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Luann, 4/13/09

After a week of Gunther “Clueless Doofus” Berger and Luann “Woo Me!” DeGroot, we’re back at last to Brad “Clueless Doofus” DeGroot and Toni “Woo Me!” Daytona. This strip sure does know how to mix it up! You’ve got to admire how Brad slips in that a) this invitation is for breakfast only, so there will be no squicky sex going on, and b) TJ will be there, so the wall-to-wall squickiness will have nothing to do with sex.

Shoe, 4/13/09

Pluggers, lacking only the good taste, restraint, and simple human compassion.

Slylock Fox, 4/13/09

Ah, Casa Shrew, just as we’d imagined it. Looks like Sly will be rethinking this part-time gig as building inspector, as soon as he takes a moment to hurl.

And, in other news . . .

Garfield, 4/13/09

Hmm. Garfield minus Garfield, with Garfield. Not quite clear where this is headed.

Dick Tracy, 4/13/09

. . . and a big hand for new Dick Tracy artist Jim Brozman — just like the one he gave us in panel three there.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Mark Trail, 3/30/09

The tale of Bald Guy And Other Guy, The Dumbest Criminals Around, continues to roll onward in hilarious fashion. Here, Bald Guy, after a failed attempt to buy Rusty’s fancy digital camera and the incriminating photos within, rips the thing out of his hands so vigorously as to send the hapless urchin tumbling backwards. So far so good, but then Bald Guy’s face is mysteriously clouded by terror, and he hurls some cash and what appears to be his wallet at the boy before scampering off on his elevator shoes. It all leads one to wonder what crime this duo might be on the lam for in the first place. Did they rob a bank and then carefully fill out a withdrawal slip?

Gil Thorp, 3/30/09

“Oh, hey,” you almost certainly were not thinking, “Whatever happened with 6-foot-9 Jeff ‘The ’Czak’ Ponczak, and his buddy Matt the Hat, in their new gig running Marty Moon’s old cable access show?” Well, they’re still wearing the exact same stupid clothes and throwing up the exact same stupid fake gang signs as they were five months ago. (Matt appears to have added a stupid vest to his ensemble, but the hat remains his trademark outfit component, which he emphasizes by pointing at it in panel two.) Panel three shows us Coach Thorp and Coach Mrs. Coach Thorp watching their antics and saying coaching-type things in response, which is really too bad, as what we want to see is Marty watching their antics and doing crying-type things in response.

Slylock Fox, 3/30/09

Don’t bother reading the tedious explanatory text, which is just Slylock’s desperate spin after Max caught him changing into his giant rat costume; our favorite detective is actually suiting up for Midwest Furfest ’09, which, when you consider the fact that he’s already an anthropomorphic fox, ought to blow your mind.

The no doubt crotchless fursuits aside, I’m pretty sure that this is the first time we’ve seen Sly in his off-duty clothes. The green plaid jacket, yellow bow tie, and polka-dotted (or possibly just lint-speckled) baby blue slacks make his Sherlock Holmes get-up look positively normal.

Lockhorns, 3/30/09

When I first read this, I thought that this, as backhanded and twisted as it is, might be the first vaguely nice thing I’d ever seen Leroy do for his wife. Then I caught a glimpse of whatever that is in the box, and tried to imagine an item of lingerie that was that particularly barftastic shade of orange. Then I closed my eyes and rested my head on the desk.

I also have my doubts about any store that thinks polo shirts qualify as “lingerie.” At first I thought the puke-green specimen on display behind the counter was some sort of terrible combination of the polo shirt and the belly shirt, but then I realized that it was actually the perfect size for the torso of your typically dwarfish Lockhorns character.

Dick Tracy, 3/30/09

“Worried? Yeah, you might say I’m worried. I’m worried that my chin has sliced open my finger badly enough that I’ll need stitches. I’m worried that your head will soon be so large that your neck won’t be able to hold it up. I’ve got a lot on my mind, Tess.”

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/26/09

You know, I’ve gotten into a nice little groove here on this blog, but sometimes I have a crisis of faith. I wonder if my analysis gets more repetitive than the material warrants. Are the running jokes (which have their own section in this site’s Wikipedia entry!) getting overdone? Should I stop pointing out that Herb and Jamaal is ludicrously non-specific, that Marmaduke is a terrifying, all-devouring demon-thing, and that Funky Winkerbean is a black hole of bleakness and depression and cancer from which no joy or laughter can escape?

Then along come strips like this to reaffirm my central mission. For those of you not in the know, elevated PSA levels could indicate prostate cancer, and that biopsy will probably involve a scalpel in close proximity to Funky’s junk. This, naturally, is the only result that you can reasonably expect when you dare to beg God for relief from your ceaseless troubles. If there’s any consolation, it’s that Funky is a much less likable character than the last one who died of cancer here, and the strip’s admirable commitment to authenticity means that he’ll just get angrier and less pleasant as his slow march to death continues.

The dude sitting in a wheelchair a foot away from a TV blaring out grim economic news is really the strip’s pièce de résistance. Because there was a chance that you might read this and think “Hey, I don’t have cancer”; obviously you need to be reminded that you’ll soon be warming your hands over a trash-can fire and eating beans out of a can, probably after having become wheelchair-bound in an unrelated incident.

Dick Tracy, 3/26/09

It’s a sad day when America’s greatest comic-strip detective starts borrowing plot themes from Mary Worth, but the difference in how the two strips handle these identity theft storylines ought to be instructive. When Mary tackled it, we saw a lot of weeping and panic and forgiveness and easy-to-follow instructions from helpful experts. Dick Tracy’s take will no doubt involve weeping and panic as well, but a lot more broken bones and flayed skin, and definitely no forgiveness.

Mary Worth, 3/26/09

“Yes, the donation will be the last thing he’ll be thinking of … ever, once my plan to poison him is completed! MOO HA HA HA! Oh, wait, did I just say that part aloud?”