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Beetle Bailey, 2/6/07

Those of you who read Beetle Bailey in black in white in the newspaper, as God intended us to do, were spared from the horrifying and baffling sight of an entirely blue Lt. Fuzz. I mean, forget changing races; our blond-haired junior officer seems to have changed species. The only even vaguely reasonable explanation I can come up with is that this is some kind of comics coloring sweatshop version of day-for-night filming. Some movies that don’t have the budget to properly light night scenes shoot during the day, then run the film through a blue filter to look more like nighttime. (Fans of MST3K will remember Attack Of The The Eye Creatures, a film in which this technique was implemented particularly ineptly.) Apparently someone down at King Features coloring thought that giving Lt. Fuzz a shiny white face would be all wrong for this ill-lit situation, and the only color in the limited palate available that vaguely conveyed a sense of shadowing was this weird blue.

Those of you who read Beetle Bailey in black in white in the newspaper were not distracted by this puzzle from the “punchline,” which doesn’t make a damn bit of sense no matter how much you look at it, so we online types got let off pretty easy.

Curtis, 2/6/07

Some have claimed that my Curtis geography lesson yesterday was misplaced, and that the idea of “Compton Kaheem” being from Philly is actually part of the joke. I’m still dubious, but I am sharp enough to realize that this strip is setting us up for a punchline tomorrow. Still, almost everything about it is stunningly loathsome. The elder Wilkins’ creepy mechanical laugh (not the first time it’s appeared in this strip), his little sing-songy invitation to his 11-year-old son to watch a little soft-core human degradation, said 11-year-old’s clench-fistedly eager anticipation of same with his dad sitting there behind him, the very idea of a “syrup chapter” of the venerable Girls Gone Wild franchise … I’m frankly having a hard time thinking of anything that might happen tomorrow that could redeem this, except perhaps the entire human race being wiped out by an asteroid.

Mark Trail, 2/6/07

Ah, Mark! For a man so in touch with the natural world, you sure do talk like an android. I’d love to hear Mark talk about some fishing stories. “There was this one fishing story, I used to tell it to Cherry when we were first dating. Rusty loves that story! His little face just lights up and he says, ‘Tell it again, Mark, tell it again!’ Excitable little kid. Yup, that sure is a great story. Then there’s this other fishing story I like to tell…”

The Phantom, 2/6/07

For those of you not in the know, “Bandar medicine” is the Phantom and Guran’s little code phrase for roofies. I have no idea how they think that’s going to help, unless “ill” is code for something I don’t even want to know about.

Gil Thorp, 2/6/07

Speaking of people going, having gone, or being about to go wild, those boys don’t look like they’re going anywhere near wild in panel two. There are entirely too many clothes, for one thing. And not nearly enough syrup.

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Judge Parker, 1/24/07

Sometimes I like to imagine what would happen if you came from another planet or something and were given a cursory education in the usual sort of comics, with jokes and whatnot, and then you encountered a gem like today’s Judge Parker. Would you stare in horror at the third panel for hours, trying to figure how “You see, I have cancer … and the doctors are not optimistic!” might qualify as one of these “jokes” or “punchlines” you’ve heard about? Would you connect your Interstellar Space Radio to Central Command on Planet Zyvex and say, “Call off our invasion fleet! These Earth humans … they laugh at suffering and death! They find the painful passing of their old ones a source of amusement! Surely they would throw all thoughts of their own safety aside and fearlessly engage even our most deadly trained Sau’dukar Warriors in bloody combat! For Melkar’s sake, turn those ships around!”

It’s not likely, I know, but I’m just saying. Judge Parker may have just saved us all from being forced to dance for the Galactic Emperor Chennux’s amusement until we dropped dead from exhaustion.

Alien invasions aside, the phrase “I’m an old woman and I’m going to die” may be the most depressing ever uttered in a comic strip, and I’m including Funky Winkerbean in that assessment. At least Funky gives you some sort of pun to cut the gloom. In fact, based on that first panel, I’m not convinced that Rachel is still alive at the moment; she looks an awful lot like Norman Bates’ taxidermied mother. Which doesn’t speak well for Abbey’s sanity. Not that anyone with that haircut could truly be called “sane.”

Beetle Bailey, 1/24/07

This Beetle Bailey storyline of barely closeted homosexuality has been winding along like a third-rate Tennessee Williams knockoff for weeks now. First Beetle finally realizes that his attempts at physical intimacy with women are a sham, then starts to subtly acknowledge his abusive relationship with an older man. Today, having finished with his beard, he’s decided to pawn her off on the village idiot.

Miss Buxley, of course, isn’t consulted about her own sex life, because she’s a pretty girl and this is Beetle Bailey, duh.

Luann, 1/24/07

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, the only way this storyline is going to make any sense is if it involves a faulty contraceptive and a time machine.

In case you haven’t been following Luann, our flat-topped adoptee is supposed to be in Iraq. Now, never having been either adopted or in a war, I may not know what I’m talking about, but I think I’d have other things on my mind if I were him.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/24/07

What’s it going to take to revive this painfully tedious storyline? A horribly burned, foul-mouthed, halfwit-criminal-dating meth cook? I for one am ready to take that chance.

Archie, 1/24/07

Yeah, so Jughead wants to eat Archie’s eyes. The look of stunned horror on Veronica’s face in panel two is actually pretty much justified.

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Family Circus, 1/21/07

I thought I had seen the depths to which Keane family dysfunction could sink, but that was before murderous little Jeffy sweet-talked his mother into lovingly handcrafting the very projectiles with which she would soon be pelted. In a way, this cartoon is emblematic of that dark, little-discussed side of parenthood: sometimes, you can pour all of your soul into that little life that you nurtured first in your body and then in your home, neglecting your own private life, personal development, and relationship with your partner to help them become a person, only to see them transformed into an inscrutable monster, an opaque being who only resents you for crimes you can’t imagine or explain, who, despite the years of midnight feedings and changed diapers and band-aids and drives to school and hot meals, is ready to crack your skull open with a ball of ice the moment you turn your back.

On the other hand, she did call him “little man.” I’d be pretty pissed too.

Beetle Bailey, 1/21/07

I know they’re called “throwaway panels” because they just get thrown away, but really, this isn’t even trying. “Hey, I’ve got to fill these two panels with something — how about something that isn’t funny on its own, and that doesn’t really fit in with the main joke, but is just close enough to it that you sort of stare at it for a while scratching your head waiting for it to make sense, but it never does? Bingo! Tee time! I’m off!”

Judge Parker, 1/21/07

With what look like new Barretto-drawn strips back in the daily Judge Parker, our anonymous fill-in artist is offering his swan song with some entirely gratuitous Abbey T&A. I ask you, does anyone rock the chino capris like Ms. Spencer? I think she goes down to Old Navy and buys the Ass Crack Revealing Cut version in bulk.

Also, Sunday’s Mary Worth was a wasteland of exposition and white people, but in the final panel we did get to see her terrifying all-seeing third eye!

I never doubted your powers, o master! Please to not tear my soul asunder with your oculus of ultimate power!