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Gil Thorp, 10/5/07

My God, what kind of Google search results for “Culver Vale” would be so shocking to Howard Gourwitz that we would be treated to the vision of each and every one of his upper teeth? Obviously mere text couldn’t elicit a reaction of such visceral horror; no, Howard has clearly plugged “Culver Vale” into Google image search. In my unrelenting quest for the truth, and with total disregard for my personal safety, I bravely chose to do the same, and received one and only one result:

“Look at this, Tony! Cully allowed himself to be photographed wearing a conservative suit, and squatting and presumably defecating behind the flag of Oregon! And to think we’ve shared a locker room with this sicko!”

Tony’s search results may have been skewed by the addition of the word “stud”, as the dialog in panel one implies. And no, I’m not searching on that. Bravery has its limits.

Dick Tracy, 10/5/07

OK, now that this Dick Tracy plot appears to be wrapping up, I can say officially that none of it makes any sense. The East German Soviet Sympathizers (EGSSes) kidnapped the Gretchen to exchange for the Baron … why? Once the Baron wandered off, Dick and the CIA guys started treating the EGSSes as sympathetic … why? Gretchen claimed to be giving the CIA guys the frequency to the chip in the Baron’s head, but actually gave the frequency to the chip in her head … WHY? Gretchen had a chip in her head … WHY??

But most of all, what the hell does “trying to revive to Cold War and blame it on Mideastern terrorists” even mean? I’m sure the EGSSes don’t actually want the Cold War back; they just want a different ending for it. Were their ex-Soviet puppet masters going to look at the smoldering wreckage of the Rotunda on the TVs in their underground bunker and chortle “Ha ha, the Americans soon will be invading another Middle Eastern country, but we and we alone secretly know that the Cold War is back on! Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat!”

Spider-Man, 10/5/07

Yes, you … you forgot about airport security. And because you’ve put your spider-suit in your suitcase, and it could easily be written off as a Halloween costume (which I believe is what happened when you flew to LA), the only hitch this puts in your plans is that it might cause you to miss your plane … which … has … nothing to do with superheroics whatsoever argh argh ARGH! Honestly, this strip constantly manages to defy my ability to parody its lameness.

Pluggers, 10/5/07

A plugger’s face is a mass of lacerations and barely-scabbed-over wounds. But at least he’s getting his money’s worth out of that 60 cent disposable razor!

Archie, 10/5/07

I’m sure your beverage choices are very interesting, Betty, but let me offer you some advice, one blogger to another: I think your readers will be more interested if you skip to the part where you explain why you aren’t wearing pants.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/1/07

Let’s leave aside for a moment the cringe-inducing and increasingly intrusive pederastic vibe that the Rex-Niki relationship is giving off. Even if we pretend none of that is happening (LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU), the text is quite amusing enough even without its subtext. Surly Dr. Morgan, who can barely be bothered to rescue his ex-nanny, practice medicine, be nice to his wife, or acknowledge his daughter, now suddenly is all excited about standing waist-deep in freezing water and gutting a fish? I have to imagine that this burst of activity is springing out of Rex’s infinitely deep well of self-hatred: maybe Green Lumberjack Shirt Rex, mentor to Young Urchin Niki, will like himself! This whole project seems so blatantly destined for disaster that I can barely contain my excitement. Presumably after about twenty minutes Niki will freak out because he’s having Katrina flooding flashbacks, and the overpowering stench of mothballs will drive away all the fish, so Rex will tell Niki how disappointed he is, and then they’ll drive back to the city in silence. Then it’s all over but the quiet, private weeping.

The Morgans’ previous attempt at water-based recreation didn’t go particularly well, either. And yes, Rex apparently feels the need to dress like a complete dork whenever there’s the slightest chance that he might end up in a river.

Dick Tracy, 10/1/07

Wow, it’s kind of unusual for Dick Tracy to shy away from showing us a scene of unspeakable carnage like this; admittedly, the strip’s gaze is sadistically lingering on the poor Baron’s shock and grief, but that’s subtle stuff when compared with the mangled bodies that are this feature’s stock in trade. Perhaps Dick’s descriptions can grow increasingly graphic over the course of the week. “…and there are bits of bone and viscera everywhere … they’ll need a firehose to get it off front steps of the Capitol …”

For Better Or For Worse, 10/1/07

Ah, life’s great cycle, told in FBOFW’s new achronological style. Panel five depicts the moment when Deanna’s creative spirit was last allowed full expression, before her stifling mother began the job of dampening it; the first three panels depict the snuffing of its final embers, as a smirking Michael goads their children to ensure that she’ll never have a moment of self-reflection that might lead to her escape.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 10/1/07

Yet another Curmudgeon reader gets TDIET props! Devin Wilger of Saskatchewan is none other than faithful reader Citric, and I’ll let him describe the panel in his own words:

Basically, the strip is inspired by my father (and, to a lesser extent, me) … [my father] has since surpassed anything I was annoyed with before and fell off a building, and broke his nose, in separate incidents, and didn’t go to the doctor after either one. And yet, if my mom has something bothering her, he does insist she go.

It’s sort of creepy to see my dad depicted as my wife though. I’ll say that right now.

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Apartment 3-G, 9/27/07

“Here, Margo, you might want to ‘amuse yourself’ over here by my desk. Right in front of this Webcam, which is totally not at all turned on and connected to the Internet. Have fun! Heh heh, ‘twiddle my thumbs’…”

Dick Tracy, 9/27/07

So as far as I know, in a D.C. context “the Rotunda” is the space under the big dome thingie in the middle of the Capitol building, which means that Gretchen just suicide-bombed (is there an active verb form of “suicide bomber?”) Congress, eliminating the legislative branch, throwing the U.S. government into chaos, and presumably ushering in an “emergency regime” that will last indefinitely and be fronted by Dick Tracy, a well-known authoritarian sadist. This will definitely be more interesting than the last few weeks of this strip, which mostly consisted of aimless driving around.

Gil Thorp, 9/27/07

Marty Moon’s days of drunken debauchery must have been a lot wilder than I thought, because it looks like he lost an eye when someone attacked him in a bar fight with a broken bottle. He’s so excited by the Mudlarks’ late-game collapse, he hasn’t even noticed that his glass eye is veering wildly to the right.

Luann, 9/27/07

Never mind the little spat over who gets to be TJ’s “partner”; doesn’t it smell kind of fishy that Brad, an employee of the Fire Department, will be helping secure a no-bid, taxpayer-underwritten contract with said Fire Department for the catering business that he’s secretly moonlighting for? The whole sordid deal will climax with eight weeks of hearings before the city council’s Ethics Subcommittee, at the end of which you will be begging for a return to the “Luann and Bernice fight about Ben” storyline.

Marmaduke, 9/27/07

Is anyone else as creeped out by the name of this butcher’s shop as I am? It’s like, instead of a storeroom or walk-in freezer at the back of the store, there’s just an entrance to a cave. A cave full of meat.

One Big Happy, 9/27/07

It’s been well established that One Big Happy’s Joe is ignorant, and willfully so. Today he’s covering his face in a desperate attempt to block out new knowledge of any sort. This must be heartbreaking to his father, who loves learning so much that he’s chosen to subscribe to the premium digital cable package just so he can get the Algebra Channel.