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Crock, 6/2/09

While I do not begrudge anyone a good ass-looking, I strenuously object to sexuality of any sort being discussed in the mangled world of Crock. Today’s panel has a little something for everyone. Longtime readers of the strip will, from long familiarity with all of these hateful characters, object to any of them contemplating eroticism of any sort, as it is better than any of them deserve. Naïfs just stumbling onto the strip by fateful accident will be traumatized to think that anyone would put the words “Maggot has better buns” in that particular sequence. And those of a philosophical bent can contemplate the quality scale on which one is expected to assess buns, if not their packaging.

On an unsettling art note, it appears that the artist seems to have long forgotten that Grossie is supposed to be wearing a niqab, and, apparently relying only on drawings of her from the front as a guide, has executed this profile shot under the assumption that her nose is two different colors.

Gil Thorp, 6/2/09

How to explain this: I think, somewhere in the bowels of the rapidly crumbling print newspaper industry, someone got wind of the fact there was a daily narrative feature, with pictures, half of the characters in which are physically fit teenage girls. “We need to play up the sex appeal!” came the barked orders of someone who’s spent the last decade fighting a holding action against Craigslist. And so Gil Thorp, confused but eager for relevance, lurched into action, swinging away from the “OH MY GOD THE FACEBOOK” story it had been following in a sort of desultory fashion and leaping at “sexy girls try on each other’s swimsuits SEXXXY!” This being Gil Thorp, of course, it will be awkward and uncomfortable-making, though on the bright side it will involve very little Shep Trumbo, unless things go horribly awry.

Archie, 6/2/09

Good lord, the mini-Archies are proliferating! If Jughead’s Archiform marionette weren’t unsettling enough, we now know that Betty has a plush li’l Archie to console herself with when Archie is off marrying Veronica for her money or whatever. More concerning to me, however, is how committed Archie is to leaning smugly while talking on his cell phone, even when there doesn’t actually appear to be anything for him to lean against. His pose in panel three, with one foot on the ladder, one foot hanging in empty space, one hip vaguely rested against a thin shelf, and one elbow stuck out into mid-air, is a workplace injury and subsequent worker’s comp claim waiting to happen, the paperwork for which will make Archie’s supervisor regret his decision to quit his job as a Tom of Finland character.

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Crock, 4/25/09

Some might call it inconsistent, but I like my terrible comic strips to keep track of and abide by their ossified, humorless conventions rather than trying to branch out into new comedic structures. Take, for instance, the frequent “Crock talks to his mother on the phone” trope in Crock. Usually we only hear our sinister commandant’s side of the conversation, with his mother’s replies relayed in indirect speech to whatever hapless forgettable character happens to have wandered into the panel. Today is the first time that I can remember actually seeing a word balloon (one so large that Crock has to hold the phone a good foot from his ear) emerging from Crock’s phone. Of course, the punchline is a hilarious reference to terrible institutional food causing an old woman to defecate uncontrollably, so I think we can provide the structural flexibility necessary to allow such a gem to be delivered.

Mary Worth, 4/25/09

“That’s right, Covice! Your nationwide string of broken hearts ends here, thanks the efforts of Bruno and Flaxhair, FraudCops! With the rust-colored jacket of justice and the minty blazer of retribution, they travel the nation, looking for scamsters with tell-tale pencil mustaches to put in the slammer. Sorry we took as long to catch up with him as we did, young lady; you didn’t do anything foolish like, say, give him an enormous sum of money, did you? Because you can pretty much kiss it goodbye if you did.”

Shoe, 4/25/09

The obvious punchline here is actually “Your body has a lot of hair.” I’d like to believe that the form actually used was chosen because it’s mildly funnier, but it may just be that someone finally remembered, apparently between the first and second panels, that the characters in Shoe are birds and thus have no hair at all.

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Apartment 3-G, 4/23/09

It’s obvious that Tommie, the most passive of the three 3-G girls, isn’t going to fight or think her way out her current contretemps with three-time Creepy, Dangerous Father Of The Year winner Joe Kelly. Today, the contours of her rescue by braver souls are taking shape. First, Ruby will blind the not-so-good doctor by throwing toxic cleaning agents into his eyes; then, when he falls to the floor in pain, Margo will beat him to death with her umbrella.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/23/09

Hootin’ Holler’s only clergyman is a greedy fraud, so it should come as no surprise that the religious educational level of the shantytown’s children is in such a low state.

Crankshaft, 4/23/09

The guardians of baseball’s integrity have failed to stem the tide of substance-driven cheating with arguments such as “Cheating violates the integrity of baseball!” and “Using performance-enhancing drugs will harm your health!” As a result, they’re breaking out the heavy artillery. “Do you know who cheats at baseball? Do you? Dirty, filthy communists, that’s who!”

Crock, 4/23/09

The Lost Patrol has been wandering in the desert for years now with only each other for company, so it’s really no surprise that all four of them have herpes at this point. But it’s still kind of awkward to bring up, dude.