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B.C., 6/3/09

Part of being a smug jerk on the Internet who makes fun of other people’s life work is never having to say you’re sorry, but I do feel like I need to mildly backtrack on the issue of B.C. I still believe quite firmly in the principle that comic strips should die or retire with their creators; but we won’t be living in such a perfect world any time soon, and I do have to say that over the last two years the new post-Johnny Hart B.C. has gone from terrible to kind of amusing, in a new and goofy way. I admit to being actively tickled by today’s installment, not so much because of the “turtle sexual harassment and retaliatory violence” angle, but because of it implies that turtle sex involves a dude turtle slipping out of his own shell and into the lady turtle’s shell. Which is anatomically laughable, of course, but can you visualize how turtles do it? A recent visit to the awesome Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum did acquaint me with this legitimate educational display, but I still have questions. (Warning: that second link may not be safe for work, if your workplace is uptight about turtle sex.)

Mary Worth, 6/3/09

Well, it looks like Adrian is safely paired off with the son of the one man her father ever loved, which should make for a blissfully perfect life partnership marred only by occasional awkwardly overenthusiastic Christmas visits. Now we’re moving to the next plot, which begins as a young woman phones Mary to tell her that she’s “taking a break” from her marriage. Rather than use the opportunity to get drunk a lot and bed innumerable younger men, this lunatic has decided to spend her newly single days living with Mary Worth, whom she considers to be “like a mother.” Based on the past several years of reading this strip, Mary is the kind of mother who never calls or even mentions this poor girl, but that doesn’t stop her from reacting to the prospect of a hapless meddlee coming to live her with the kind of blissed-out facial expression normally only possible with the aid of powerful, mood-altering narcotics.

As the leaves around our squirrelly friend in panel one indicate, beautiful late spring has come to Santa Royale, which means that the new victim’s introduction to Charterstone can take one form and one form only: pool party. Seriously, I don’t think we’ve seen a wonderful Santa Royale pool party since, what, Mary’s terribly misguided attempt to set up Dr. Drew and Vera? FAR TOO LONG. No pool party, no peace!

Cathy, 6/3/09

36 months after the innovator (They’ll Do It Every Time, of blessed memory) and 33 months after the laggard (Curtis), Cathy finally catches on to the one fail-safe comedy gold comics trope: jeans that are brand new, but look all beat up! Ha ha! Mercy!

Apartment 3-G, 6/3/09

“You know, like you, who bullies and ignores me by turns! Or what’s-her-name, the blonde, who left the state months ago and I haven’t talked to since! And … uh … you know, maybe I should rethink this.”

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Blondie and Archie, 5/19/09

Let us take a moment to appreciate some particularly hard-working comics characters: those that refuse to deny us the pleasures of a hilarious reaction shot even when they don’t appear in our field of view! For instance, in today’s Archie, the final panel chooses to linger in a loving close-up on Jughead’s face; the title character is forced to express his disgust with his friend’s aggressive ignorance by emitting Cathy-style sweatballs into the panel from the left. Meanwhile, Dagwood’s rage at being duped on pepperoni-related matters is so palpable that it radiates right through his front door; presumably he or the mailman closed said front door to avoid devastating the entire neighborhood with his terrible wrath.

Cathy, 5/19/09

Speaking of Cathy-style sweatballs, with “Your dog just puked in there” we add another shameful entry to the List Of Cathy Installments At Which Josh Has Laughed Non-Ironically.

Gil Thorp, 5/19/09

Oh, God, this Gil Thorp storyline won’t just be about Gil discovering YouTube; it will be about Gil discovering the Internet, in general, with the help of Coach Kaz, who’s long been using MySpace to lure 16-year-old girls into his custom-airbrushed Kaz-van. Anyway, this plot might be worth it if we get more close-up horrified reaction shots from Gil like the one in the final panel (I’m assuming that he’s stumbled upon the “For the ladies” album on Andrew Gregory’s Facebook account), but I will be very disappointed if Marty Moon’s Twitter account isn’t involved somehow (though I’ll be unsettled if it involves mine).

Mark Trail, 5/19/09

If you had to pick a member of the Trail household to feel sorry for, you’d probably pick Rusty (neglected, funny-looking, kind of dim), Cherry (neglected, sexually frustrated, only allowed to wear pink shirts), or maybe Andy (not neglected, especially when someone is needed to serve as bait). But what about Cherry’s father Doc? Being trapped in a remote forest compound with only Mark, Rusty, and someone dumb enough to marry Mark and adopt Rusty for company, you can see why he’d start to disengage from his environment and retreat into his private world. In today’s first panel, it’s obvious that he knows it would be socially inappropriate to just continue his dinner in silence, but he really hasn’t been following any of the last hour’s worth of conversation; since everyone seems generally pleased, he plays it safe. “Yes, it’s great that things happened … you know, the way they happened! Probably at least two of you here were responsible for that outcome!”

Soon, however, we learn why Doc is emerging from his shell: he needs Mark’s help with something! What could it be? Veterinarian Doc seems to be what passes for a health-care professional in rustic Lost Forest, but I dearly hope it isn’t medically related. “Mark, it’s about time for my colonoscopy! Doing it myself like I did last year was trickier than I thought, so I’d like you to hold the mirror this time around.”

Mary Worth, 5/19/09

A lot of commentors thought it was strange that Adrian is only thought-ballooning her intention to answer the doorbell, but is it really any stranger than her father talking loudly about her delicate emotional state right in front of her? A lot of commentors also thought that Adrian’s dress was hideous, but is it any worse than Dr. Jeff’s snappy one-orange-shoulder shirt? What I’m trying to say is that Mary Worth is a maelstrom of insanity, and there’s no point in trying to focus on individual elements and make them work in some sort of real-world context.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/19/09

Silly Herb! You can’t vacuum a mass grave!

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Gil Thorp, 4/29/09

So it looks like the coming Gil Thorp storyline will involve old-school coach Gil taking on the terrible cesspool that is Internet sports blogging and fandom. People who get all their information from newspapers will finally learn about Websites with crazy, incomprehensible Web 2.0 names like “T.A.P. Room” run by jackasses with stupid haircuts who say things like “you’re en fuego, coach.” (Admittedly, anyone who says “you’re en fuego, coach” should in fact be killed.) It’s kind of too bad that reliable Thorp media nemesis Marty Moon isn’t behind this nonsense, but longtime readers know that any technology more advanced than a bottle opener baffles and terrifies him. One can only hope that these darn Intertube punks irritate Gil to the point that he unleashes a Buzz Bissinger-style tirade about how the Internet is a sewer and why don’t people read print media anymore and get off my lawn.

Cathy, 4/29/09

Here’s a sentence you don’t want to hear about any creative endeavor you’re involved with, ever: this strip has apparently decided to steal ideas from Marvin. In fact, if there was strip that could in my eyes make Marvin look good in comparison, it’s Cathy. Cathy’s in-laws are more grating and awful than Marvin’s grandparents, and they aren’t drawn anywhere nearly as well. On the bright side, there will probably be fewer jokes in this strip about people shitting themselves.

Dick Tracy, 4/29/09

I guess it’s sort of part of my job description to point out when insane, over-the-top violence takes place in Dick Tracy, so: look, it’s insane, over-the-top violence in today’s Dick Tracy! I’m not sure what I like more: the fact that Dick’s go-to surprise attack move is to rip off his opponent’s nose, causing blood and boogers to splatter all over his face, or the terrified look of the innocent couple in the second panel, who just wanted to gamble away what was left of their life savings at the roulette wheel in peace and totally didn’t sign up for any of this flying shards of glass and tumbling bodies crap, man.

Mark Trail, 4/29/09

Yeah, they’re really having to work pretty hard to “go after” Sassy, who appears to just be standing there waiting for them to pick him up. “Please, I don’t want to ever have to look at the deformed, neckerchief-wearing freak again!” he barks. “Take me with you on your ill-thought-out multi-state crime spree!”

(In other news: Hey, everybody! Here is a thing I wrote, about how they try to market computers to the ladies! Read it, won’t you?)