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Beetle Bailey, 3/10/07

I think the Beetle Bailey installments that put the Halftracks’ soul-crushing sham of a marriage under a microscope are quickly becoming my least favorites (and yes, I’m as surprised as anyone to find that my hitherto blanket distaste towards this strip has become granular enough for me to start having “least favorites”). Anyway, this strip gets extra non-bonus points for contrasting the General’s for once seemingly genuine concern about his wife’s health with Mrs. Halftrack’s bitter “punchline” about her husband’s very serious drinking problem.

She’s one to talk, though, as she’s already holding his bottle of discount hooch before he even gives her the opening for her cutting remark. Presumably she needs to get liquored up before she can emotionally handle having “relations” with her incompetent husband, who openly holds her in contempt.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/10/07

OK, Abbey bringing down Elvis was funny, but Abbey holding the police at bay is ludicrous, and, more importantly, June’s smugness about it is just disturbing. Niki’s straight off the streets, so you know he likes to see the po-po humbled, but June ought to be putting up at least a pretense of respecting the authority of law enforcement. Rex looks fairly dubious in panel one, but as usual has decided that not doing or saying anything is the best way out of any situation.

(Many commentors have suggested that this “police officer” is a phony, part of some larger double game being played by Elvis, Eight-Ball, and their meth-dealing associates. I suppose it’s possible, but I’m not sure if Rex Morgan really has that advanced a twist built in to it, and wouldn’t a hardened criminal be even less afraid of a French Brittany than a cop?)

Crankshaft, 3/10/07

I hate revisiting this “alpha mom” storyline as much as you do, but I do think it’s worth noting that the Crankshaft’s school district uses the Alamo as its bus depot. And has painted it pink.

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Crankshaft, 3/7/07

Wow! What’s that you say? A beleaguered woman cast aside her frumpy hausfrau garb, revealing an outfit resembling of that of a superhero? And began running after the bus that had spurned her, like some sort of avenging angel? Boy, that sounds like quite an arresting and potentially amusing image! If only there were some way I could, you know, see it. But how on earth would the comics medium allow me to do that? I’ll just look at the back of this old man’s head as he describes the incident to no one in particular.

Mary Worth, 3/7/07

There’s been a lot of joy in Curmudgeonville about Mary Worth today, with its obvious reference to everyone’s famous dead alcoholic Captain Kangaroo lookalike stalker; some have been so bold as to proclaim the beginning of “Aldomania 2007.” I’m not going to get emotionally invested just yet. I got all excited a few months ago about the return of Tommie the tweaker, and while we did get an awesome look at him waving a tiny bible at his mother, he was just used as a prop in a larger, much duller play. Maybe in a few weeks Ella will be laughing maniacally as she holds up Aldo’s severed head, which has been reanimated through the dark arts and is ordering Mary to beg for forgiveness, but more likely there’s just going to be a lot of platitudes about forgiving yourself and blah blah frickin’ BLAH.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/7/07

Well, the gunplay might have taken all of a day or two and been resolved without intervention from any of the major characters, but the protracted battle with Child Protective Services has just begun! Yes, no comics feature brings you the gripping drama of negotiating with byzantine government bureaucracies the way Rex Morgan, M.D., does. Remember June’s interminable struggle with the DMV? Well, that was just the beginning! TASTE THE EXCITEMENT!

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Apartment 3-G, 2/4/07

So I just spent a good chunk of time catching up on the various comics I missed while I was away, and I have to say that nothing was so disturbing as the bizarre turn of events in Apartment 3-G that saw Tommie falling into the arms of a pencil-mustached lothario out of the 1970s 1950s 1890s [Note: Historical records confirm that there has been no decade in recorded human history in which Neil’s clothes, haircut, and mustache would be considered fashionable and attractive. –Eds] Less traumatizing than Neil, who will soon cast aside Tommie like a used tissue, is Gary, aka “Boy Tommie.” Clearly this lookalike duo is destined for romance, at which point all of time and space will collapse into a black hole of bland mopiness from which nothing, not even fun, can escape.

I really thought for a minute that Tommie was supposed to be wearing a bolo tie, but it turns out that it’s just a Victorian locket or something. Still, she is looking rather Old Western, and not in a good way.

Before I conclude, I do want to cast a look back at a couple of gems from last week. I certainly don’t mean this as a disparagement of Uncle Lumpy’s fine job filling in, but it’s just that he doesn’t necessarily share all of my incomprehensible comics obsessions, one of which is old people having sex.

Judge Parker and Crankshaft, 2/1/07

It was too slow-moving and pointless to cover here, but I always thought there was something a little odd in the interaction between Rachel and her regular butler (who now seems to be locked in his sickroom, totally forgotten) in the weeks leading up to Abbey and Neddy’s arrival in Paris. I don’t even want to know about the twisted power dynamics that go on in a sexual relationship between an old gazillionare biddy and her manservant. I do know that I love Rachel’s expression in panel two. It says, “Yeah, that’s right, you sexy young mulleted whippersnapper, I’m eighty years old and dying of cancer, but I’ve been gettin’ me some hot servant tail for decades, while you can’t even bed your own husband by wearing something low-cut and getting him boozed up!”

Crankshaft’s face, meanwhile, bears the ashen expression of a lonely widower who is suddenly reminded that he hasn’t felt the intimate touch of another human being in decades. That’s Crankshaft for you, which mainly serves to provide comic relief for Funky Winkerbean.

Finally, yesterday’s Watch Your Head had an amusing take on Curtis.