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Mary Worth, 1/11/10

You’d think that after, what, five and a half years of analyzing this nonsense “professionally,” my capacity to be amused and delighted by the total inability of Mary Worth characters to speak the way that the humans do would have slowly been dulled. But you would be mistaken, as nothing in today’s comics got as big a laugh out of me as “I suffer from an uneasy restlessness” did. It might actually seem here that scruffy neo-hobo Kurt is going to offer a radical alternative to this strip’s suffocating bourgeois values, and will lure Wilbur away from his comfortable condo life towards a new less stable and more vital existence, traveling from town to town to see what experiences the world has in store. But Kurt came into Wilbur’s life via the Internet, and everything associated with the Internet in Mary Worth is bad, so clearly this storyline will end with that sort of disaster averted and Wilbur returned safely to his ordinary soul-numbing life.

More proof that Kurt and Wilbur may actually be related by blood: their shared impulse to wear jackets and hats of precisely the same hue.

Jumble, 1/11/10

Speaking of suffocating bourgeois values, there’s something quite poignant about today’s Jumble, in which a group of crazed shoppers respond to a half-off sale on sodium-laden processed semi-food with a level of frenzy usually reserved for the Beatles circa 1964. I’m particularly saddened by the dude in the background, who’s cheerfully running over to the freezer case to make sure that he can bring home as many trays of microwaveable goop as possible, unaware of his life’s essential emptiness.

Crock, 1/11/10

I have many gripes against the creative team behind Crock, but one particular unlikable aspect of the strip as I encounter it is beyond their control: the fact that the desert setting is routinely slathered with a neon yellow unlike any found in nature must be blamed on the post-production colorists, not the credited artists. Still, it’s distracting, as in today’s strip, where it appears that Kerwood is being worked to death in some kind of sand mine.

Marvin, 1/11/10

For decades scientists have wondered: Would it be possible to create a character less appealing than Marvin? Well, the creators of this long running crime against humanity strip have decided to take that challenge head-on, by creating a Tyler Durden-style alternate personality for the titular hell-infant that encapsulates all of his worst qualities. The horrible little pig-faced monster is wearing his hat backwards for no good reason, which I suppose is a start.

Ziggy, 1/11/10

Thanks to a challenge from Stephan Pastis, Ziggy briefly experimented late last year with putting pants on its title character. That experiment has now thankfully been abandoned, but today we can see why Ziggy usually eschews trousers, as even a few weeks of wearing them has horribly mangled his legs. Are his feet pointing backwards?

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Crock, 1/6/10

I originally read the cook’s line in the opening panel as “I’ve been feeding the men dog for weeks.” This pleased me — not because I advocate dog-eating, but because I advocate the long besieging of the Crock characters in their fort by a murderous enemy, forcing them to eat first their emergency reserves of canned food, then their livestock, then their pets, then each other. If we’re only one step away from cannibalism, then we’re only one step away from the end of Crock.

Marmaduke, 1/6/10

From the stunned, disbelieving expressions on the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Hitler there, not unlike those of the Wicked Witch of the West’s guards when they realized that their terrible mistress had been liquidated, I’m guessing they’re interpreting “bought it” as a variation of “bought the farm,” and that they are hoping against hope that the hated Marmaduke has expired right there in the middle of this furniture store. This seems like the most likely interpretation of the phrase, as dogs as a rule do not have access to money, and they certainly don’t have access to the kind of money necessary to buy a nice couch. But in fact Marmaduke is an immortal demon-hound and cannot die. He probably just bought the couch with their credit card, which he borrowed from them when they weren’t looking.

Blondie, 1/6/10

I love the carpoolers’ expressions of mingled fear and uncertainty in the final panel here — exactly the expressions you’d expect from people who just heard one of their associates addressed by name by the radio. It’s as if they’re realizing that they exist as minor characters in someone else’s narrative — and that someone else is the irritating guy with the bizarre hair who’s always holding up the car pool.

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Ziggy, 12/18/09

Wow! Like a lot of people, I assumed that Ziggy would make a token response to Pearls Before Swine’s put-pants-on-Ziggy crusade before getting back to the bizarrely optimistic despair that is its stock in trade. But today brings us back to pants, and puts a whole new spin on things! Ziggy is visiting his wizened dry cleaner, who offers to give back the gnomish alopeciac’s trousers — along with his Nehru jacket, a garment that went out of style many years ago. Thus, this panel turns our scorn back upon us. Pants are so out of date, it seems to be saying. Maybe you narrow-minded losers are walking around, your thighs unfairly constricted by fabric tubes; but Ziggy is the new model man, his legs exposed to the open air, as is the style here in the future. You squares with the pants can do what you want. Ziggy won’t be having any of it.

Wizard of Id, 12/18/09

Hurl all the epithets you want at the Wizard of Id — “unfunny,” “irrelevant,” “badly drawn,” “minimizes torture” — but one thing you have to give it credit for is its unflinching attitude towards alcohol. While Hi and Lois, for instance, has gone along to get along, with “Thirsty” Thurston’s gin blossom-scarred nose of old having long ago vanished, the Wizard of Id’s Bung remains on the funny pages as an unrepentant alcoholic, and not the fun, charming kind. Today, for instance, we learn that, in the brief period of time after he awakes from his booze-numbed slumber but before he can stumble down to the bar to start drinking again, his hands are shaking so badly due to the lack of alcohol that he injures himself while attempting to attend to basic grooming. This may shock and horrify you, but anything that leads to awkward conversations along the lines of “Daddy, what’s the DTs?” is OK in my book.

Six Chix, 12/18/09

Speaking of horror, there’s something quite touching about this scene, in which ephemeral snow-lovers trade a last few endearments even as their bodies droop and melt.

Mark Trail, 12/18/09

Sheriff Stogie Q. Doublechin is right! That is a good one! What kind of monster leaves a little boy trapped under a car on the beach? How the hell does a car even get onto a beach on the first place? And would anyone leave a child in the care of this obvious lunatic? No, the sheriff doesn’t think he’ll be following that lead, than you very much. He’ll just stay here with his thumbs hooked into his belt and glare at you there in your cage, mister! Haw haw!

Note just what a state Mark is in, with no less than five hairs somewhat out of place. This is really the most desperate we’ve ever seen him.

Crock, 12/18/09

So, uh, the Lost Patrol, after years of all-male company, has been saved by water and masturbatory fodder? Eh, why not, it’d hardly be the most distasteful Crock ever produced.