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Beetle Bailey, 10/17/10

Sunday Beetle Baileys are notorious for being flabby and shapeless, with an absence of rhythm that guarantees that any possible fun is sucked out of it, but today’s is pretty much one of the worst I’ve seen. I’m not buying the idea that Beetle, who typically can’t even be bothered to push his hat out of his face, has suddenly developed a love for American Revolution trivia. And the weird ritualistic baseball/”surrender” exchange has so little payoff — one would expect that Beetle would use Sarge’s surrender to get out of work, or beatings, somehow — that Sarge is absolutely right to look as bored as he does. About all this strip has going for it is the reminder that Miss Buxley’s little black dress is actually a little red dress, colored black for the demands of the black-and-white daily strips that we increasingly often see colorized.

Family Circus, 10/17/10

Look, Jeffy, here in America we watch TV five hours a day. If you can’t hack it, maybe you should go to Communist Russia, where they’ll let you read books or some garbage like that.

My Cage, 10/17/10

This is getting a bit self-indulgent, but I did want to make sure that Curmudgeon readers who got shout-outs here and who rely on the no-Sunday Strips Houston Chronicle for their comics got to see their names in lights. What I want to know is, why no animal-style names for us? I dare you to come up with an animal-pun version of “Fruhlinger.”

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Family Circus, 10/9/10

Thanks to the many faithful readers who took time out of their busy weekends to email me the great news that millions of dollars are going to be spent creating a Family Circus movie. (The comments on that story I linked to are actually pretty great, my favorites being “Hell yeah! This means The Lockhorns can’t be far behind! Team Loretta!” and “Who asked for this? Ida Know. Who wants to see it? Not me.”) Apparently the strip is already moving into the edgier subject matter that Hollywood demands, with Dolly coming to the conclusion that her only way out of the Keane Kompound is as a child bride.

Crankshaft, 10/9/10

If the endless “Pam and Jeff reminisce about the violence Crankshaft has done to the English language” strips had to end — and, really, they could have kept at it for as long as comic strips continue to exist as a medium, as far as I’m concerned — then this is a pretty good way to wrap it up. Our two protagonists, having briefly rediscovered the emotion that normal humans call “happiness,” cringe in terror as they realize that Crankshaft’s soul, having been rejected by both God and Satan, has returned to his mortal form.

Beetle Bailey, 10/9/10

Honestly, there really ought to be someone employed at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC whose sole job is to pose this question before the day’s Beetle Bailey is sent to papers. “Is this somebody’s idea of a joke? I mean, would any of our readers recognize this is a joke, or something resembling a joke? We are still doing strips with jokes in them, right?”

Mary Worth, 10/9/10

“Some people at the hospital use another word for her! Or, wait, ‘war criminal’ is really two words, isn’t it?”

Adrian sure is setting Mary up to hate and fear this “outspoken” “type A” lady. One can only imagine what sort of terrible description of Mary she’s been giving to Jill. I’m starting to guess that she’s doing the meddling biddy equivalent of putting a couple of bugs in a jar and shaking it up.

Spider-Man, 10/9/10

“Oh, right, because I’m a terrible actress. God, this play is going to flop! The boos will be deafening!”

Apartment 3-G, 10/9/10

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: Six to eight weeks worth of plotlines in which Tommie is not deemed interesting enough to appear.

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Beetle Bailey, 9/18/10

This is a joke. I don’t mean that in a sarcastic way; I mean it’s got a setup that establishes our expectations, and a punchline and visual that gently subvert them. Sure, it’s Beetle Bailey and it’s about golf, but it’s professionally executed and there’s no denying it’s a joke. That, and we get to look at General Halftrack’s sweet pimp hat. Nice.

Crankshaft, 9/18/10

This, on the other hand, is Crankshaft. It starts out like a joke, with one of those trademark paid-by-the-word Crankshaft “setups” busting a bowel in panel 1 — maybe bricks are hard to draw? But there’s no twist, no surprise, no little epiphany at the end — just confirmation that Crankshaft’s bitter hostility is no match for his selfishness. And the same damn hat as always.

The Phantom, 9/18/10 (panels)

The Phantom, 7/29/10

Up top, the Phantom shows up dressed like a thug in the the middle of the night to interrogate the homeowner whose phone Diana used to call New York back in July, as we see down below. The terrified Rhodian reports that no way was he shooting at any white woman, and anyway he only used his little BLAM gun, not that great big BOOM one, no sir!

Mary Worth, 9/18/10

Four days listening to Hunky Doc Mike drone on about his dead absentee alcoholic vigilante failure Dad and poor Jenna’s itching to wrap up this “closure” claptrap and get down with some hott “moving on” action! Let’s listen in:

Mike: “I saw a man who wanted justice, and became obsessed with getting it.”
Jenna: “It seems knowing his reasons and weaknesses helped you forgive him. Do you want to take a walk?”

Mike: “He gave me life, but I never really knew him.”
Jenna: “You came through when it mattered! My place or yours? I think I might have a little wine left!”

Mike: “When he reached out to me, I saw what I had missed all those years!”
Jenna: “You helped him find peace! “It’s just down the street, and I’ve got a trapeze!”

Mike: “There was so little time, and so much I needed to say to him.”
Jenna: “You did what you could! Hey, maybe there’s some special thing you’ve always wanted to try but were too embarrassed to ask a girl ….”

Mike: “He taught me the lessons of his life, but died before I could thank him!”
Jenna: “Oh crap, Mary and Jeff just walked in — listen, just do me in the john, OK?”

Hey everybody, I’m sitting in while Josh is on vacation. Use bio@jfruh.com to contact me about any trouble with the site, spam, comment issues, etc. Thanks!

— Uncle Lumpy