Post Content

Gasoline Alley, 8/25/07

Wow, so who would have guessed that Slim’s descent into madness would have concluded with, you know, an actual descent into actual, clinically diagnosed madness? I have to say that while the recent Slim vs. the Basketball Playing Youth Of Today has been totally demented, it’s at least been kind of interesting, unlike the previous year or so of Gasoline Alley, so I sort of hope that they keep up with the wackiness. If nothing else, every year or so the gentle, good-humored domestic drama and hillbilly-dialect chuckles should be punctuated by Slim’s escape from the asylum, with hundreds of comically inept cops crawling everywhere in a failed attempt to keep him from killing again.

Dick Tracy, 8/25/07

I haven’t attempted to grapple with plot of Dick Tracy on this blog for about eight weeks; just take my word for it when I say that for about seven of those weeks, the same thing barely happened over and over again, then all of the sudden this week all sorts of things started happening, none of which made any sense if you thought about them for more than about thirty seconds. However, I feel that the dialog in today’s first panel — “Tracy! They know we know! They’re ramming us!” — stands on its own as a wonderful little dollop of poetic nonsense. I hope tomorrow one of the bad guys says “Gretchen! They know we know they know! We’re ramming them!” And then it could just go on like that pretty much indefinitely.

Also, in panel three, this is the second time that the Baron has arrived at the Pentagon via cab, and I have no reason to believe that it’s going to be the last.

Spider-Man, 8/25/07

Spider-Man continues to indulge its obsession with crumbling masonry. Perhaps the creators have decided that a renewed focus on our woefully neglected infrastructure is more important than providing the “thrills” and “excitement” that the masses expect from their superhero fare.

Also, I have to say that there’s something poignant about the modesty of the Shocker’s ambitions in panel one. He knows that there’s no chance of breaking into the big supervillain scene in New York or DC; he’d just be happy if people in San Francisco and LA, and maybe even Portland and Seattle, hear “the Shocker” and think not “obscene hand gesture” but “that mattress-wearing weirdo who robbed a bank.”

B.C., 8/25/07

Also, Clumsy, you’re not … bald? I mean, you’re not, right? As near as I can tell? I know we’re just plugging new jokes into old art, but couldn’t we at least have the same person picking out the jokes and the art?

Wizard of Id, 8/25/07

Ho ho ho! Id is an Orwellian police state, so dominated by the Panopticon-style omnipresence of its security apparatus that it resembles nothing so much as a vast gulag! Ah, whimsy!

Garfield, 8/25/07

This is pretty much the funniest Garfield that’s appeared in weeks. It’s about vomiting.

Post Content

Archie, 8/2/07

The Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000 managed to churn out a serviceable punchline today (by the abominably low standards of the legacy comics industry) but it’s the weirdness of the setup that really places this strip squarely in the uncanny valley. Who is gap-toothed Leroy? Why does Archie hold him in such contempt? Did Archie’s chest expand between panels one and two, or did his head shrink? Why is he wearing an ankle-monitoring bracelet? Why are Riverdale’s beaches studded with ominous-looking targets? Sadly, I fear that the all of these anomalies are just the AJGLU’s idea of background color.

Mark Trail, 8/2/07

Seeing Mark announce “I’m your worst nightmare!” is of course a delight, a little love letter to everyone everywhere. Still, it wouldn’t be Mark Trail if the dialog emphasis failed to violate all norms of conversation among English-speaking human beings. Mark emerges from his hidey-bush and bellows “I KNOW ABOUT IT!” at the top of his lungs, then politely adds “I’m your worst nightmare” in his indoor voice. Perhaps all the boldfacing in the first word balloon tired him out.

Anyway, we are of course all on tenterhooks to see tomorrow’s punchery. Your firearm is no match for Mark’s bare fists, Buzzard!

Mary Worth, 8/2/07

If you ever needed proof that Mary Worth is some kind 18th-level Jedi ninja archbishop of meddling, this is it. By having a relationship with a somewhat older man, Dawn is enjoying herself in an ever-so-slightly unconventional way, which Mary obviously thinks is the moral equivalent to genocide. Rather than let our young romantic see her revulsion at this depravity, however, she instead pretends to be on Dawn’s side, only to plant a tiny seed in her mind by comparing her and Dr. Drew to the Camerons, Charterstone’s most loathsome couple. Now, every time Lover Boy, M.D., moves in for a smooch, Dawn will be unable to keep from visualizing Ian’s bloated, chinbeared visage, purple with drink and contempt, hovering before her. She’ll move on to a more age-appropriate boyfriend — or a nunnery — in no time, and Mary with allow herself a brief, subtle smile of satisfaction.

UPDATE: In this context, I simply must post to this excellent post at Subdivided We Stand, from faithful reader Smitty Smedlap.

The Phantom, 8/2/07

I know it’s not socially acceptable to test this out, but I’m reasonably sure that, while there are probably several more or less accurate ways to transliterate the sound made by an oar handle plunging into a man’s solar plexus, “PUNT!” is probably not one of them. I will allow that “UHHFF!!” is probably a pretty good approximation of the sound one would make when so oared, however.

Note that the Ghost-Who-Uses-The-Mori-Youth-Entrusted-Into-His-Care-As-Bait has sent a group of mostly naked teenagers with improvised bludgeons into a fracas against men armed with automatic rifles, while he stands above and fires a desultory round or two from his pistol in the general direction of the action. I suppose that if he leapt down, we’d all be denied yet another shot of his stripey ass.

Marmaduke, 8/2/07

This is one of the filthier things I’ve seen today. If you’re a sicko like me, it’s fun to imagine the caption without the second sentence.

Dick Tracy, 8/2/07

“The chief has just issued an APB for an elderly man!” And the cooks at Gitmo start making fewer halal meals and more bran muffins and prune juice as the several million Americans who fit this one-sentence description are rounded up for interrogation.

The Family Circus, 8/2/07

Sadly, the attempt to assassinate the Keane clan was botched. “Next time,” swore a cowed human race, sick to death of their antics. “Next time.”

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 7/11/07

Ha ha! Oh, man, the Gil Thorp summer hijinks are getting started even more quickly than I could have hoped! I’m totally in love with Gail Martin, the “rock and roll Carole King,” as she was called yesterday; truly, nothing shouts “rock and roll” like a collared shirt and a long braid that you clutch dramatically to your chest while you belt out your non-hits and your banjo player grooves behind you. This looks exactly like the kind of scene where a brawl would break out, and I look forward to tomorrow’s weirdly proportioned and strangely angled fisticuffs. Since Kelly has a troubled past with guys with rage issues, this should provide excellent fuel for one of the eleven rapidly crosscut dramas that will be entertaining us until football practice starts up again.

Apartment 3-G, 7/11/07

Ruby’s dialogue says “funny Texan with more realistic ideals of beauty than these supposedly sophisticated New York City girls,” but her solemn expression in panel three, along with Tommie and Margo’s panicked exchange of glances, says “violent feederism.” In two weeks, look for the two of them to be tied to their chairs, their faces smeared with tangy barbecue sauce, begging for mercy, as Ruby says, “Nuh-uh, Maggie, you still only got one chin!”

Ziggy, 7/11/07

If you thought that the sight of a desperate, insane, bald dwarf with no pants jabbering about the dishonesty of inanimate objects while thrusting a fifteen-year-old household appliance at bemused service worker wouldn’t be funny, well, today’s Ziggy is here to be prove you wrong. I actually laughed aloud at this. Ziggy may continue to exist, as far as I’m concerned.

As I look at it more, I’m sort of hypnotized by the text in Ziggy’s word balloon. The symmetry between the sentence-initial “i” (lowercase, in defiance of all known typographical conventions) and the final exclamation mark, makes it look like he’s actually shouting “T lies!” in Spanish. Which, for my money, is even funnier.

Luann, 7/11/07

I’m only marginally less sick of Brad-Toni than I am of Curtis-Michelle, but this sequence is growing on me. If Toni ends up running off with uberskeeze TJ because of his cooking (or “cooking”) skills, I will be willing to forgive a lot that’s happened in the last few years.

Dick Tracy, 7/11/07

It just wouldn’t be Dick Tracy if the payoff didn’t include somebody writhing around in pain. This isn’t the optimistic fantasy land of Mark Trail; those eyes aren’t growing back.

Family Circus, 7/11/07

Hmm, what’s the most alarming part of this? Yeah, I’m going to have to say that it’s Big Daddy Keane’s little smile.

Gasoline Alley, 7/11/07

Gasoline Alley: the one comic strip that isn’t afraid to show you how the system is stacked against the white man.

Spider-Man, 7/11/07

In a strip that brought us such epic battles as Dr. Octopus vs. his television, Spidey vs. a bowl-hatted butler, Spidey vs. his own outdated ideas of economics and gender, and, of course Spidey vs. a brick, today’s struggle between J. Jonah Jameson and Larry King may represent a dramatic zenith.

And, finally, I’m sure sexy toast-eating is somebody’s fetish, so:

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/11/07

Go to town, perverts!