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Blondie and Archie, 5/19/09

Let us take a moment to appreciate some particularly hard-working comics characters: those that refuse to deny us the pleasures of a hilarious reaction shot even when they don’t appear in our field of view! For instance, in today’s Archie, the final panel chooses to linger in a loving close-up on Jughead’s face; the title character is forced to express his disgust with his friend’s aggressive ignorance by emitting Cathy-style sweatballs into the panel from the left. Meanwhile, Dagwood’s rage at being duped on pepperoni-related matters is so palpable that it radiates right through his front door; presumably he or the mailman closed said front door to avoid devastating the entire neighborhood with his terrible wrath.

Cathy, 5/19/09

Speaking of Cathy-style sweatballs, with “Your dog just puked in there” we add another shameful entry to the List Of Cathy Installments At Which Josh Has Laughed Non-Ironically.

Gil Thorp, 5/19/09

Oh, God, this Gil Thorp storyline won’t just be about Gil discovering YouTube; it will be about Gil discovering the Internet, in general, with the help of Coach Kaz, who’s long been using MySpace to lure 16-year-old girls into his custom-airbrushed Kaz-van. Anyway, this plot might be worth it if we get more close-up horrified reaction shots from Gil like the one in the final panel (I’m assuming that he’s stumbled upon the “For the ladies” album on Andrew Gregory’s Facebook account), but I will be very disappointed if Marty Moon’s Twitter account isn’t involved somehow (though I’ll be unsettled if it involves mine).

Mark Trail, 5/19/09

If you had to pick a member of the Trail household to feel sorry for, you’d probably pick Rusty (neglected, funny-looking, kind of dim), Cherry (neglected, sexually frustrated, only allowed to wear pink shirts), or maybe Andy (not neglected, especially when someone is needed to serve as bait). But what about Cherry’s father Doc? Being trapped in a remote forest compound with only Mark, Rusty, and someone dumb enough to marry Mark and adopt Rusty for company, you can see why he’d start to disengage from his environment and retreat into his private world. In today’s first panel, it’s obvious that he knows it would be socially inappropriate to just continue his dinner in silence, but he really hasn’t been following any of the last hour’s worth of conversation; since everyone seems generally pleased, he plays it safe. “Yes, it’s great that things happened … you know, the way they happened! Probably at least two of you here were responsible for that outcome!”

Soon, however, we learn why Doc is emerging from his shell: he needs Mark’s help with something! What could it be? Veterinarian Doc seems to be what passes for a health-care professional in rustic Lost Forest, but I dearly hope it isn’t medically related. “Mark, it’s about time for my colonoscopy! Doing it myself like I did last year was trickier than I thought, so I’d like you to hold the mirror this time around.”

Mary Worth, 5/19/09

A lot of commentors thought it was strange that Adrian is only thought-ballooning her intention to answer the doorbell, but is it really any stranger than her father talking loudly about her delicate emotional state right in front of her? A lot of commentors also thought that Adrian’s dress was hideous, but is it any worse than Dr. Jeff’s snappy one-orange-shoulder shirt? What I’m trying to say is that Mary Worth is a maelstrom of insanity, and there’s no point in trying to focus on individual elements and make them work in some sort of real-world context.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/19/09

Silly Herb! You can’t vacuum a mass grave!

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Gil Thorp, 5/16/09

If I’ve been ignoring Gil Thorp, as I’ve been doing of late, you can pretty much just assume that it’s because it’s been pointless and boring (as opposed to its more entertaining mode, when it’s pointless and delightfully deranged). The baseball-season plot revolves around YouTube videos, and you know that any time a continuity strip takes on modern Internet culture, you’re in for a roller-coasters ride, if roller-coasters had no hills and didn’t move at all.

Making things worse is the choice of Bill Hawkins as this spring’s protagonist. Bill is a quiet, hard-working type who has managed to woo the Amazonian Molly despite his complete lack of a personality or sense of humor. We are left to wonder just what sort of rowdiness the guys were getting up to down there. Drugs? Orgy? Drug-fueled orgy? Thanks to Bill’s goody two-shoeism, we’ll never know.

(Speaking of Gil Thorp and pointless Internet culture, I keep meaning to mention that Marty Moon has a Twitter account, featuring important updates like “I’ve been growing my beard for charity. Was I supposed to tell anyone about it first?”)

Archie, 5/16/09

Ignore for the moment the joke in today’s strip (easy enough to do, right?) and take a look at that terrifying Archie-resembling ventriloquist’s dummy in the foreground of the first panel. What could its meaning or significance be? Where does one even go to get such a thing made, and how would notorious deadbeat Jughead pay for what must be a custom job? Does Jughead spend the nights on which Archie is out on a date with Betty and/or Veronica alone in his filthy room, acting out the part of his best friend through the magic of ventriloquism? It’s all so unsettling that I almost didn’t notice that Jughead also appears to have a copy of a magazine with his own face on the cover, presumably an Oprah-esque lifestyle publication for people who want to be more like Jughead.

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Hi and Lois, 5/11/09

Well, here it is: the first Hi and Lois in living memory at which I laughed more or less unironically, mostly because I think They Buried Beethoven Alive! would be the great name of a low-budget zombie flick. The thought of the greatest composer of the Romantic period shuffling through the streets of Vienna and moaning melodically for brains is ever so delightful to me. (The victory of the living would come when the film’s hero realizes that undead Beethoven was still deaf, meaning that anti-zombie hunters could sneak up on him from behind undetected.)

Anyway, my amusement at the joke was genuine enough that it seems churlish to point out that it doesn’t really make much sense. I suppose it’s just the usual “Ha ha, the hip-hop music that the kids today enjoy is the nadir of human creative expression, let us be ever so smug about it by invoking the name of people who died 200 years ago,” but I can’t figure out why exactly Beethoven’s corpse would find a teenager’s financial success in the music world to be shocking. Beethoven grew up a generation after Mozart had made musical child prodigies trendy, and had himself performed (paid) public concerts at the age of seven. Maybe he would just think it improper that the rapping lad is in control of his own finances and is spending money on gaudy palaces, when everyone knows that a great composer ought to live in an apartment rented for him by a bishop-elector or archduke.

Archie, 5/11/09

This strip gives me an opportunity to share a link to a blog post several faithful readers sent me a few weeks ago, explaining the origins of Jughead’s hat. In short, it’s about as retro piece of costuming as you can get, as you might have realized if you had, say, thought about it for more than 30 seconds. Still, I kind of like this strip, mostly because everyone is so angry at Jughead. They take their theme parties seriously in Riverdale, by God.

Apartment 3-G, 5/11/09

It’s no secret that Margo and Tommie don’t always get along, but it appears that, having joined forces to defeat a man in combat, they’re finally bonding a little bit. Margo has broken out a bottle of her finest black bile for the occasion, and is even letting Tommie wear her sexy Han Solo vest.

Luann, 5/11/09

Last week, Brad was injured saving Toni from a fall while the two of them were fighting a fire, and in gratitude she agreed to serve as his “day nurse” while he was recovering. Today, we realize that this storyline will be even more repulsive than any of us could have imagined. “But … all the naughty nurses in the movies on hotscatporn.com thought it was a real turn-on!”