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Blondie, 2/15/08

I suppose by “old college sweatshirt” Dagwood means “sweatshirt I wore when I was in college,” but when I think “college sweatshirt” I would visualize a sweatshirt that has, you know, a college’s logo or mascot on it, or at least its name. Then again, Dagwood went to college during the Harding Administration, when there were probably only about ten or twelve active universities in the United States, so maybe the colors were enough. Back then, the mere sight of a blue and black garment let you know that you were in the presence of a graduate of Dagwood’s esteemed alma mater. I’m sure he has many fond memories of rooting on The Stripes on the base-ball field.

Gil Thorp, 2/15/08

You might recall that after the famed self-clubbing incident of early 2007, Tyler was banished to intensive psychiatric treatment. Obviously it worked like gangbusters. He’s gone all season without bludgeoning himself; and, what’s more, thanks to his new self-knowledge, he’s gained an almost uncanny insight into how the human psyche works. It’s almost as if he’s able to project himself out of his spit-curled head and into Andrew Gregory’s slightly longer spit-curled head. Gil and Kaz will be thankful for his help in this case, obviously, but may grow increasingly nervous about just what kind of mind-reading monster they’ve created.

Lockhorns, 2/15/08

The Lockhorns schtick is generally not difficult to wrap one’s head around — they hate each other, you see — so the occasional panel composed of complete nonsense is all the more surprising. Who exactly is Leroy playing chess against? Why are all the pieces the same color? Why does Loretta’s “sleepy eyes” face look exactly like her “black eyes from getting in a car wreck” face? And how does it all fit in with their endless attempts to destroy one another, as everything inevitably does?

Mark Trail, 2/15/08

This may be the greatest ever Mark Trail that doesn’t actually feature Mark punching anybody. At last, we get to see a bear dish out the punishment and hostility, though alas some kind of syndicate rule seems to forbid the depiction of the Neanderthal henchman being eviscerated, so we instead need to settle for the sight of him fleeing in terror unrealistically quickly. I do like the fact that the widow Malone seems to merely stand around arching her eyebrows sexily while her muscle is nearly mauled. “Sorry, the bullets in this rifle are only for the elimination of one Mark Trail, not for some great furry beast. Perhaps you should have made use of your own weapon rather than casting it aside and screaming ‘AHHHH..’, you bearded cretin!”

Marvin, 2/15/08

OK, Marvin, that’s … that’s enough with the ass jokes. For serious now.

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Blondie, 1/21/08

I don’t want to come across as some kind of elitist food snob (and anyone who’s ever seen me cook and/or eat is no doubt enjoying a hearty laugh that I would ever have to preface anything I write with that sentence). But I have to say that Dagwood’s armful of foodstuffs doesn’t strike me as all that unhealthy. It’s hard to see at this resolution, but most of it appears to be the kind of fresh ingredients (including actual vegetables) of the sort that you’re really supposed to be eating, and not the boxed and/or frozen heavily processed and low-grade-corn-based stuff that most of us (myself included) actually eat. Who would have guessed that Dagwood’s love of food ran to quality, not just quantity?

Dagwood’s rejection of the modern industrial food chain might be a sign of a broader Luddism that has extended to more troubling dimensions, though. For instance, his insistence on carrying his bounty rather than putting it in a more convenient cart points to his rejection of that devil’s tool, the so-called “wheel.” Unrelated but also unsettling is the coloring error that rendered the word balloons in this strip an icy blue. As if today’s weather didn’t leave me cold enough!

Apartment 3-G, 1/21/08

Real-life chances that, in New York, a city of 8 million or so souls, a lonely, horny Margo would show up at the same bar where a lonely, horny Alan has decided to fall off the wagon with gusto, and the two would end up drunkenly making out: practically zero. Chances in Apartment 3-G’s New York, population approximately 50: very high, especially when you consider that Alan and Eric look essentially identical. If Alan’s hair settles into whatever color Eric’s was when Margo last saw him, all bets are off.

For Better Or For Worse, 1/21/08

As several faithful readers wrote me to point out, Grandpa Jim’s hand gesture in panel three is essentially the British version of giving someone the finger. While I’m not sure if the Brits left their rude hand signs in the Canadian psyche as a legacy of their Empire, it’s true that Grandpa spent most of WWII fixing up planes in the UK — plenty of time to learn how to flip off folks like a local. Once again, this poor man, trapped both in the half-responsive shell of his body and in the floundering final days of this comic strip, expresses what we’re all really feeling.

Mary Worth, 1/21/08

Dr. Drew manages to neatly combine surprise and smugness into one facial expression in panel two. “Ah, to be young and Drew Corey!” he seems to be thinking. “To be so gosh-darn irresistible that the ladies can’t even wait for you to sit down together before their need for your sweet young body becomes irresistible!” His narcissistic glow should last another five or ten seconds, until Vera starts eating his face.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 1/21/08

If my record-keeping is right, “Bob Bennett” is none other than faithful reader benro, and truly by now we should have come to expect that any TDIET that features newfangled advances like cell phones or e-mail would be from a Comics Curmudgeon reader. Cell phone glued to his ear or no, Hossbutt may have some problems hearing his wife when he calls her, considering that he and the nameless URGEd individual are apparently riding in a tiny, roofless go-cart in the middle of a multilane highway.

Pluggers, 1/21/08

You’re a plugger if your intimate life becomes a terrifying Oedipal nightmare by the time you hit 45.

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Beetle Bailey, 1/14/08

I actually kind of admire the spare joke at the core of this Beetle Bailey: Beetle doesn’t want to climb the steep hill, despite the fact that the hill’s steepness is exactly the point, because he is lazy and thus resistant to most of the activities the Army has planned to improve his readiness for combat. This being Beetle Bailey, the effect is ruined to a certain extent by the slapdash visuals. The presence of the plunger in panel two is puzzling enough (does Beetle plan to use it as a makeshift bludgeon in a last-ditch effort to avoid enforced PT?); it’s made even more baffling by its total absence in panel one, implying that Pvt. Bailey received and confirmed his orders, went inside to get a plunger, and then came back, coming up with this devastating zinger on the way.

Another problem: the “hill” is clearly a pile of salt or gravel about five feet on the other side of that chain-link fence.

Blondie, 1/14/08

When Blondie says “Well, that’s a real surprise,” she doesn’t mean Dagwood and Mr. Dithers’s shared enthusiasm for a fascinating period in American history; she’s referring to mere fact of Dagwood’s own Civil War buffery, which has managed to go unremarked and unnoticed in 75 years of this strip’s existence. Still, I’m looking forward to future strips where Dagwood affixes outrageous 19th-century-style whiskers to his face with spirit gum and goes trooping off into the woods with his fellow re-enactors. Look for history to change when the defense of Little Round Top is fatally undermined by one soldier’s forty-minute pause to prepare and eat an enormous sandwich.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/14/08

Haw haw! Oh, have you ever noticed that the men, they cannot cook? Becky probably has some difficulty in the kitchen, trying to manipulate everything with only one arm, but when it comes to cooking, a missing arm isn’t anywhere near as difficult a handicap to overcome as a penis!

Mary Worth, 1/14/08

OK, I admit it: I was holding out hope that the love triangle between Mary, Chester/Ralphie, and Ralphie’s Real Owner wasn’t over and that there were new shocking developments in store. But since we appear to be moving on, I now must acknowledge that this is indeed one of the lamest Mary Worth storylines in recent memory, which is, you know, really saying something. Still, I’m glad to see the perpetually self-pitying Dr. Corey the Younger lumbering back into view. In the wake of the dog of a storyline (ha ha, get it?) just concluded, we need his patented brand of ego-driven romantic disaster to cheer us up. Perhaps we’ll see him try various supposedly mood-lifting activities in an attempt to alleviate the psychic pain from his cruel dumping. (“Where’s this ‘methamphetamine high’ I’m supposed to be feeling?”)

We also might get to see him put his medical skills to use. In panel one, Mary is clearly rearing back in terror as that squirrel prepares to launch itself at her face. Tomorrow, Drew will have to do some emergency stitch-up work as Toby desperately tries to subdue the enraged beast.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/14/08

Now here’s an exciting story development I can get behind! Does Dr. Rex Morgan, outdoorsman extraordinaire, believe that he can use the possibly decades old and almost certainly highly explosive hooch left in this still to create a gentle, controlled fire that he and Niki can use to dry off and keep warm? Or does he intend to use the moonshining apparatus as some kind of improvised incendiary projectile to fend off their pursuers? Either way, excitement is in the cards! And by “excitement” I mean “massive second- and third-degree burns.”

They’ll Do It Every Time, 1/14/08

Tucson’s “K.L.” is in fact none other than faithful reader The Divine O’F! I’m sure she’s thrilled to have been Scadutoized, even though she looks suspiciously like Ronald McDonald in the second panel.