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That promised weekend wrap-up metapost will be coming soon, but I thought you might enjoy, you know, some comics commentary or something. I had originally planned to skip over the comics from the days I was away, but of course I had to read them to catch up, and some of them just called to me, so here are the highlights of all the stuff I missed. (Sorry in advance if I step on anyone’s snark, I haven’t had time to go over the weekend’s 1000+ comments in depth…)

They’ll Do It Every Time, 6/22/07

Yeah, I know, this one’s from Friday, but faithful reader anne failed to tell me in advance that “Anne D.” was her! So, enjoy another moment in Curmudgeonly TDIET domination.

Archie, 6/23/07

You know, I don’t think we give the Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000 enough credit. If you gave a mere human the task of of creating a comic strip in which a teenage boy sprays a sexy teenage girl with a hose but which is nevertheless entirely homoerotic in subtext, he or she would invariably stalk off, proclaiming loudly that such a thing is impossible. The AJGLU 3000 merely churns through data and chugs forward implacably to its programmed destination.

Crankshaft, 6/24/07

“Yeah, see, we call them that because sooner or later one of them is going to have a massive myocardial infarction right there in the booth. Ha ha! Hopefully I won’t be on duty when that happens, ’cause they’d probably make me help move the corpse.”

Mary Worth, 6/24/07

This may be the most frankly sexual Mary Worth (and is there a more disturbing four-word sequence in the English language?) in the strip’s long history. Dr. Jeff’s attempts offer up his son has a substitute object of Mary’s affections are quickly quashed. Mary then goes on at great length about her plans to pimp the junior Dr. Corey out to every woman at the party; she’s so excited at the prospect that her ascot has been knocked askew. Dr. Jeff, while obviously proud of his son’s virility and sexual fitness, expresses his concern over the young fellow’s man-whoring. To cap things off, we get the image of a bee pollinating a flower, soon to fly off to another, illustrating Drew’s “love ’em and leave ’em” policy in one of the most discomfort-inducing metaphorical fashions possible (presumably instead of spreading pollen from blossom to blossom, he brings chlamydia instead). Will Vera’s womanly parts be the hive that will trap this bee with its sweet, sweet honey? Stay tuned!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/24/07

The most awesome thing about this Rex Morgan is that every single thing that Hugh is saying is in fact 100 percent demonstrably true, and yet he’s being drawn like a paranoid lunatic drama queen. Panel four, in which he waves his highly trained pointing figure around while he stares goggle-eyed and shouts accusations at nobody in particular, with June rolling her eyes in contempt, is particularly choice. Heather can only defuse the situation by again busting out the “Boo hoo my poor rich husband is dead or possibly floating in the icy North Atlantic” waterworks, which strategy will presumably have diminishing returns.

Gil Thorp, 6/25/07

OH MY GOD CLAMBAKE IS A FRAUD! I’m more than a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t see this coming at all. I’m looking forward to the shocking revelation that not only was he never in the Negro Leagues, but he’s really just a Greek guy with a good tan!

Sally Forth, 6/25/07

I swear to God, the first time I looked at this, I though Sally’s thought balloon read “I wonder how high I could get before losing my job.”

Ralph, meanwhile, is fooling nobody by poking at a keyboard that isn’t attached to anything. “Easy Ralph … easy … she’ll forget you’re here in a minute … then uncross her ankles … that’s right … any minute now…”

Wizard of Id, 6/25/07

Ha ha! Id is an absolute monarchy and the king’s power isn’t checked by any other institution or law, so he can order the gruesome torture of any of his subjects for the slightest of insults! Ha! The press secretary’s arms have probably both popped out of their sockets, and he’ll die in agony over a series of days! Ah, whimsy.

Gasoline Alley, 6/26/07

Gasoline Alley has been so breathtakingly dull lately, what with plots about sleep apnea and tinnitus by turns, that I haven’t felt the urge to note its continued existence for the last seven months. Today looks promising, however, as it seems to herald the beginning of a new story about how awful it is when black people move into the neighborhood.

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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.

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Crankshaft, 5/17/06

For the no doubt depressingly large number of you who are biblically illiterate, the ’Shaft here is deploying a variation of the Judgement of Solomon, as described in 1 Kings 3:16-28. Two women came before King Solomon with a baby, both claiming to be its mother.

Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.” The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!” But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!” Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”

Interestingly, many historians see this episode, which came early in Solomon’s reign, as being a metaphor and veiled warning to his enemies. Solomon’s father was King David, who had usurped the throne from King Saul; now that David was dead, Saul’s family felt that they should rule, not Solomon. In the parable, the baby is the Kingdom of Israel, and Solomon is the false mother: he’s willing to tear the kingdom apart with civil war if his rule is challenged, so if you love the country, you should keep your mouth shut about who the legitimate ruler is.

Using this interpretation, Crankshaft clearly believes that he’s the king of everything (the strip has his name on it, after all) and that the comics belong rightfully to him. He’ll probably tear that comic book in half in front of everyone else’s horrified eyes, then take the collection home and let it decay in his moldy basement, just to be a dick. He’s like a Solomon of spite.

Mark Trail, 5/17/07

I know I keep coming back to Mark Trail this week, but I don’t know how you can expect me not to fall head-over-heels in love with this awesomely hilarious conversation. I don’t know what makes me happier: the image evoked in the first panel of Commissioner Tweedledumb and Commissioner Tweedleverydumb wearing ski masks and carrying huge bags of birdseed, flinging handfuls of the stuff around as they run around on the tarmac one step ahead of enraged TSA agents, or the description in the third panel of a hunting guide who would do “just about anything for enough money” — up to and including, one hopes, putting on a bird suit and getting run over by a Boeing 717.

Apartment 3-G, 5/17/07

Wait, are we about to find out that It Was All A Dream, the lamest, dumbest, clichéest cliché in the history of modern narrative? I think I liked it better when it didn’t make any sense.