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Baldo, 9/20/06

Baldo is one of those strips that I like enough to read every day, but it’s almost never so exciting that it gets mentioned here. This week there’s some serious oddness going on, though, as the title teen attempts to romance a bottle of conditioner. It was weird enough when it happened yesterday; its recurrence today is starting to freak me out. The fact that Baldo’s hair retains its perfect shape even in the shower may go to show just how intimate he is with hair-styling products.

Beetle Bailey, 9/20/06

One of the odder recurring bits in Beetle Bailey is Beetle’s extremely intermittent relationship with Miss Buxley. Although they are occasionally seen going out together or even holding hands, they seem to be perpetually on a second or third date. This is to my knowledge the first time that Private Bailey has even tried to get to first base with the buxom secretary, and the dialogue around the attempt is particularly bizarre. I myself have never been in the army, but I did go to public school, and so I know a thing or two about old water fountains, and if Miss Buxley thinks that the techniques needed to get water out of one makes a man a “good kisser,” then she’s much, much kinkier than I ever gave her credit for.

Actually, the more I think about it, Miss Buxley is probably not complimenting Beetle for trying to suck her liver out through her windpipe by asking him if he’s a man-whore, but rather saw him coming at her face with his lips ludicrously extended and is trying to come up with something — anything — to say to distract him from his advances. This fits in better with their body language, in which he’s grabbing her by the elbows and she’s bracing herself against his chest, and with the fact that she’s way, way out of his league.

The Lockhorns, 9/20/06

don’t visualize it don’t visualize it don’t visuAAAARRRGGGH MY BRAIN MY BRAIN MY BRAIN

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They’ll Do It Every Time, 9/9/06

Wow, check out the lower panel here: Ol’ Foghorn looks like he’s about ready to slap his wife around for suggesting a little home improvement. The way terrified little Foghorn Junior is clinging to his mom implies that he knows what’s coming and that this isn’t the first time dad has turned nasty. Presumably Foghorn Pater’s literally violent aversion to any change in his domestic scene explains the William McKinley-era aesthetic sensibility on display in the Foghorn household. The other attendees at the town meeting may feel that Fred (oh, I’m sorry, that’s “Ferd”) dominates civic discussion with his high-minded blather, but he clearly dominates his family in a much, much uglier way.

Apartment 3-G, 9/9/06

AAARGGH! DISCUSSION OF YOUR MARRIAGE COUNSELING SESSIONS: NOT SEXY! NOT GOING TO GET YOU LAID! ABORT, TED, ABORT!

If you’re a marriage counselor, I’ve got to imagine that the moment when one of your clients throws her infidelity in the face of her husband has got to be kind of a professional low point.

Beetle Bailey, 9/9/06

Ha ha! It’s funny because Sarge beat Beetle so savagely that many of his bones were shattered, leaving him hospitalized and in traction for months! He’ll be lucky if he ever walks again! Ha ha!

Seriously, Beetle Bailey is really fucked up.

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Gil Thorp, 8/25/06

A few weeks ago, I pondered the ethics of enjoying Marty Moon’s spiral down to rock bottom. Now that he’s gotten there — passing out drunkenly in your car because you lost a four-figure sum to a Ben Franklin lookalike playing golf being pretty much the lowest point of spiritual debasement I can come up with — I stand by my conclusion that it’s not just ethical, but mandatory. I particularly like how he goes from unshaven, crooked-grinned drunken bravado in panel one to head-in-hands shame in panel two. In panel three, it appears that his coffee arrived just a few seconds too late, and he’s about to flop face-first onto the table in blessed unconsciousness.

Crock, 8/25/06

Haw, haw! Overeating men are from Mars, and overeating women are from Venus! Seriously, though, if you could get a big Box O’ Tacosâ„¢, I might seriously look into how much one cost.

Beetle Bailey, 8/25/06

I’m pretty sure that Beetle will be recounting this conversation on the witness stand at Rocky’s war crimes trial.