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Mary Worth, 4/10/08

So, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Mary is starting to get her meddle on in earnest with this poor dying old woman, and … AAAAH! WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS SHE DOING TO DONNA AMALFI’S HAND? You might think she’s just offering a moment of human kindness to a patient, but cast your mind back to one of Mary’s first real meddle sessions with Vera last year:

Obviously, Mary uses some kind of diabolical finger-manipulation technique to open the minds of her victims up to her hateful, counterproductive suggestions. RESIST, DONNA! RESIST WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT!

Dennis the Menace, 4/10/08

Oh look, Dennis is walking barefoot through raw sewage. And, as is his usual wont, he’ll no doubt track through the house. Delightful little scamp!

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Panel from One Big Happy, 4/9/08

While the joke in today’s One Big Happy isn’t really worthy of note, there’s something very disturbing going on in the background of the first panel. Can you see it? Here, let me blow it up for you:

My God, is that … some ponytailed individual running through the park? Carrying a knife in ready-to-stab position? Is he or she fleeing from the scene of a vicious murder? Or running towards a hapless victim with the intention of committing one? Or are we seeing the midst of a multi-corpse stab frenzy? This panel will go down in history as the Zapruder Film of the modern comics.

Gil Thorp, 4/9/08

Stepping back from the total insanity for a moment … ha ha, just kidding, this is Gil Thorp, and under the new regime the total insanity is back, baby. To get a sense of this, look no further than panel three, where the pitcher is apparently making that ball hang in mid-air with just his mind. I think Milford has found its new pitching phenom … in outer space.

Meanwhile, it appears that the Very Special Spring Storyline is going to involve Gil throwing himself wholeheartedly (and disastrously) into his student-athletes’ lives to make up for years of disinterested coaching. It’s only now that it’s occurring to him that letting a deranged old man spouting obvious lies basically coach his baseball team may not have been the best idea last spring. Anyway, this year’s first victim of Gil’s new over-involvement is apparently going to be “problem child” Tyler Jay. Here’s a hint, Gil: If you want Tyler to keep on the straight and narrow, don’t let him play on the baseball team, where he’ll have ready access to many club-like objects.

Hi and Lois, 4/9/08

The innocence of youth is apparently a myth, as baby Trixie seems to imagine a future where people are forced to desperately stitch up the bleeding, mangled bodies of their loved ones as a matter of routine.

Dennis the Menace, 4/9/08

Usually, the Mitchells roll their eyes or loosen their collars in awkward humiliation when Dennis says something inappropriate, but here they’re positively gleeful at his suggestion that his aged grandfather is old and feeble-lunged. I’m not sure whose father he’s supposed to be, but Henry and Alice are obviously both lacking in filial piety and deserve to have Dennis foisted on them by the universe in karmic retribution.

Pluggers, 4/9/08

don’t think about a plugger’s prostate don’t think about a plugger’s prostate DON’T THINK ABOUT A PLUGGER’S PROSTATE

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Gil Thorp, 4/7/08

And so the Frank Bolle era, which was always intended to be transitional, passes on into history, and we meet the new permanent Gil Thorp artist: Rod Whigham! Rod’s reign of terror begins, naturally, with Gil thrusting his ass at his wife as he roots through the refrigerator, desperately looking for some sweet, sweet booze to take the edge off of his Andrew Gregory-blighted existence. I heartily approve of Gil’s awesomely chiseled flattop, manly nose, and protruding Adam’s apple, along with the return of the detached hideous claw-hands (gripping the cold one in panel two), Mimi in a vest for some reason, and a bowl full of unidentifiable ovoids sitting on the kitchen table. Yes, sir, Rod, you and I are going to get along together … just fine. There’d better be some damn earrings on Coach Kaz, though.

Dick Tracy, 4/7/08

One thing I don’t approve of in the new Gil Thorp is the use of Comic Sans for the dialog text, an affliction that seems to have metastasized into Dick Tracy today. While I don’t harbor the same animosity towards the font that some do, I do think that using a font that’s available on just about everyone’s home computer makes a strip look less polished. Admittedly, it’s not my hand cramping up from writing out the completely demented dialog in Gil Thorp or Dick Tracy, but I think the handwritten text looks better.

On the other hand, having Dick Tracy’s dialog all computer-y does makes it look like it was automatically and badly translated from the Chinese, which sort of makes the strip easier to enjoy, for some reason. Also, I think IN ANOTHER ROOM may be the lamest narration box ever. If you really need to make that clear, you always could just, you know, draw it differently.

Mary Worth, 4/7/08

Oh, man, Donna Amalfi in room 305, Mary Worth is going to meddle the hell out of you. She’s probably not actually bereaved at all, but just interested in learning more about a potential new career path while she recovers from routine surgery, but that won’t stop Mary’s relentless attempts to make her realize that life is still worth living, and that inside every cloud is a silver lining, and tomorrow is another day, and blah blah blah YOU CANNOT STOP HER SHE IS A MONSTER.

Family Circus, 4/7/08

“I only know how to think and feel in terms of references to products and corporate marketing! I’m the bastard, malformed spawn of late-stage capitalism!”

Apartment 3-G, 4/7/08

Now that Frank Bolle is done with his Gil Thorp stint, he’s free to dedicate his full attention to Apartment 3-G. Today, using only Blaze’s wordless expressions, he masterfully captures what it feels like to watch some junkie grope your cousin while prattling on with a bunch of nonsense that nobody in the room actually buys.

One Big Happy, 4/7/08

“And the bodies we hid in the shed are starting to smell!”

Dennis the Menace, 4/7/08

[uncontrollable shuddering]