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Apartment 3-G, 7/5/07

Oh, please, please, please let this be Lu Ann’s mother. Please. It only makes sense that Lu Ann’s wan, boring, unobtrusive personality grew up in the shadow of a larger-than-life southern belle, with her bright orange suit jackets and matching hair ribbons. It explains a lot, like why Lu Ann puts up with Margo’s constant stream of haughty abuse. Heck, if Lu Ann Senior and Margo start to bond, I will have officially died and gone to heaven.

Just because I like to make things even funnier in my mind, I’m imagining that Big Tipper is handing her cabbie a crisp dollar bill. “Now don’t spend it all in one place, sugar!” Of course, since the driver seems to be wearing an old-timey hat with a little button on it that presumably says “TAXI”, perhaps $1 does go pretty far back in his home decade.

Crankshaft, 7/5/07

Actually, from everything I’ve heard, the replacement of a brutal but essentially secular dictatorship with an elected coalition of religious-based political parties has resulted in Western dress becoming less common, not more, in Iraq. But if the Surge was abandoned and replaced with a strategy based on dressing Iraqis like the members of the Village People, the resulting political and diplomatic shitstorm would be 100 percent worth it, due to the extreme hilariousness that would result.

Mary Worth, 7/5/07

Dawn’s word balloon in panel two makes exactly zero sense. “I already wanted to study medicine — and now that I have made the entirely novel discovery that doctors are sometimes handsome, my choice becomes even more sensible!” Dawn, the more realistic attitude would be as follows: “Wait, I don’t have to go through the grueling process of earning a medical degree to net a doctor — there’s one standing right here in front of me! Now I can use the money Wilbur saved for tuition to help pay for the doves we’ll release at the end of our elaborate wedding ceremony!”

I know it’s impossible to tell from the Mary Worth art, which makes everyone looks like they’re in their 40s and it’s 1978, but anyone who’s gotten all the way through medical school and is now boasting at snoresville parties about being a doctor has got to be at minimum, what, 26? 27? FYI, kids: people in their late 20s who hit on college undergraduates = SKEEEEVY. I don’t want to see the funny pages lead a young generation astray on this.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 7/5/07

OH MY GOD FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLDS READ AND/OR SUBMIT ENTRIES TO TDIET EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS IS WRONG

I do have to say that Junior’s “Wha’-?” may be the most subtle expression of ironic bafflement in this feature’s history.

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Once again, I intended to skip over the days I missed when out of town … once again, I cannot resist their siren song! (And again, since I only skimmed the comments from while I was away, apologies if I’m repeating funnies here…)

Popeye, 6/30/07

In case you’re wondering, Popeye: still a horror show. While Olive Oyl’s manic suicide threat turned out to be the lead-in to some kind of baffling surrealist prank, we now have a sideburned thug threatening to stab Wimpy to death. GOOD FAMILY FUN.

Some commentor months ago said that the current Popeye strips are actually reruns from the 1990s. Can anyone confirm or deny if we’re seeing this disturbing tale a second time? Also, did Popeye really stuff spinach into his pipe and smoke it in one of the cartoons, or am I misremembering that?

Spider-Man, 6/30/07

With the sudden appearance of Badly Drawn Larry King, Spider-Man hits its highest pitch of excitement in months.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/1/07

Saparmurat Niyazov, who died last year, was the longtime dictator of Turkmenistan. His country was ground down by one of the most outrageous personality cults in history, the most obvious aspect of which was the inescapable omnipresence of his image. Photos, monuments, and statues of him were every where, including, most memorably, a gold-plated statue atop the Neutrality Arch, which rotated automatically so that it always faced the sun. “I admit it,” he said once, “there are too many portraits, pictures and monuments. I don’t find any pleasure in it, but the people demand it because of their mentality.”

Meanwhile, the battle for the heart (or something) of Niki begins! This fishing expedition should be an absolute hoot, as Niki, a tough kid from the mean streets of New Orleans, and Rex, an effete suburban doctor whose main hobbies are golf and petulance, attempt to bond by emulating crappy Hollywood movies about male bonding written by, directed by, and starring people who also have never fished in their lives. Look for Rex to flail about in disgust at the prospect of touching a live worm, and then accidentally swing the hook right into Niki’s eye. Rex’s dad looks down from heaven, still unimpressed.

Slylock Fox, 7/1/07

We Cassandra Cat fans enjoy the sight of our feline filcher staring lovingly if prematurely at her haul, but I have to once again take issue with the solution to the mystery. In a world where mice wear bowlers, foxes solve mysteries, and squirrels own jewelry and vinyl-sided houses, why couldn’t the kiwi have just walked into the house and stolen the ring? It could have just gone up the conveniently placed stairs.

Crankshaft, 7/1/07

Unless our unhappy family is parked directly above a tiny but still unimaginably powerful black hole, I’m going to have to call foul on the downward-bending light beam coming out of that car’s headlights. Perhaps it’s meant to be a metaphor for Crankshaft’s tragic erectile dysfunction.

Mark Trail, 7/1/07

“So you see, Rusty, sometimes you waste your entire life working on things that will ultimately be destroyed without a trace! Also, women like men with big ‘claws.'”

Panel from One Big Happy, 7/1/07

The advantage of having a character who generally speaks in unfiltered streams of quasi-nonsense is that you can slip in things like this and most people will barely notice.

Apartment 3-G, 7/2/07

Some might feel that this comic portrays Margo in an unflattering light, but you have to understand the context: yesterday was Lu Ann’s turn to cook, so she hasn’t eaten in nearly 48 hours. Naturally she’s a little irritable.

For Better Or For Worse, 7/2/07

Shawna-Marie’s wedding, week four: Canada’s nightmare continues.

It is of course obvious that Liz’s parade of suitors is being torn down one by one — too drunk, too distracted by their jobs and leering, too not white cheating — to make the inevitable pairing with Anthony vaguely palatable, since he has no actively redeeming qualities. The last few candidates at least had some kind of vague history in the strip, though; now we’re just being introduced to new potential mates solely so they can be eliminated. I look forward to the gap between the meet-cute and the unmasking getting shorter and shorter (Panel one: Liz meets handsome Joe! Panel three: Joe kicks a puppy!) until eventually a charming, attractive man comes upon Liz and says something punny and then tries to rape her in the same panel.

Gil Thorp, 7/2/07

“It’s not my job to do anything about it, though, obviously. Heck, what with you doing most of my job for me, my job mostly consisted of cashing the checks! So thanks, you lovable old fraud!”

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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.