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Gil Thorp, 12/20/09

OH MY GOODNESS! It turns out that Valerie hooked up with the slightly cross-eyed band geek that Jamaar paid to keep tabs on Valerie, in a turn of events that could only be predicted by anyone who has ever had even rudimentary experience with narrative of any sort. Now, since I’m a slightly lazy-eyed former band geek myself, I’m a fan of band geeks finding love with Amazonian girl jocks, but I’m an even bigger fan of things not turning out as you’d expect in Gil Thorp, so I’m hoping that Valerie has merely turned the tables on Jamaar and is just paying Deion to pretend to be her boyfriend. That would explain why he’s rubbing his face ecstatically against her hand in panel two, as if this is a singular, unique experience that he wants to treasure every second of, while she just glowers meaningfully at Jamaar. Thus, the unseen dialogue: “I think we finally did it — we made ‘the Ghost’ disappear! Here’s $50. Never talk to me again.”

Dick Tracy, 12/19/09

Say what you will about Dick Tracy, but the art will never fail to baffle and delight. Today we learn that the enormous, bleak entry plaza to this concert hall is just part of a larger modernist architectural horrorshow, with the nightmarish structure apparently being topped by a rotating restaurant, or perhaps an attacking UFO. In panel two, we’re reminded that Dick Tracy never phones it in when it comes to shocking violence; while another, lesser strip might simply depict an enraged father strangling his son, here we see our crazed elder longhair attempting to literally rip off his son’s face. Finally, panel three offers a curious juxtaposition between Tess’s dialogue and facial expression, unless we’re meant to understand that she finds ingesting copious amounts of cocaine “peaceful.”

Beetle Bailey, 12/19/09

More proof that the soldiers of Camp Swampy really do represent the military’s dregs: they can’t even maintain interested consciousness when being instructed on the use of what looks to be some kind of terrifying futuristic radioactive death ray.

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B.C., 12/15/09

Wow, it took less than three years after the death of the devout Johnny Hart for B.C. to devolve into red-hot woman-on-wolf action. Impressive!

Mark Trail, 12/15/09

OH MY GOD MARK IS GOING TO BE LOCKED UP BY A FAT, CORRUPT, STOGIE-CHEWING SHERIFF! PLEASURE OVERLOAD! PLEASURE OVERLOAD!

Beetle Bailey, 12/15/09

Boy, Beetle sure gets around, doesn’t he? I’d be more convinced by his “Now I have to check for hidden cards in your underwear” gambit as just being sensible pre-gambling precautions if there were anyone in the room other than him and Cosmo.

Mary Worth, 12/15/09

Don’t be too hasty, Wilbur! If you end up having lunch with the young man, he might see you try to cram an entire sandwich down your throat without chewing and decide that maybe you aren’t related to each other after all.

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Panels from Beetle Bailey, 11/8/09

Here you are, ladies and gentlemen: the most throwawayable thowaway panels in the history of the comics. Carefully designed to occupy space in newspapers that run three rows of Sunday Beetle Bailey panels, but not impart any information that would make the comic less enjoyable in those papers that run only two, these panels masterfully tread water, featuring recognizable words and pictures and yet not advancing the narrative a single iota. This particularly specialized artform has now reached its apex; were any panels to be more throwaway than this, they might make the rest of the comic start running backwards or something.

Panels from Mary Worth, 11/8/09

The throwaway panels in today’s Mary Worth, meanwhile, offer a special subliminal treat: the mention of Willa Cather in the first panel made me briefly wonder if one of the tubes that Adrian was fiddling with was Scott’s catheter. “Okay, now, this line seems fine. How does it feel if I jerk on it like this?”

My Cage, 11/8/09

Man, I usually like My Cage, but it’s all preachy and self-referential today. How lame!