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Archie, 10/22/07

Dear Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000: I realize that placing a character’s name in apposition with a role that character plays or a task he fulfills is a quick and efficient means to provide information needed to set up a joke. However, this grammatical structure is almost never used in actual conversation between humans, and it comes across as incredibly stilted. I don’t blame you for the mistake, as you do not actually communicate verbally with biological life-forms, but I would like you to file this away in your humor-generation ruleset.

Also, jokes about text messaging are not funny, and haven’t been since the end of a relatively brief window in the late 1990s. I can understand why the notion that transmitting data electronically could cause physical pain might seem incongruous and amusing to you, but trust me on this one.

Beetle Bailey, 10/22/07

Oh, this is just about the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. Don’t you believe it, Beetle! Every blow from Sarge’s fists is really a kiss that he can’t allow himself to give you.

Dennis the Menace, 10/22/07

“Especially since we put all those cameras in the basement and then locked him down there. Ha ha, look! He’s clawing at the door again!”

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Beetle Bailey, 10/17/07

Yes, thank goodness General Halftrack is keeping up with radical newspapers like Vorwärts and the Daily Worker to keep tabs on their stinging and remarkably specific criticisms of the quality of American general officers! By exposing the rot and incompetence at the upper echelons of the US military, they help forward the cause of proletarian revolution!

No, seriously, what the hell. My guess is that this cartoon is what happened when the whole ludicrous New York Times/MoveOn.org Petraeus/Betray Us kerfuffle managed to seep through the layers and layers of Out Of Touch that surround the Walker-Browne Amalgamated Funny Enterprises LLC compound. Though I’m guessing that if anyone bought a full-page ad entitled “General Halftrack or General Half Assed?” there wouldn’t be any kind of Congressional resolution condemning it.

On the other hand, Halftrack could be reading a radical right-wing newspaper, which puts a whole different spin on things. “Under Halftrack, Camp Swampy has sunk under the scum, his corps lousy with blacks, Asians, and homosexuals. Under his leadership, the army is incapable of bringing the cleansing fire to this nation that it so desperately needs!”

Momma, 10/17/07

This may mark me as a bad son, but when I see an (I assume) adult describe living at home with their dwarfish, clown-haired freak of a mother as “a spiritual and emotional pleasure,” I don’t think “happy, well-adjusted young man”; I think “budding serial killer.” More specifically, I think “pretentious budding serial killer.”

By the way, when I first saw this strip, I read the final word balloon as “–is that the same as ‘the pita’?” Which, frankly, is funnier than the actual punchline. The “pita” version isn’t actually funny at all, but the real gag is anti-funny, and zero is greater than a negative number.

Mary Worth, 10/17/07

If you’re not following along at home, yesterday Vera’s creepy, estranged brother Von bought her forgiveness with a check. We have to assume that it was large enough to overcome the huge chip on Vera’s shoulder; sadly, it was not an oversized novelty check that would have allowed us to see the exact amount. Anyway, I’m hoping that now desperate Drew is ready to resort to an overworked, overpaid, oversexed young man’s answer to any current problem, which is to throw money at it. I’m sure Mary will approve of Vera’s masterly techniques of holding grudges for fun and profit.

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Mary Worth, 9/20/07

Well, the slapping seems to be over (for now), but Dawn continues to give Dr. Drew the tongue-lashing of his life (and not in a good way). While Dawn may be the younger of the two ladies vying for Dr. Drew’s affections, this co-ed definitely has an edge over her competitor when it comes to brains: she’s keeping up a blistering stream of accusatory rage while spoiled rich girl Vera is still scratching her chin in total befuddlement. (“Wait … does this girl … know Drew somehow? There’s something fishy going on here … but what?”)

Dawn’s invective is so powerful that she doesn’t even need to waggle her fingers to add quote marks around the key terms. The significance of the quotes around “working” is obvious enough, but I’m a little puzzled about “new girlfriend.” I mean, Vera is Drew’s new girlfriend, right? If only there were some kind of quote-mark expert we could consult to parse the meaning…

Well … now … you don’t have any proof of that, Margo! Jeez, that girl’s totally out of hand.

Mark Trail, 9/20/07

I don’t pretend to understand what exactly this trio of boneheaded duck-lovers is doing in the third panel — building an elaborate system of dikes around Shirley’s nest? Trying to bail out the entire swamp? Nor do I know exactly how we went from “Shirley must be protected from sinister, heartless developers” to “Shirley must be protected from an entirely natural flood that would have washed away her nest whether the mall was under construction or not.” But I do know who’s pulling the strings here. It’s not Shirley herself, as I had guessed earlier, as she’s proven herself to be about as smart as you’d expect an animal with a walnut-sized brain to be. No, take a good look at Mark’s smug bastard of an editor in panel one. He’s realized that the mouth-breathing reading public is eating this duck drama up, and as long as he can drag out the drama, his magazine for outdoorsmen will be flying off of the supermarket racks faster than all the celebrity gossip rags combined. Look for him to give Mark a series of increasingly bizarre and improbable orders to keep the story going. (“OK, I think you should carry the eggs over to the food court. No, not inside the Ruby Tuesdays! Are you insane?”)

Beetle Bailey, 9/20/07

I, uh…

I thought today’s Beetle Bailey was pretty funny.

Ha! They all had to go to the bathroom!

What?