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Beetle Bailey, 10/11/09

This is a pretty sad demonstration of how Beetle’s half-century stuck in the timeless limbo of Camp Swampy will make it impossible for him to reintegrate into normal society upon his release. Like the hero of Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, Private Bailey will leave the military and find a civilian world with mores and values outside of his understanding. For instance, he’ll find his clothes to be laughably out of date, and discover that the whimsical pastimes of his native 1950s, such as tree-sitting and breath-holding contests, are no longer relevant in the age of reality TV and Internet pornography. However, he will be pleased to find that the competitive eating scene is still alive and well, and moreover that revolutionary new technologies allow hot dogs to be cooked without being blackened to a crisp.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/11/09

Remember the classic narrative switcheroo at the climax of Silence of the Lambs, when the scene edits make you think that the FBI team is assembling outside the serial killer’s house, but it turns out that they’re in the wrong place and Jodie Foster is ringing his doorbell instead? Well, that’s sort of what happened here, without the tension or excitement. Becka and Tim have been heroically driving through a sodden golf course looking for his runaway mom, whom we’ve been led to believe is holed up in the pro shop there — when in fact they’ve broken and entered into some punk rocker’s trailer, perhaps miles away! Everything about this punk rocker — his piercings, his shaved head, his use of “street” slang like “crib” — is supposed to be terrifying and menacing to us, the solid middle-American comic-reading audience, but I feel obliged to point out that it is, in fact, his crib, and he has a right to protest random old people breaking in and attempting to hold golf lessons there.

Sally Forth, 10/11/09

Oooh, contest — what terrible habit is causing Ted to drain the Forth family finances? Keep in mind that Ted is pure of heart, so all the sleazy things you sickos are thinking of (cocaine, roulette, 15-year-old Thai male prostitutes) are out. I’m thinking that the basement shelves are groaning under the weight of his collection of first-edition GoBots, or that every time he PayPals someone on Craigslist who claims to have a copy of the Star Wars Christmas Special, he’s convinced that this is the time he won’t be disappointed.

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Slylock Fox, 9/29/09

My goodness, it’s been nearly three years since we’ve seen a Six Differences this bleak. In fact, this installment may be even more disturbing: while the previous strip featured a fish dead so long that it had skeletonized, today’s features a fresh corpse that’s just risen to the surface; the still-living fish hasn’t even had time to realize that it’s now sharing a tiny bowl with the floating body of the only friend it’s ever known. More disturbing still is the difference between the two little girls: in the scene on the right, the tyke is shedding a tear for her beloved aquatic pet, but in the left-hand panel she’s merely watching the process of death in wide-eyed fascination. Perhaps her “experiments” are now ready to move up the food chain. Don’t leave your meals or drinks unattended, mom and dad!

Mark Trail, 9/29/09

“They probably thought you were a wildlife ranger … you know, because you wear what appears to be a uniform, you bellow random facts about nature at inappropriate times, and you dish out violence as if you had some sort of law enforcement authority. You can see why the poachers made that mistake! Uh, I mean, I heard that they made that mistake, from other kids. Please don’t punch me!”

Dick Tracy, 9/29/09

So Ringo, having once ratted out his corporate bosses, is now ratting out his carnival underlings; the lesson we are meant to draw appears to be “never trust a whistleblower.” I guess I never expected Dick Tracy to get on board the “Stop Snitchin'” bandwagon, though I suppose learning about crimes from informants denies Dick the fun of beating confessions out of suspects.

Beetle Bailey, 9/29/09

Otto, your continued presence in the barracks is on the line here, so you might want to not openly acknowledge your responsibility for infesting Camp Swampy with vermin.

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Mark Trail, 9/28/09

You know, while Mary Worth was busy pumping ancillary characters full of lead, Mark Trail was offering us the unusual spectacle of Mark experiencing the blunt head trauma-induced unconsciousness he usually dishes out to others. The most exciting aspect of this plot is not any danger to Mark — surely he can punch out any real threats to his person while out cold — but rather the prospect of the feeble Rusty wandering aimlessly around the alligator-lousy swamp with only his own hideousness to protect him. Sadly, we weren’t even given a few hopeful days to imagine that Mark’s deformed ward had been devoured by a vicious reptile before the inevitable discovery that he’s safe and as sound as he ever is. I don’t normally root for stories about children in danger, but I make exceptions for Rusty.

Dick Tracy, 9/28/09

Oh, also, the soulful-eyed clown, who I pegged as the killer pretty much upon his first appearance, then briefly began to doubt the guilt of, turns out to be the killer after all! Thank goodness Dick Tracy isn’t challenging my plot-related expectations in any way, as I don’t think I could handle it.

Really, though, Dick Tracy isn’t particularly interested in the big-picture strokes of the plot at all: it’s not a “mystery” strip as such, as your most base impulses (sinister clown = murderer, in this case) are always likely to be correct. No, it’s more interested in following its own drifting dream logic on the way to its predetermined conclusion. So Ringo was a corporate whistleblower (OK) who was put into the care of the witness protection program (makes sense) and given a job running a circus (wait, what?). And Mr. Pops the clown worked at the company Ringo worked at, or something? And now everybody at the circus also hates Ringo, because … they also were profiting from the corporate malfeasance … or maybe because he’s a bad boss, or bad ringmaster? You might think that Mr. Pops’s accusations will be followed up on in future strips, but trust me, they won’t, not to anybody’s satisfaction, anyway. It’s not so much a “tightly constructive narrative” as one of those nightmares you have where you’re in college or a new job and you haven’t done your homework or learned any of your duties, and everyone is mad at you, and eventually you get eaten by a tiger.

Pluggers, 9/28/09

Kudos to pluggers for allowing their yards to revert to prairie, but why not go all the way? They ought to allow their human-style dwellings to decay, strip off their clothes, and go feral, like the beasts that they are. Of course, they may be devoured by their wild cousins who never experienced the softening effects of domesticity, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Beetle Bailey, 9/28/09

Ha ha, Sarge is closing his eyes and pretending that the only words he hears are “bigger,” “job,” and “harder”! Jesus, I am a fucking twelve-year-old.