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Before I launch into Tuesday’s comics, there’s something I was going to put up yesterday and forgot! Faithful reader KT has drawn his own comic based on the Tucson Comics Curmudgeon get together. Check it out, especially if you were there!

Cathy, 4/8/08

I know I shouldn’t be trying to think too hard about Cathy, but it vaguely bothers me that Cathy invariably ACKS her way through a rehash of her various financial sins during her annual early-April trips to the accountant. It would be one thing if Cathy were some kind of rich heiress who had a full-time financial advisor who monitored her income and expenses over the course of the year, but, come on: he’s just doing your taxes. He just needs to know what numbers to put into the 1040 form. He doesn’t need to know about your credit-card abuse. The key, I suppose, is that Cathy is a never-ending cavalcade of nightmarish self-loathing; in the sense that, for instance, a dream about being back in high school and having to take a test you didn’t study for isn’t about your educational history per se, Cathy’s visits to the accountant are less about the U.S. tax code and more a vehicle for free-form economic anxiety. Similarly, Cathy’s bathing suit purchasing episodes aren’t really an attempt to acquire new swimwear, but merely provide an avenue for wallowing in hatred of one’s own body. It’s just that sort of deep panic and despair that makes this strip such a constant joy to read.

Beetle Bailey, 4/8/08

Speaking of symbolically loaded nightmare visions, the action in today’s Beetle Bailey obviously takes place in the sleeping Sgt. Snorkel’s unconscious, as his mind tries to deal with his overwhelming attraction to Beetle that threatens to overwhelm his dedication to Army regulations and his moral code. Here, his fondest wish — Beetle served up on a plate, to “eat” — is played out metaphorically. The shape of the Beetleloaf in panel two is highly suggestive, but the unappetizing color represents Sarge’s superego making a last-ditch effort to dissuade him from his forbidden lust.

It’s also possible that, in an attempt to keep costs down and corporate profits high, the KBR contractors running Camp Swampy’s mess hall are killing the slower-moving soldiers, putting them through some kind of enormous meat grinder, and feeding them to their hapless comrades.

Herb and Jamaal, 4/8/08

At last, we find out why the characters in this strip refuse to call pop-culture products by name: as we can see in panel one, local movie outlets (and presumably book stores and TV stations) replace the actual titles of these entertainments with illegible squiggles. Poor Herb and Jamaal have no choice but to squint at the marquee for a few moments before requesting tickets to “that new action movie that everyone’s talking about.”

Apartment 3-G, 4/8/08

Notice that Alan has to point to his shitty painting in panel two, because otherwise Blaze would have no idea what he’s referring to when he mentions “making art.” “Oh, you mean this … thing … here? Oh. Huh.”

In panel three, however, the boys are giving each other knowing looks that promise a hilarious and doomed money-making scheme in the offing. Based on their outfits, I’m going to guess that it will follow the plot of Midnight Cowboy a bit too closely for comfort.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/8/08

So … Mooch is a pedophile, an arsonist, and some kind of universe-jumping time traveller? That’s what I’m getting out of this, anyway.

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Cathy, 3/19/08

As you know, I take this blog’s original promise — that I would read the comics so you don’t have to — seriously. Still, sometimes it’s hard for me to read Cathy for you. Not just because I find it irritating almost beyond measure (although I do), but because it just takes so much damn time. I don’t want to sound like some kind of quasiliterate philistine, but every Cathy includes an awful lot of words, which frankly I just don’t care to deal with. And what with a newspaper that comes every day and a New Yorker that comes every week and a whole pile of books that I’m supposed to be reading — well, sometimes all that text in Cathy just kind of get glossed over, you know?

Imagine my surprise, then, when I ready today’s Cathy and found myself quite engrossed as I watched Irving squirm in silent anxiety while he mused on his fate. It made me think about how lucky I am. After all, I just have to sort of make a half-hearted stab at reading the thing once day, which takes up maybe 30 seconds of my time, tops. Irving, on the other hand, is married to Cathy, every second of every day. Not that it’s likely to get me to read Cathy more closely, but it does really sort of put the whole thing into perspective.

Funky Winkerbean, 3/19/08

Hmm, let’s see … Les is already working a demanding and no-doubt soul-crushing job as a public school teacher, and is a single dad wracked with paranoia about his teenage daughter; nevertheless, he plans to give up his weekends to start working for his best friend from high school, who’s been transformed by age, capitalism, and an insatiable and unfulfilled need for sweet, sweet liquor into an insufferable prick. Whee! Good times ahead!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/19/08

Man, June sure looks awfully pleased to be taking the dog to get her shots, doesn’t she? In panel three, we learn why: anything to get out of the house, now that yet another of Rex’s long line of male “friends” is calling to “talk.” Maybe if she shows a little skin to the vet, she can score some of those tasty animal tranquilizers — you know, the ones that keep her feelings at bay.

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Zits, 3/11/08

Today’s Zits disturbed and horrified me — not, I hasten to add, because there’s something wrong with a woman of a certain age (or any age, for that matter) dancing around in such a fashion as to cause her bosoms to jiggle and sway. No, my gripe is in how said breasts are depicted. The rightmost Connie is depicted frozen in a moment in time and leaning back, presumably as she dances to the music; in a world governed by the laws of physics as I understand them, her breasts should themselves be at the top of their gentle arc, perhaps raised up a bit from the rest of her chest. Instead, they appear to be wriggling around as she stands motionless, as if they were the tentacles around the mouth-parts of Cthulu, an illusion made all the more real by the fact that there seem to be six of them. If I saw such a thing on the front of any human female, let alone my mother, I too would beg for hysterical blindness.

Cathy, 3/11/08

Speaking of nameless horrors, there’s something unsettling about today’s Cathy, and not in the usual way, either. What exactly does Irving mean by “a person like you”? And why is Cathy standing in front of some kind of inky black portal in the final panel? “I know! That’s why I can’t go back!” she proclaims, terrified of the unspoken but no doubt awful fate that awaits her at the demonic so-called “gym”. But it doesn’t matter that she refuses to go — the darkness is looming behind her, threatening to swallow her up.

For Better Or For Worse, 3/11/08

Man, check out Liz’s face in that final panel. She looks pretty pleased with herself, doesn’t she? Remember, fellas: Nothing can bring a woman to orgasm faster than explaining carefully, with careful attention to the grammatical case of your relative pronouns, that you respect and value and her autonomy.

Meanwhile, Anthony is driving ever closer to the secluded clearing where he disposes of the bodies.

Dennis the Menace, 3/11/08

This may seem on the surface to be more run-of-the-mill submenacing, but what if by “I beat the sun up again” Dennis means not “I woke up before sunrise” but “I bested the sun in hand-to-hand combat”? You have to admit that if an eight-year-old kid managed to pummel our sun, which is 800,000 miles in diameter and has surface temperature of 9 million degrees, into submission, that would be pretty menacing — both because it would be a bad-ass achievement in and of itself and because it would send our planet’s temperature plunging close to absolute zero, killing all life on its surface. Henry and Alice will barely have time to bestir themselves before the very atmosphere freezes solid!

Herb and Jamaal, 3/11/08

I have to admit that I find the little puff of smoke hovering over the toaster in the first two panels of this strip totally adorable! It’s like the toaster is angry! Possibly because it has to just sit there and listen to this ancient, horrible joke.

Crankshaft, 3/11/08

Ha ha, the old lady slipped on the ice, probably seriously injuring herself! Man, I can’t wait to see how this barrel of laughs develops.