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Blondie, 5/22/12

We here at the Comics Curmudgeon spend a lot of time ragging on long-running legacy strips, which decades ago ceased to be the work of an artist/visionary and are instead staffed by hired guns in the employ of the intellectual property owners. But we don’t say enough about the advantages of this kind of working environment! Let’s say that, back in the summer of 2006, you come up with a funny joke — ha ha, did you know that the youth of today will pay good money for pants that are already torn up? mercy! — only to discover that lots and lots and lots and lots of your fellow cartoonists had the same idea! So you’d probably chuck it and try to come up with something else, if you were just working on your own. But if you were a cog in some legacy comic’s great machine, you’d have an advantage over your lone wolf competitors because you’d have access to what sociologists call “institutional memory.” You’d just file the joke idea away in the company Outlook calendar, and set an alarm for when everyone’s long forgotten about haha-torn-jeans jokes. Five years should do it, right? Let’s call it a shade short of six, just to be safe. Come 2012, whoever’s got your job (lord knows it won’t be you) will see the alert pop up and have the day’s strip already half written.

Six Chix, 5/22/12

Huh, against all expectations the puzzling tale of the two young birds that had sex and then had baby birds is continuing, and continuing to be puzzling! “I like the cute young guys, but this time I went to far, in that I had sex with a cute young guy and then had children, ugh.”

Dennis the Menace, 5/22/12

“Mostly I’ve just been in here watching TV, so I guess there really aren’t that many details to fill in. Hey, since you’re up, would mind wiping up the drool-puddle I’m leaving on the ottoman?”

Spider-Man, 5/22/12

Don’t worry, comic-book action fans, the current Spider-Man plot isn’t just going to be about how Peter Parker feels sexually threatened when his wife talks to handsome men! It’s also about how he feels inadequate when he talks to other superheroes.

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Blondie, 5/20/12

Since you are all comics scholars, probably you are well aware of the Blondie origin story: Blondie was a carefree flapper girl who fell in love with Dagwood, the aimless son of a wealthy industrialist, and when the two decided to get hitched, Dagwood’s snooty family disinherited him for marrying a commoner, forcing him to get a job and become the suburban drone we know and love feel occasional twinges of mild affection for today.

Anyway, I have this theory that one of the secrets of the strip is that Mr. Dithers is in fact Dagwood’s father, the son having defiantly changed his last name to “Bumstead,” signifying his expulsion from the Dithers family’s monied Eden. This explains a number of the strip’s anomalies: Why Mr. Dithers employs Dagwood despite the Dagwood’s obvious incompetence and Mr. Dithers’s just as obvious contempt for him; why the families occasionally socialize, awkwardly; and why Dagwood, despite his bluster and hostility, is so nakedly desperate for Dithers’s approval. There have been few scenes in the comics more heart-rending and pathetic than the last two panels of this strip, in which Dagwood collapses into his chair in exhausted happiness after receiving such a minor display of affection from his boss.

Judge Parker, 5/20/12

Ooh, we’re the opening stages of this Judge Parker storyline, so let’s use the little details we’re being given to predict how it’s all going to go down! My guess: Sam gets invited on an impromptu fishing trip, Sam turns out to be surprisingly deft at fly-casting, Sam so impresses Avery Blackstone that Avery Blackstone hands over millions of dollars of his studio’s money for the film rights to Judge Parker Emeritus’s unreadable books, because rich guys who are good at awesome hobbies need to look out for each other. It’s slightly less certain, though still decently likely, that Peaches, being a sexy lady of dusky complexion who has a difficult relationship with her boss, will turn out to be a terrorist and/or spy.

Mark Trail, 5/20/12

It’s hard to tell from Mark’s exposition whether the horrifying vision in the final panel here depicts two slugs having sex or attempting to devour one another, but either way it’s easily one of the most scarring thing I’ve seen this week. Once again, fun facts about nature reinforce my long-held philosophy of avoiding nature in all its slimy, horny and/or carnivorous glory.

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Slylock Fox, 5/16/12

Here is a sad story from Josh’s past: When I was in seventh grade I had a big crush on this girl in my class, but being a terrifically shy nerd I never actually tried talking to her or interacting with her in any way; I just looked at her all moon-eyed for most of the daily duration of our Social Studies class, during which she sat just a row ahead of me and one seat to the right. One day after about five months of this, instead of rushing off as usual she hung back after class, came up to me, and looked at me intently. With my heart pounding, I could barely believe it when she finally said the words I had been waiting for: “I want you to stop staring at me.”

It turns out that, according to the scientifically unimpeachable facts presented in Slylock Fox, staring intently at someone is not considered an appropriate mating habit among primates! In fact, it makes you a creepy weirdo. I can only hope that this cartoon equips the awkward seventh graders of today with information they can use.

Blondie, 5/16/12

Call me dumb, or slow to pick up on insulting canine metaphors, or something, but it took me a minute to parse the “Ha ha, Blondie is talking about Dagwood like he’s a dog” joke here, primarily because I don’t believe that a “great sense of humor” is considered a dog stereotype? I mean, I understand that the rule of comedy threes requires Blondie to wedge something in after “loyal and well-groomed” that isn’t the punchline “terrific hearing” but might still be said to apply to both potential husbands and potential pets. I admit that coming up with one is tricky. Could it be something about ball-licking, maybe?

Anyway, kudos to the artist for realizing that the off-panel ARF! wouldn’t work if it weren’t clear that the Bumstead family pet weren’t the one ARFing. Daisy looks as if she were actually intended to be in the background from the strip’s conception, or at least has been composited in later with a reasonable amount of skill.

Garfield, 5/16/12

Yes, he exists in the service of a (blessedly subtle) poop joke, but I have to admit that I’m really charmed by this fly-prophet, crazed in messianic ecstasy and willing to invite anyone of any species to the promised land.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/16/12

Good Lord, Smifs, you didn’t think these insatiable chew-rodents would really obey your so-called “laws,” did you? In retrospect, mankind wished a more effectively organized community had been on the front line in the first phase of the bloody Human-Beaver Wars.