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Herb and Jamaal, 3/11/10

Ha ha, this is without out a doubt the greatest Herb and Jamaal ever. Rev. Croom just wants to have a little lunch in peace — but no, this little creep, the one who only shows up at church at Christmas and Easter, and whose mother-in-law he wishes would only show up at Christmas and Easter, has to badger him about eternity and crap. Fine, there’s nobody else here, there’s plausible deniability. “Sorry, kid, you’re going to be tortured in Hell for all eternity with the other damned souls,” he says, just stone-cold sucking his tea through a straw. “Now are you going to bring me my lunch or what?”

Mark Trail, 3/11/10

If I didn’t already know that this Mark Trail storyline was essentially a repeat of one that ran thirty years ago, I’d say that we’re witnessing a quantum leap forward in Trailian storytelling. As a rule, the narrative is relentlessly linear, and thus I assumed that yesterday’s shameless flirting was going to lead inexorably to some major plot point. Instead, it may have just been a bit of throwaway color meant to provide Mark with a key piece of information. Mark, meanwhile, seems to have made the monumental discovery that not every firing of a neuron in side his hair-helmeted skull needs to result in the immediate verbalization of the resulting idea: note in panel two that he’s actually managed to muster a genuine thought balloon. This first feeble specimen only encapsulates the vague notion of questioning, but with effort Mark may discover that it’s possible to think whole words or even sentences without saying them aloud.

Momma, 3/11/10

I find the scenario depicted here rather puzzling. It’s not because Momma’s being hit on by some gnomish bow-tied individual — there’s a lid for every pot, as my father once said to me, though in this case it appears to be a gold-digging lid; rather, I just have no clear idea of where exactly the action is supposed to be taking place. What setting might include a Momma-sized easy chair and a potted plant, but also be open to the public so that strangers might wander in and harass her? Is he cruising for babes down at the senior center?

Family Circus, 3/11/10

Little known fact: Grandma appears in the strip only occasionally because she spends most of her time — and most of her grandchildren’s’ inheritance — following ’80s glam-rock band Cinderella around the country. When Cinderella isn’t touring, she keeps busy jamming with her Cinderella tribute band, Glass Slipper.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/11/10

They’re still cousins, though, so this may make Thanksgiving dinner awkward.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/7/10

Fractured narratives that jump back and forth in time might have once been the province of snooty intellectuals and their avant garde literature and art films, but linear storytelling has become so passé that it now bores even the least discriminating of media consumers (i.e., Snuffy Smith aficionados). In today’s installment of this suddenly experimental strip, we begin with Elviney’s crumpled, distraught face, then immediately jump to her looking chipper and so eager to trade sordid tales about her friends that her tongue literally dangles from her mouth. What emotional devastation resulted in that grim visage in the first panel? Was this her past, or her future? Only at the strip’s conclusion do we come full circle to the beginning of the story, as the inveterate gossip gets her cruel comeuppance.

Judge Parker, 3/7/10

Judge Parker might have wrapped up its Bernie Madoff-ish plotline in painfully unsatisfying fashion last week, but there was still one detail left to attend to: namely, that none of the smug, irritating rich pretty people who rule the strip had been personally enriched by the action yet. And so, just as Dixie Julep’s death inevitably led to a pointlessly large advance for Judge Parker Senior’s dumb book, so now will Sam be handed a $100,000 check for his hard work violating as many bar association rules as he could think of. Sam is of course married to the richest woman in the state, and has no need for piddling six-digit sums; he will presumably cash the check and ask for the money in $1 bills, which he’ll then feed to one of Spencer Farms’ pretty, pretty horses.

Mark Trail, 3/7/10

This is obviously the greatest death-and-destruction-themed Mark Trail since the world-famous tsunami episode of 2005. Particularly impressive is how calm and manful Mark looks in panel three as Lost Forest is blanketed by a terrifying death cloud. “Rusty, there’s absolutely no need to to panic, but we’ll probably want to get into the Survival Chamber I dug out by hand underneath our cabin! Oh, and be sure to grab your transistor radio, so we can groove to the smooth sounds of NOAA weather reports all night long.” His sang-froid is all the more impressive when we see the hellscape the tornado has unleashed on the area in the final panel, with cars and cows flying hilariously through the air and wide-eyed squirrels skittering about in doomed panic.

One odd thing that jumps about at me about this strip, however, is the text in the first panel and at the bottom left of the bottom panel. It’s in Times New Roman or something, rather than in the meticulous hand of Jack Elrod. It’s the same thing that was done in the more information about licorice strip, and I have pretty much come to the same conclusion about it: that whatever Jack Elrod wrote there was too incendiary for America’s comics pages, and had to be replaced by some bland, inoffensive weather facts at the last minute. I’m thinking that the first-panel box originally read “Tornadoes are the wrathful fingers of God wreaking destruction on the Earth,” and the other box was an extended discursis about how a tornado can rip a beard right off of a man’s face.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/7/10

I admit that Rex Morgan hasn’t been all that engaging to me for a while now, but that all changed the moment this high-stakes Sarah-Toots negotiation began. My little joke about Sarah as a cruel monster came true more or less immediately, with hilarious results. And with Brooke, who never really seemed to care much for our stripey-shirted skateboarding bon vivant anyway, preparing to flee Chez Morgan in tears, Toots will have lost his only nominal ally, leaving him entirely at Sarah’s mercy. Look for him to spend the next two to five years living in the Morgans’ basement, with Sarah bringing down just enough food to keep him alive so that he can amuse her with his wacky hipster antics/pleas for mercy.

Slylock Fox, 3/7/10

I note today’s main Slylock mystery only to point out that it’s a sad sort of semi-aquatic rodent that has managed to go through life wholly unacquainted with the concept of “tides.” More interesting to me is the Six Differences puzzle, and the look of grim anxiety on the barber’s face. It’s as if this gentlemen has, for reasons of his own, been lying to everyone for a while about being a hairdresser, and now someone has finally called him on it and asked for a haircut; he can’t back out, but, as he approaches the young man, scissors in one hand and comb in the other and panic in his eyes, it’s becoming increasingly clear that he has no idea whatsoever what he’s doing. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it too much, friend; if the young dude’s current hair-blob is any indication, he has little or no interest in aesthetically pleasing grooming.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/5/10

Say, it’s been a while since we checked in with the refugee-ne’er-do-well wackiness in Rex Morgan, hasn’t it? Today, it seems that Sarah is learning a valuable lesson: that, when you’re in a position of power over someone in a desperate situation, they might give up their most treasured possessions “voluntarily,” just to buy themselves a few more days or hours of survival! This knowledge will come in handy for her future career as a brutal post-apocalyptic warlord.

Unfortunately, Toots is about to learn a similar important lesson as well: when you’re a refugee and not in a position to be economically productive, you only have so many things you can trade away for safety. When Sarah comes back for more — and she will — the pickings will get slimmer, and fast. “Say, little girl, do you want this stripey shirt? All the other kids will think you’re super cool if you’ve got a stripey shirt? Hmm, how about this half-empty paint can? No? Uh … dirty socks? I found some dirty socks over here…”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/5/10

As part of my policy about being open and honest with you when normally unfunny comics make me laugh, I admit to being amused that Elviney is reading a publication called Tabloid Doin’s. However, the fact that Loweezy is perusing something with a much more conventional name confounded me a bit, and forces me to conclude that in fact Tabloid Doin’s is some kind of trade magazine detailing the hiring and firing of editors at various tabloid publications. “I don’t care what you say, Loweezy! Ain’t nobody in this latest crop o’ gossip maven ken hold a candle to Bonnie Fuller!”

Gil Thorp, 3/5/10

The Mudlark basketball team has once again failed to even make the playdowns, which I’m frankly glad about, as it allows me to focus more energy on Coach Thorp’s increasingly twee wardrobe. First a sweater vest, now some kind of cardigan, complete with a chunky piping? I love it, Gil!

Shoe, 3/5/10

Roz’s interlocutor is in fact a bird; so, while she shouldn’t be anxious about using her wings to travel through the air, being killed, dismembered, fried, and eaten is a legitimate concern.

Jumble, 3/5/10

I kind of love how enthusiastic this guy is about fresh-ground cheese. “Yes! It adds so much flavor! Look, look at this cheese I’m pointing to, everyone! Oh my God, it completely transforms the dish! Keep adding more! Pile on the cheese! Don’t ever stop!”

Pluggers, 3/5/10

You’re a plugger if the terrifying secret government lab that created the man-animal abomination that you are saved money by grafting variously sized torsos onto identical sets of cloned legs.