Curtis, 9/4/07
Please forgive me for the terrible things I said.
Judge Parker, 9/4/07
Please, Señor Driver . . . do let this woman have her way with you!
No, not Rosa, you idiot — are you blind?
Not Sophie, fer Chrissake — ICK!
Rusty, dammit — Rusty!
What’s that?
Any way she wants, Sam — any damn way she wants.
9 Chickweed Lane, 9/4/07
Please, please, please — just shut the hell up!
Thank you.
— Uncle Lumpy
What could be more obvious, more crank-turningly predictable than pre-Labor Day back-to-school themes? Nothing, that’s what! So let’s get started!
Dennis the Menace, 08/31/07
Here’s an archetypical back-to-school strip: cozy old theme, a little wordplay, easy on the menace, bang, out of the studio and beat the bridge traffic to the shore. Oh, and Alice Mitchell looks hot in that old-school put-together way. Knows it, too. Mmmm. But I digress.
Curtis, 08/31/07
Nobody turns the crank like Ray Billingsley — it’s like he’s the one working a desk at the DMV. Michelle spurned Curtis? Check! Here comes “Mom won’t buy what I want” as night follows day. Cue Magical Gunk! Barry, wet up that bed! On in five, “Onion”! Greg, smoke ’em if you got ’em! How Billingsley must pray for Kwanzaa, when the mushrooms ripen at last and his mind can soar free.
Crankshaft, 08/31/07
Tom Batiuk once had no peer at whimsy — the hall-monitor machine gun, soliloquies atop the gym rope, band gales. All swept from the cancerscape of FW of course, and alive in Crankshaft only as this ham-handed pretext ginned up to showcase Ed’s relentless petty spite.
Sally Forth, 08/31/05 and 08/28/07
Hey, look — Hilary’s going into the sixth grade. Stretchin’ right out, too — King Features might want to rethink that “precocious 10-year-old” business. And I’m pretty sure that’s her Dad’s manic glint in the second strip. Poor Sally.
— Uncle Lumpy
Crankshaft, 8/17/07
UH OH WATCH OUT YOU POLITICAL CRUMBUMS! IT’S BEEN A MERE TWENTY MONTHS SINCE YOUR SINISTER MEDICARE PART D WENT INTO EFFECT, AND NOW YOU’VE GOT THE ’SHAFT TO ANSWER TO! At long last, Crankshaft’s smoldering anger will be harnessed to effect progressive political change. I can see it now: just as Lisa stands up to begin her testimony about how cancer is bad, suddenly the ’Shaft bursts into the committee chamber, planting an elbow into her tumor-ridden torso, sending her tumbling to the floor. “GOD DAMN IT ALL,” Crankshaft bellows. “I’M OLD, I’M PISSED, I’M WEARING A HAT, AND I DON’T WANT TO PAY FOR MY MEDS!” Everyone stands up and applauds, Medicare is fixed, Lisa expires unnoticed under the table, and cancer remains legal.
Mary Worth, 8/17/07
All week I’ve been ignoring Santa Royale’s most eligible young medico as he romances Bachelorette #2 over lumpy grey mush and human blood at some hideously decorated restaurant, but that was before today when oh Jesus God did Vera seriously just compare Drew to her brother?? Drew, I’ll tell you how this story ought to end: with your running for the door right now. Don’t bother picking up the check, as Vera’s lonely at the top of her chosen career path and can surely afford it. Just get out now.
Spider-Man, 8/17/07
“W-we’re vibrating!! And it actually feels pretty great! Boy, this is working a lot of stress out of my deep tissues. Thanks, the Shocker!”
