutch her collar closed, lest she catch a chill.

Gil Thorp, 11/22/08

Marty Moon is right! People keep tuning in when I tee off on Gil Thorp, so I don’t see why things should be any different for his crappy basement-studio TV sports show. Just a word of advice, Marty: you probably don’t want to focus on Gil every day, as that territory is already well-covered for the Thorp fanatics by the superb This Week In Milford.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/22/08

“No, really! My new marriage is already a joyless hell! Why … why do you keep laughing? For the love of God, why?”

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Six Chix, 11/20/08

As there seems to be some confusion over the meaning of this cartoon among this blog’s commentors, allow me to explain: our current economic crisis, the author posits, has the same roots as previous crises, and had we only remembered the lessons of history, we would have been able to avoid it. The two young ladies symbolize us, their falling asleep in their history class (presumably collegiate and taking place in a large lecture hall, the doors to which are at the right of the panel) represents our inability to learn from the past, and their barrel-wearing state represents poverty, the end result of the current crisis. The last bit is true because people who are clothed only by large, wooden barrels are a Universal Comics Symbol For Poverty of long standing.

I’m completely uninterested in discussing the didactic content of this cartoon, but it does bring up a question I’ve always found completely fascinating, which is: why are large, wooden barrels the Universal Comics Symbol For Poverty? I mean, I know I’m a decadent 21st century denizen who has grown accustomed to wearing garments that in relative terms cost very little, thanks to helpful Southeast Asian children with tiny, nimble fingers — certainly less than a finely crafted barrel. But is it possible that there was a time when a sturdy, wooden barrel with metal … circular dealies … that hold it together (boy, I hadn’t realized how weak a grasp I had of basic barrel vocabulary until just now) was actually cheaper than, you know, clothes? Did people really go into some kind of old-timey second-hand clothes store, sell all of their clothes (including the ones they were wearing), then walk, stark naked, up the street to the cooper (see, there’s a word that I know) to buy a barrel to wear, and have enough cash left over to afford life’s necessities? Did that happen? Because if not then, you know, barrels, what the hell?

Apartment 3-G, 11/20/08

A lot of people excuse the things they say or do when drunk by claiming that the demon booze made you say or do them; but when you’re intoxicated, you really just yourself, with less of a filter. This should make however many “Margo expounds drunkenly” strips we’re going to be treated to utterly delicious. Today, we learn that Margo really resents having to identify corpses, especially the corpses of people that she didn’t get a chance to kill, and that she believes that the intensity of your feelings about a tragedy are directly proportional to your proximity to the location where it occurred.

Ziggy, 11/20/08

Oh, Ziggy! It does seem unjust that the author of a beloved and hugely successful series of novel should get so much more money than the creator of a beloved somewhat tolerable bald pantsless cartoon character, doesn’t it?

Some of you have mocked this panel for being so far behind the times, to which I say: it’s Ziggy. The last Harry Potter book came out only fifteen months ago. This is in fact shockingly current.