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Gasoline Alley, Dennis the Menace, Blondie, and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/24/08

Hey, remember a while back when Blondie hit its 75th birthday party and the whole comics page was forced, apparently at gunpoint, to celebrate that achievement of inertia? Well, today is the 90th anniversary of the launch of Gasoline Alley, and its longevity is being celebrated by the entire industry these three insanely long-running legacy strip: Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (almost as old at 89, though Snuffy Smith himself did not appear until 1934), Blondie (now 78 years old, showing itself still classy with this reach-around), and Dennis the Menace (a relative baby at 57).

The Gasoline Alley strip itself rather nicely gives us a look at the first three men who worked on the feature; we shall know current artist Jim Scancarelli only as a enormous and terrifying disembodied hand, at least until the strip’s 120th anniversary in 2038. Of the tributes, Blondie wonders if it will be on top of its game, with side-splitting joke after side-splitting joke about giant sandwiches and workplace abuse, fifteen years from now; Barney Google transforms beloved Gasoline Alley patriarch Walt into some kind of pinheaded monster from the depths of your worst nightmares; and Dennis the Menace is too boring to merit further typing on my part, so I’ll stop right here.

Mark Trail, 11/24/08

Say, remember last year when Mark had some kind of extremely half-assed flirtation with Sam Hill, sexy biologist, that was entirely one-sided (and not on Mark’s side) and led to absolutely nothing? Well, apparently it elicited lots of angry letters to Mark Trail headquarters about the sanctity of marriage and whatnot, because now every time we get even a glimpse of what I guess is supposed to be the quarter-assed flirtation between Mark and Sue the Confused Industrialist, one or both of them reflexively start blathering on about his joyless, asexual marriage. Today Jack Elrod has decided to dedicate his artistic skill to one of those awesome crabs with one freakishly large claw, and who can blame him when his other option is to draw these two dopes totally not coming on to one another?

Aren’t those giant crab-claws the result of sexual selection? Perhaps this symbolizes something about this slow-motion love triangle — like, maybe Cherry is about to show up and bludgeon Sue to death with her enormous forearm.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/24/08

Well, our long-promised Morgan Family Cruise Boat Adventure is finally here, after a brief interlude for yachting hijinks (this being Rex Morgan, three and a half months really does count as “brief”). Anyway, we’ll soon find out what sort of nautical medical drama Rex will have to deal with on this dreadful voyage — Legionnaires’ disease? nausea? boredom? — but for the moment, I’d just like to point out that in the world Rex Morgan, M.D., the taxicab industry is dominated by Rastafarians, or at least by dudes in rasta hats.

Herb and Jamaal, 11/24/08

Ha ha! It’s funny because Mexican food makes defecating uncomfortable!

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Dennis the Menace, 11/21/08

Good start, Dennis, but if you really want to make trouble for your parents, substitute “beat” for “yell at.” If you aren’t willing to go into foster care, you aren’t ready to menace.

Gil Thorp, 11/21/08

Will the entire tedious 6-9 Jeff Ponczak/Matt the Hat medical switcheroo storyline be worth it if it somehow results in Marty Moon being fired from his unwatchable public access television show? Maybe, if he’s fired live and on camera, and he cries.

Judge Parker, 11/21/08

Thrill as Sam picks up a fax! Tingle with excitement as Steve calls Sam to make sure the fax came through properly! Judge Parker: Your ticket to ACTION-PACKED ADVENTURE!!

Archie, 11/21/08

Oh dear! The AJGLU 3000 has forgotten that humans have genders!

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Mary Worth, 11/9/08

So for weeks now we’ve been watching the slow-motion buildup in this storyline, seeing Frank berate his sad sub-Olympic-level daughter, and wondering “When? When will the meddling begin? For the love of God, when?” Today, my friends … today is the day that the meddling begins. In the final panel, you can get a sense of the terrible wrath about to be unleashed as Mary’s face turns unnaturally blue and yellow and radiates pure meddling-energy. Her awesome and horrifying third eye is also beginning to become visible.

By the way, Frank, in case you’re wondering, it was the phrase “Mary, don’t interfere!” that sealed your fate. You may as well have danced in front of a lion shouting “Lion, don’t chew off my genitals!” while wearing underwear made of raw meat.

Dennis the Menace, 11/9/08

Here’s another entry in my occasionally interesting series of Comics Whose Tones Are Fundamentally Changed By The Throwaway Panels. Without that first row — which doesn’t appear in all newspapers — this strip consists of stomach-churning anti-menacing, in which our supposed hellion asks a loving God to shine grace upon all the people in his life, even those with whom he has an adversarial relationship. However, the opening panels reveal Dennis’s fundamental disbelief in anything so trite as a “happy ending.” In that light, his prayers can be read as a desperate plea to stave off the inevitable pain, heartbreak, and sorrow that will afflict his friends and neighbors.

And speaking of pain, heartbreak, and sorrow…

Funky Winkerbean, 11/9/08

“Okay, everybody! Say: achievement! Because even though you’re all 47 or 48 and yet look fifteen years older, it’s quite an ‘achievement’ that you survived being struck dead by cancer, or war, or cancer, or general despair.”

Also! In unrelated news, this week Amos and Edda, the two lead characters in 9 Chickweed Lane, finally had the sex, as indicated through the cartoonist’s usual elliptical methods. I read 9CL but don’t comment on it much, mostly because it’s simultaneously better in many ways than most of the strips I make fun of here and also is irritating to me in ways that don’t produce humorous commentary but rather just peevishness. However, all week commentors have been demanding my opinion on the Great Deflowering, which finally led me to write, in the comments section of the previous post, the following:

A comic appears on this site is not because something momentous happens in it, but because I can think of something funny to say about it. I can think of nothing funny to say about the aggressively virginal ape-faces in 9CL finally deciding to fuck and/or hand jive, for some reason. Sorry.

Upon reflection, though, that is actually a kind of funny thing to say, if I do say so myself, so I thank all of you for pushing me out of my comfort zone.