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Apartment 3-G, 8/26/07

Oh my God, Tommie is a whore! And I don’t mean this in the usual misogynist sense of the word, implying that women who enjoy sex, perhaps with multiple partners, are to be stigmatized, while men who engage in similar activities are subject to manly approbation. No, I mean this literally, in the sense that her decisions about sexual activity are entirely determined by the possibilities of financial recompensation. Struggling theater dork? No! Moneyed computer dork? Yes! We see how it works, Tommie. All those people who keep sizing her up as she walks around thought-ballooning aren’t looking at her ass or seeing if she has toilet paper on her shoe; they’re thinking, “Can I afford her?”

Mary Worth, 8/26/07

Speaking of thought balloons, panel one of today’s Mary Worth, in which Dr. Drew spends an idle, distracted moment (possibly during surgery) imagining the severed heads of his two girlfriends eyeing each other suspiciously, is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen.

I’ve been disappointed before by the soap opera comics (most recent example: the pathetic, deflated end to the initially so, so promising “Coach Kaz, P.I.” storyline in Gil Thorp), but I can’t conceive of circumstances under which the next few weeks of Mary Worth aren’t going to be absolutely hilarious. The Love Doctor uses his patented passive-aggressive-minus-the-aggression heartbreaking technique on Girlfriend #1, while firing on all cylinders to overcome the challenge of getting into the starched panties of Girlfriend #2, and both #1 and #2 live in the same building? Comedy gold, I tells ya. Of course, if any of his past, present, or future conquests find out that he conducts internal monologues about his love life studded with elaborate Star Trek metaphors, he’ll never have sex again.

Panel from Dennis the Menace, 8/26/07

Sunday’s Dennis the Menace is mostly unworthy of mention, except for this horrifying glimpse of a young Mr. Wilson, who resembles nothing so much as a pompadoured gnome.

And hey! A big shout-out to faithful reader Matt, who recognized me tonight when we were both attending and enjoying the latest Charm City Roller Girls bout. I’m pretty sure that this was the first time I’ve been spotted in public someplace where I hadn’t announced in advance that I’d be there (i.e., my weekend in NYC a couple of months ago doesn’t count). My wife actually has been recognized before, but then she leaves the house a lot more often than I do. Matt says he doesn’t post comments, but you may remember him as the recipient of a charming Aldomania-themed birthday greeting.

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(I was planning to comment on the FOOBs today, but the image from gocomics.com was so ludicrously large that I thought it might cause blindness and dementia to those who looked upon it, so I’ll just say in passing BLARRRGGGH.)

Slylock Fox, 8/19/07

Pity poor Count Weirdly! It’s like a guy can’t even have a press conference atop his most scenic turret to promote his faked moon landing (like the so-called “real” ones weren’t!) without some nosey fox sticking his snout where it doesn’t belong and criticizing his Photoshop skills. If telling bald-faced lies at press conferences is illegal, I know a lot of more important venues where Slylock should be putting his patented brand of pedantic deduction to work. As it is, the only organization apparently gullible enough to accept the invitation to the Weirdly Moonshot announcement appears to be Agence France-Presse, as indicated by the reporter’s micro-miniskirt and the cameradog’s beret (and good luck getting any usable footage out of this nighttime press conference with absolutely no artificial lighting, Fideaux). In fact, this pair is probably more likely to be filming for the series Les Hommes Les Plus Étranges Au Monde than they are to be taken in by the idea of air-tight Chuck Taylors.

Mary Worth, 8/19/07

Man, that Dr. Drew is one smooth operator, isn’t he? One date’s worth of his bland, slick-backed handsomeness and Mary-style aphorisms and Vera is literally throwing herself at him! And of course we can see why Drew would be so eager to draw Vera into his web of love. “Ha .. ha .. I’ve decided to go out in public in shoes that I have no idea how to walk in! I belong in a sideshow like the circus freak that I am! AARRGH, I just fell over! Did I mention all the sexual tension with my brother?”

Apartment 3-G, 8/19/07

So I have to admit that when I joked about Alan being an addict and Jones the beatnik being his dealer, I didn’t actually think it was true. I guess I have a lot to learn about the soap opera comics’ willingness to obliquely take on tough themes! Alan’s commitment to sobriety ought to be obvious from his deeply square sartorial choices, as his white dress shirt/black vest combo would get him laughed out of any drug den in the five boroughs. Still, the years of chemical abuse of his brain have taken their toll; he’s undoubtedly spending this entire strip trying to keep his shit together despite the fact that events keep repeating themselves, and his and Eric’s hair keep swapping colors.

Crock, 8/19/07

And speaking of drugs … the combination of misplaced geography (Inca pottery in North Africa?) and garden-variety stupidity is all too typical for this feature, but the final panel pushes today’s Crock into the realm of peyote-addled nightmare. A little boy named Otis in the middle of the sun-blighted wasteland, chatting with a vulture who’s sporting a baseball cap? And where are they going to get the toilets, huh? Where are they going to get the toilets? Ye gods.

Dennis the Menace, 8/19/07

There is no reason why Dennis shouldn’t have unloaded that ball directly into Henry’s nuts in the third-to-last panel. None. They even set it up with the whole “waist high” thing. Still, this’ll keep dad from attempting to spend any quality time with his kid for the rest of both of their lives, leaving Dennis with more time to get into extremely low-level unsupervised hijinks.

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Dennis the Menace, 8/1/07

Not to keep on repeating myself, but there are few things more disturbing in this life than seeing that single drop of sweat roll slug-like down George Wilson’s florid, spiteful mask of a face. All of the things that it could signify — an incipient killing spree, a massive cerebral hemorrhage in progress, unwanted sexual arousal — are things better left uncontemplated.

Today, Dennis is identified as a pest, which is an epithet much more in line with his severely downgraded antisocial behavior. It doesn’t actually rhyme with “Dennis,” but I would argue that his current pale reflection of his past menacing glories ought to revoke his right to a rhyming nickname. I had a brief hope when my eyes settled on the word “pest” that Mr. Wilson was referring to a three-foot-tall fly-human hybrid, who had escaped from his basement lab and had arrived to wreak a gruesome revenge on his creator. This, to me, would have justified that creepy bead of sweat.

Crankshaft, 8/1/07

Ha ha, silly old person! You thought that as an adult you were still entitled privacy and autonomy! Has nobody pointed out to you that you’re old?

Popeye, 8/1/07

After our last visit to this feature, those of you who don’t read Popeye regularly are probably wondering if the strip continues to be totally bonkers. Today’s installment, in which Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Olive Oyl’s brother Castor cower in a Cold War-era bomb shelter from a bloodthirsty cow determined to bite off their heads and drag their corpses across the field, is here to answer with a hearty “Yes!”

Gil Thorp, 8/1/07

“All beginners have issues with footwork Mr. Ritter, but Bill has only half as much trouble as most — because he only has half as many feet! Get it? Because he chopped one of his legs off with a chainsaw, you see. But anyway, your boy can punch! It’s almost as if he carries some kind of burning, unquenchable rage inside of him! I can’t guess why that would be, but let’s just hope that the guy who invented the chainsaw doesn’t get in the way of his fists, you know what I’m saying? Get it? Because he chopped one of his legs off with a chainsaw! Hey, come back, where’re you going? I got a million of these!”