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Apartment 3-G, 8/31/09

For too long, Professor Aristotle “The Professor” Papagoras has been denied his very own Apartment 3-G plotline. This is because it’s been hard to come up with a story for him that can match the heart-stopping intensity of such classics as “Margo is a bad event planner,” “Lu Ann visits her parents in South Dakota, apparently, even though we only get to see what’s happening out there like two or three days out of the month,” and “Tommie is too boring to move to Denver.” But it seems that the good professor’s profession will serve as the source of drama in coming months, as he quickly becomes an easy connection for pill-happy tourists looking to soothe their minds by ingesting the best that the pharmaceutical industry has to offer. Having learned just what happens when you come between an addict and their fix, Ari will be cheerfully writing prescriptions to whatever fresh-faced pill-poppers wander into his office.

Crankshaft, 8/31/09

Ha ha, it’s funny because Crankshaft is comparing his job as a school bus driver in a sleepy small middle American town with that of a soldier in Iraq who might be blown to bits with an IED! Of course, he is surrounded at all times by people who want to kill him, with explosives.

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Dick Tracy, 8/13/09

OK, when I see “cutting” bandied about as a noun like this, I think immediately about people who self-harm. However, it’s obvious that Dick Tracy lacks the depression, self-doubt, vulnerability, and ability to feel emotional pain of any sort for that to be what he’s proposing; plus, he’s offering the suggestion with an unseemly amount of enthusiasm. Therefore, I can only assume that he’s actually planning to perform an impromptu autopsy on our poor dead trapeze artist, right there on the floor of the Big Top. “The sawdust will easily absorb the blood!”

Oh by the way, Dick, IT WAS THE CLOWN THAT DID IT. THE CLOWN WITH THE SOULFUL, SHIFTY EYES. HE KILLED HER. AND SENT THE NOTE. JUST FYI.

Mark Trail, 8/13/09

It’s now clear that we can’t refer to this gun-toting, orange-clad individual as an assassin, or even as a hit man, but nevertheless I’m beginning to really sort of be in awe of him. You have to respect the years of weapons training it must have taken for him to master the craft of not quite killing people. I wonder if every day he picks up his gun and shakes his head and thinks, “Thank goodness this rifle is in my capable hands. If you didn’t know what you were doing, you could really hurt someone with this!”

Crankshaft, 8/13/09

Since Cranksaft is, as near as I can tell, standing at floor level, I’m not sure whose perspective the first panel is supposed to be drawn from. One of the garden club ladies who drank too much gin and quietly slumped out of her front row seat onto the floor? The cheering throngs gathered in the public square to look up in adulation at their gardener-dictator giving a speech from a balcony, a scenario that frequently plays out in Crankshaft’s mind? Meanwhile, panel three is definitely one of the scariest things I’ve seen this week, and replicating or even approximating it in real life would probably loosen the tongues of everyone from the perps down at central booking to al Qaeda masterminds. “NO, NOT CRANKSHAFT! I’LL TELL YOU THE REAL ANSWER! JUST DON’T LET HIM NEAR ME!”

Ziggy, 8/13/09

If you’re going to be claiming ownership over sentient beings, Ziggy, perhaps you ought not to have acquired so many of them. You can wave paperwork around all you want, but why should you expect them to respect any system of law that perpetuates their enslavement? The grim expressions make it clear that a bloody revolt is in the offing, with each animal using its particular skills in the cause of their collective freedom. You don’t even want to know what that angry little fish is going to do to you.

(Psst! Interested in seeing a piece I did on various computers in various vehicles?)

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Crankshaft, 8/10/09

You might think that after his near death experience, Crankshaft would be ready to show a little humility — you might think that, that is, unless you read the strip on a regular basis, in which case you would know that being a smug dick is one of the key defining aspects of the old man’s personality. Admittedly, he isn’t actually causing anyone physical or emotional pain for once, but still, his expression of epically smug self-satisfaction in panel three is wildly at variance with the quality of the — well, I don’t even know what to call it. It’s not a pun, you can’t in good conscience call it a joke, and if you referred to it as a play on words, then the thought of how joyless and grim your playtime must have been as a child chills me to the core. Anyway, the point is that Crankshaft is an unfunny jerk who I’d hope would be stung to death by bees enraged at being roped into this sordid scene, except they already tried that and it didn’t work.

Cathy, 8/10/09

While I’m not Catholic, I do believe that confession is good for the soul, which is why I always feel compelled to admit it here when Cathy elicits a genuine chuckle. In the case of this strip, I wasn’t amused by the bizarre denouement, in which it’s revealed that Irving has no idea what he looks like (presumably that’s because any mirror brought into their home is shattered in short order by an ACKing swimsuit-clad Cathy); but I did kind of find the panels in which he’s shouting abuse into a laptop screen kind of funny, as it’s simultaneously ludicrous and something I feel a certain amount of familiarity with (see angry diatribe about Crankshaft, above).

Gil Thorp, 8/10/09

“I mean, Marty’s arm is already shot, so I don’t see how hauling a bunch of wood around could hurt him any more. Hey, Marty, let me know if your shoulders get sore! I have some cortisone here that will make you feel better!”

Meanwhile, at Ted Pearse’s Li’l Hobo Sport Camp And Sammich Dispensary™, another promising youngster is showing that he too is ready for some cortisone injections, as he participates in the traditional pastime of underprivileged youth: throwing around a stale sourdough batard that they fished out of a dumpster. Winner gets to eat it!

Dick Tracy, 8/10/09

“Hey, everyone, it’s me! The lifeless, bleeding, twisted corpse over here? Anyone want to throw a blanket over me? You know, help me maintain some shred of dignity? Anyone? Little help?”