Post Content

Mary Worth, 12/16/07

We’ve seen this enormous concrete staircase to nowhere before in Mary Worth. When it last appeared at a Charterstone pool party, I speculated that it led to a platform for human sacrifice. But perhaps it will actually turn out to be the spot where tiny dogs battle it out for tiny dog supremacy over Charterstone. I can just see Mary being the type to be all sweetness and light and Leo Buscaglia quotes before Chester loses in a fight, and then her love for him vanishes in a puff of disgust when she sees that her dog is a cowardly cur. Only the toughest gets to hold coveted title of Mary’s Dawg!

A more pleasant possibility is that the top of the stairs will serve as the stage for the incident that will forever go down in Charterstone lore as The Humping. Mary, having never experienced or even seen actual sexual contact before, will simply faint dead away.

Apartment 3-G, 12/16/07

Oh, Margo! So unused to being denied what you want for any length of time, you can’t help but race to the finish line the moment the L-bomb is dropped. I’d feel bad for you if you weren’t a preening, narcissistic sociopath with the blood of who knows how many innocents on your hands.

Eric’s fish-lipped look of horror in the final panel is definitely one of this strip’s classic moments. “Gosh, I always thought the moment I got engaged would feel … more special,” he seems to be thinking. “And I certainly didn’t think it would involve anyone dressed like Han Solo.”

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 12/10/07

I’m not sure what I would have expected Margo’s reaction to a simple, open-hearted gesture of human kindness to have been, but “recoiling in horror” seems about right. I do sort of wonder why she thinks running a chain of hair salons qualifies someone to plan a wedding, but she is desperate. And not a particularly good event planner. Maybe she just takes Ruby’s business prowess as evidence that she’s not a mouth-breathing submoron like her cousin Lu Ann.

Weighing against Ruby’s intelligence, of course, is the fact that she keeps calling Margo “Maggie”. At first I thought she just actually didn’t know A3G’s feistiest roommate’s name, but I’m beginning to think that she believes that “Maggie” is an acceptable nickname for anyone whose name starts with “M” and then has a “G” in there somewhere. (Note: It isn’t.)

Gil Thorp, 12/10/07

This little expedition in school spirit-based vandalism cannot end well. I’m going to bet that the current governor of whatever benighted state Milford is in ran on an “I’m even tougher on crime than the other guy who’s tough on crime” platform, resulting in a “two strikes and you’re out” rule on the state lawbooks. Thus, once Cully is caught red-handed in an act of senseless spirit rock desecration, he’ll be sent to the big house for 25 years. There, as he whiles the decades away lifting weights, only one thought will be on his mind: “MUST. KILL. ONE-LEGGED BILL. (OR WHOEVER THAT IT IS IN THE CAR. I’M PRETTY SURE IT’S BILL THOUGH.)” Somewhere in the year 2034, Bill Ritter will be leaping about on whatever advanced cybernetic limbs are available then, only to come face to face with Cully, hell-bent on revenge!

Momma, 12/10/07

“Hmm, I’ve been doing this strip for 37 years, and I’ve constantly harped on the fact that Momma is unnaturally jealous of her daughter-in-law. But how can I make this so vilely obvious that everyone gets a full sense of this feature’s Oedipal horror?”

They’ll Do It Every Time, 12/10/07

Our long good-bye to Al Scaduto begins today with this entry from “Samantha Gordano,” who is also faithful Comics Curmudgeon reader mako. “Of course I wrote in talking about [my husband’s] inability to find the trash can for juice containers,” she says, “but Mr. Scaduto must have known about his propensity for letting the dog clean it up as well.” She says she’d like to dedicate this strip to his honor. What I want to know is, does she want to vacuum his skull on the inside or the outside?

Post Content

Slylock Fox, 12/9/07

Oh, Cassandra! Your attempts to snare Slylock’s heart grow ever more transparent — and ever more pathetic. “Accidentally” leaving the heel of your shoe behind? Come on. Staring brightly ahead as you wear that prim little pastel outfit isn’t going to fool anyone.

Getting a lineup together in world shared by many kinds of sentient animal life isn’t easy, but the crew assembled by Officer Duck today is particularly motley. The two creatures of indeterminate species on either side of Cassandra look like they’re hoping that this will be their big chance to break into movies, or at least reality TV. If I were Slylock, I’d start looking into the background of the elephant lady at the far right — she looks guilty as hell, and presumably has got some kind of home counterfeiting business or meth lab set up back at her trailer. The pink-haired bunny, meanwhile, is way, way too stoned to care.

(If you wish Cassandra would “steal some files” from your “office”, you obviously need some Bob Weber Jr.-designed Cassandra Cat gear from the Comics Curmudgeon store!)

Crankshaft, 12/9/07

You might chalk this up as a garden-variety generation gap comic, but with young chinbeard and his sister watching their parents turn into their grandparents and worrying about turning into their parents in turn. But recall that the grandparents in question are rageaholic Crankshaft and the somehow even more loathsome Ukrainian hate machine. The kids probably thought that they’d at last be free once their grandparents kick off, but now are worried about enduring their post-transformation parents. Junior is right to look so terrified.

Family Circus, 12/9/07

Note the bit that I’ve highlighted. Billy is clearly in the “Anyone but Obama” camp for the 2008 elections.

Panels from Apartment 3-G, 12/9/07

Yeah, osmosis! Osmosis and time travel.

(Yes, I know there’s a neo-swing scene that’s alive and well today in New York and elsewhere — but the kids today out doing the Lindy Hop tend to be young hipsters like these. Tommie and Gary are soooo very much not hipsters; and I don’t care how old they’re supposed to be, I refuse to even qualify them as “young”.)

Panel from Shoe, 12/9/07

It’s not like I’m in love with the word “barmaid”, exactly; I just think “bartenderness” sounds kind of creepy. “Come on, baby, I’ve been lookin’ at you all night; show me a little bartenderness.”

Site meta-note: I’ve decided that I’m going to start doing the comment of the week/ad love posts on Monday instead of Sundays. I often don’t even get to Saturday’s comics until Sunday, and doing the Sunday strips takes me longer than usual because I can’t easily see them all at once on the Chronicle site, so often doing blog work eats up a good chunk of what oughtta be a weekend day of rest and relaxation! So, Trilobite’s comment gets an extra day of glory thanks to the shift.