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Blondie, 5/31/07

I think panel two may be the first time in living memory that the art in Blondie has actually charmed me. Naturally, it consists of Dagwood transforming into some kind of horrible flame-tongued demon. The third panel, with his eyelids heavy and his antennae unravelling, is nice too.

Amusing (and totally in character) is the fact that compulsive eater Dagwood dives into his chili without waiting to find out what its rating is. It’s just one more data point about whatever it is he’s going to pour down his insatiable gullet.

One Big Happy, 5/31/07

I don’t pretend to understand the slang that the kids use today, but I’m guessing that “bustin’ up with” is some kind of code for terminating a romantic liaison. This kind of age- and good-taste-inappropriate imagined relationship has precedent with Joe. At least today’s instance is less traumatic than this, or (shudder) this.

I also note that Joe and Ruthie’s mother appears to be sending a bottle of booze as a gift to their teachers, which indicates a very clear-sighted understanding of what her kids are like.

Pluggers, 5/31/07

This is why 35-year-old male pluggers spend so much time around high schools. And why female pluggers tend to die alone after falling and breaking a hip.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 5/31/07

And here’s faithful reader Trotzenbonnie’s second TDIET since Monday! She’s managed to provide this feature with roughly 28 percent of its material this week. I have to say that I’m always a little disturbed by the common TDIET combo, seen in the top panel, of super-angry face and open palm — it always looks like a lot of slapping’s about to happen. But I admit to giggling at “blows his toupee.”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/25/07

Well, well, well, it looks like “the nanny” had what it took to be a heartless, Machiavellian corporate schemer all along! Just seconds after humiliating her stepson in front of the motley cast of characters on Avery International’s board, with a single regal wave of her hand she puts the smack down on Peter the Perhaps Too Helpful Chauffeur, who was probably thinking that he’d soon find himself Peter the General Counsel or Peter the CFO for his pains. The only remaining obstacle left in the path of her total triumph would be the poor missing Milton Avery himself, and I think that perhaps that search and rescue effort might find itself called off even after the weather improves — we don’t want to be a burden on the British taxpayer, you see, not with the National Health being in such a poor state. If the plane itself is never found, of course, then nobody will be the wiser about certain … modifications to its engines that were implemented just before its final, fatal flight.

I wouldn’t have been implying any of this before today, but then I saw the third panel here, in which Heather gives us a look that will hollow out a person’s soul with an ice-cream scoop.

Blondie, 5/25/07

This, combined with this, makes me think that the the creators of Blondie no longer believe children to be the future, but rather to be the terrifying, menacing present. Look for Dagwood to lead the charge for all children under the age of 12 to placed in prison camps, and only be released when they’ve passed a series of tests of their moral rectitude. Dag’s suck-up buddy Elmo will be a camp guard, of course.

Mary Worth, 5/25/07

I haven’t really been talking about Mary Worth much because oh God oh God SO BORING. Mary urges Vera to open her heart and forgive her brother, Vera deigns to read letter from Von, letter rambles on at great length, blah blah blabbity blah. I think today’s installment is kind of hilarious, though, because it gets to the heart of Vera’s beef against her brother: she’s not mad because he broke the bonds of filial friendship, or because he let his anger get the best of him over a trivial matter, or because he exploited their father’s sexism for financial gain; no, she’s angry because his actions forced her to get a job, which is presumably one of the most loathsome acts of degradation that she could have possibly been compelled to endure. I dearly hope that she shows up at Creepy Lack Of Affect Advertising Agency and tells all of her former coworkers that she thinks they’re low-class plebes whose only role in this world is to buoy the stock market so that she and her brother can live in unimaginable luxury, only to return to stately Von and Vera Manor to discover that Von has exhausted their savings to buy expensive hooch with which to cool his fevered brow.

IMPORTANT MARK TRAIL-RELATED UPDATE: They won’t stop with birds, people!

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Crankshaft, 5/21/07

Since a Crankshaft is a Funky Winkerbean sister strip, talk of death ought to make any character within earshot worry that they’re next in line for a demise that is both informative (to the reader) and agonizing (to the character … and, OK, also to the reader). The hilarious switcharoo in the final panel shows that the ’Shaft has not in fact worn his omnipresent baseball cap to yet another funeral, but is merely continuing his reign of terror over the cowed ladies of the Garden Club. To be honest I’ve never really understood his svengali-like hold over these innocent horticulture enthusiasts; there has to be some sort of cult-like angle to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if his next Garden Club speech starts very similarly to the one we see here, but ends instead at a table set with lots of little Dixie cups full of Kool-Aid.

Blondie, 5/21/07

Dagwood Bumstead — overeater, oversleeper, underachiever, tool moocher, intellectual soul mate to middle-schooler Elmo — has never been particularly troubled by shame. Thus his sudden look of mingled guilt and confusion in the final panel of this strip must indicate that his dream — with its “cherries the size of bowling balls” — got very, very weird indeed. Good taste, and our own peace of mind, must preclude us from contemplating the matter further.

Hi and Lois, 5/21/07

I’d blame this on another wacky coloring sweatshop mix-up, but the rug looks like this in black and white, too. There are only two reasons to have an inky black wall-to-wall carpet: to remind you of the dark abyss of Death that will one day open up and swallow your soul (and the Flagstons don’t seem like the type) or to absorb any and all liquids you might care to spill onto it without show visible stains. There’s a reason that they leave Trixie sitting in front of that window for 20 hours a day.

Mark Trail, 5/21/07

Oh, Mark, Mark, Mark. You’re so eager to impress your chesty little friend that you’ve blown the cover off of your journalistic M.O. “Take a boring story from three years ago that nobody remembers, replace a few paragraphs with updated information, and … ka-CHING! Another fat paycheck, plus a free trip away from my Stepford Wife and freaky gap-toothed big-headed not-son!”

I’m pretty sure that panel two offers the first look at a dangling mouse corpse with its head half-masticated to ever appear in the comics pages.