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Apartment 3-G, 11/15/06

The Tommie and Gina storylines have reappeared … with a vengeance! All day before I had a chance to read this, I was seeing comments like “I think I saw this in a porn movie once,” yet I still wasn’t prepared for the oddness. I agree that the last panel doesn’t really make sense unless Gina’s smock-thing doesn’t cover her ass or something and she’s come to make the moves. Because the last person who you should be going to for fashion advice is Tommie, and the last person who should be making snide remarks about your manila smock-thing/sky-blue shirt combo is someone who looks in her closet and says, “Hey, you know what would go great with this dusty pink polo shirt? A gleaming white v-neck sweater!”

Still and all, I’m hoping the two of them go at it post haste. If nothing else, it would get them out of those hideous clothes.

Ziggy, 11/15/06

You know what would have made this cartoon marginally funnier? If we could actually see the mice making off with Ziggy’s cell phone. Or see the antenna sticking out of the mousehole. Or see Ziggy holding an empty cell-phone holder. Or really see anything that would indicate that this wasn’t one of hundreds of photocopies of a single pre-drawn “Ziggy talks to the mice” panel, all awaiting only the addition of “hilarious” dialogue and published at reasonable intervals so as not to be glaringly obvious.

(Note for libel purposes: I’m not saying that Ziggy actually uses photocopied panels instead of coming up with a new one every day. I’m just saying that it would save a lot of work if it did.)

They’ll Do It Every Time, 11/15/06

The funny thing about today’s TDIET is how quickly the cheerful scene in panel one degenerates into full-on Lockhorns-esque dysfunction. Sure, Lugbutt probably should have made up his mind about his culinary choices before he sent wifey down to the kitchen; but then, wifey’s transformation from well-coifed and cheerful to bleary-eyed and exhausted after carrying a single cup of tea up a single flight of stairs smacks of melodrama. I think she’s been nursing the urge to pan-fry Lugbutt’s hide for some time. Do it now, lady! He’s feeble and can’t run! Get the pan!

The important thing about this panel, though, is that it’s been sent in from a resident of New Orleans. Apparently, the citizens of that devastated city have been able to move on from Katrina and once again focus their attention on petty domestic drama. Of course, it’s possible that Lugbutt’s been laid low from exposure to toxic mold blooming in the walls of his flood-ravaged home. Or from cholera.

Archie, 11/15/06

See, this is why Archie should stop wooing Veronica and stop hanging around the obscenely wealthy Lodge family: because their riches are devouring their souls from the inside out. Poor Smithers, who has no doubt served as a faithful family retainer for longer than Veronica has been alive, is not a “who” to her, but a “what.” The odd phrasing of the strip’s punchline might have made sense if at some point Lodge pater had asked “What did Archie spill it on” or some such; as it is, it’s clear that the vast class gulf between Veronica and Smithers has caused her to see him as just another piece of furniture that her family owns. Rise up in revolution, Smithers! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Family Circus, 11/15/06

Speaking of which, Billy seems to be attending a school run by Communists.

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Archie, 9/1/06

Ahh, the joke-writing computer rears its ugly head again. You can tell because Dad Archie uses the phrase “1-cent coin” in panel one, which has never been uttered by any carbon-based native speaker of American English ever. My guess is that both the first and third panels originally used the word “penny,” but some rule in the mechanical comic creator’s humor-generating algorithm required that key words in the joke not be repeated and instead be replaced by synonyms, so this clunker got pulled out of some second-rate thesaurus and plopped into place.

More proof of this strip’s robotic origins: Jughead appears to have pulled a fully-formed, ready-to-eat hamburger out of the refrigerator. A cybernetic artist would obviously be unfamiliar with the details of how biological life-forms acquire their fuel.

Mary Worth, 9/1/06

Man, look at their faces in panel two. Those two are about to have some angry, angry sex.

I have to confess something. I used to own a shirt that looked remarkably like the one Aldo is wearing. And this wasn’t some long-ago artifact of my non-fashionable youth; I wore it regularly until it developed a hole in it about a year ago. It was long-sleeved, and was just a V-neck rather than a polo shirt with a collar, but the color and the stripe are pretty much exact matches. It creeps me out a little.

Apartment 3-G, 9/1/06

The saddest thing about panel one is that Tommie thinks she’s flirting.

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Mary Worth, 8/9/06

That’s right, Mary, let the rage and hate flow through you. But wait until he’s actually standing in front of you to unleash that left hook.

Archie, 8/9/06

I have to admit that this is a pretty stunning layout — I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a comic strip divided up like this before. I don’t know how it would look shrunk down to the size necessary to cram it into a newspaper comics section, but it looks good here. It’s a particularly good fit for the broad vista in the top panel. Too bad it’s all in the service of such a joke so spectacularly lame that I think it’s the product of a joke-generating computer — and not a good one, either. Some of Betty’s butt might have helped.

Hi and Lois, 8/9/06

Shitting. The baby is talking about shitting.