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Slylock Fox, 1/15/07

This has to count as one of the most frankly sexual newspaper comics I’ve ever seen. I neither expect nor at any level want to see red-hot mouse-on-mouse action in Slylock Fox, but in a medium that tippy-toes around the love life of three healthy single women in Manhattan and goes to excruciatingly unrealistic lengths to protect Elizabeth Patterson’s virtue, the matter-of-fact presentation of Max “visiting” Melody in the middle of the night — and of the two of them obviously being woken up by Slylock’s frenzied late-night call — is kind of shocking.

This sidekick business is clearly no cakewalk; clearly, Max must be forced to carry a beeper around with him, or to give his vulpine boss the phone number of all his lady friends’ houses. Either that, or he’s only cultivated his relationship with Melody because he knows she lives across the street from a fence. As soon as the stolen goods are recovered, Max is moving on, leaving a tiny broken heart in his wake.

For Better Or For Worse, 1/15/07

In my policy of trying to find the bright side of everything, I’m really enjoying Liz’s verbal humiliation at the hands of her Mtigwakian supposed friends. As I’ve noted earlier, the Noble Natives of the North may have been intended as a heavy-handed bit of ethnography, but they have ended up being the only people in Foobonia allowed to frankly call Liz on her crap. Not that I endorse the overarching “stick with your own kind” message here, but wrapping up “Girl, she stole your man! Snap!” in some kind of mystical “spirit journey” hokum is pretty hilarious to me.

I think we all know that Liz doesn’t have to worry about guidance. Her journey is like a cruise missile, zeroing in on The Mustache at an unstoppable rate.

Antifoobitarianism is spreading to the Webocmic world, by the way. Check out these recent offerings from Crap I Drew On My Lunch Break and Shortpacked!

Dick Tracy, 1/15/07

Boy, Dick Tracy is getting soft. Dick actually looks kind of concerned that he may have accidentally destroyed a man’s mind while engaging in pointless plot-stalling exposition. It takes mustachioed industrialist Diet Smith to supply the appropriate level of callousness. “Now, Tracy, this man is my employee, and when he signed his contract, he waived his right to sue or press charges over accidental brain erasure. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure the empty shell of his body is disposed of with some degree of dignity.”

The phrase “he spilled his thought beans” makes me uncomfortable on a number of levels.

Mary Worth, 12/15/07

Not only is Mary Worth honest-to-God going to Vietnam, but she’s managed to go from decision to airborne in less than a week. Meanwhile, she’s still having disturbing dreams. I’m guessing that “Hanoi … Peace Village” has something to do with this, but it’d be so much cooler if it were actually the site of the Communist mind-control lab where Mary was brainwashed forty years ago. It’d play out like The Manchurian Candidate, with Mary playing the part of both Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury.

At first I was jealous that Mary was flying in some kind of magical airplane with wide, comfortable seats and several inches of elbow room between neighbors, but then I realized where that extra space came from: there doesn’t appear to be any aisle. Presumably once the plane reaches Vietnamese airspace, the bottom of the plane will open up and the passengers will be dropped onto their destination.

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Dick Tracy, 1/6/07

Now, the number of you who have followed the current storyline in Dick Tracy in as much detail as I have can probably be counted on one hand. This is because this storyline, like Dick Tracy in general, is kind of bad. But I have to admit that I found this strip, in which things are brought more or less to a triumphant conclusion, to have a kind of quiet charm. From Dick’s dialogue which, while not quite poetic, at least has a certain pleasing alliterative rhythm to it (“made our minds his prisoners”, “now we’ve neutered his neurons”) to the sad, defeated look on Dr. Froid’s face, to the tiny little QWINK his sinister device makes as it’s powered down for good, the whole thing has a certain dignity that pretty much everything that’s happened up to this point has lacked.

For Better Or For Worse, 1/6/07

Speaking of lacking in dignity, I haven’t commented on FBOFW this week, mostly because I’ve grown so disgruntled with the plot direction that I don’t even know how to feel about Elizabeth’s inevitable discovery of Paul’s philandering. On the one hand, it provides an easy way for Elizabeth to be driven into the dull, reassuring arms of The Mustache, without any even slight lowering of her status as the strip’s incomprehensibly elevated Noble Goddess. On the other hand, a Patterson will experience emotional pain and anguish. So there’s that.

One thing I know exactly how to feel about is the strip’s patented and increasingly phoned-in punny punchlines: Bad. Bad is how I feel about them. “I’m going to say my boyfriend’s last name for no reason other than to supply a pun for my little sister’s ensuing thought balloon!” Bad.

Judge Parker, 1/6/07

Many faithful readers with a better grasp of geography and typical travel schedules than Judge Parker have pointed out that transatlantic flights simply do not land in Europe at 1:30 in the morning, ever. Still, based on her creepy white eyes in panel three, it’s no mystery why Neddy wants to go to the Champs-Elysées before sunup: to feast on the blood of the living.

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Judge Parker, 12/18/06

None of the soap opera strips can really be said to move quickly (except for the disorienting crank binge that is Gil Thorp), but those in the know know that nothing moves more slowly than Judge Parker. Today’s evidence: I’ve read every single Judge Parker for the last two years, and “Marie” is clearly supposed to be a recurring and beloved character, but I have no idea who the hell she is. Presumably she jetted off to visit with her bother for a long weekend about 72 hours ago in strip time.

Guest artist watch: Abbey’s resplendent she-mullet is looking almost normal in panel two, there, buster. Not nearly enough poof on top.

Dick Tracy, 12/18/06

The QLUNQ in today’s Dick Tracy has generated more comments and e-mails than any other comic sound effect in recent memory, most of which can be summed up as “What the hell kind of sound effect is QLUNQ?” Well, the largest denomination of U.S. currency in current circulation is the $100 bill, and there’s 50,000 bills in that suitcase, and 490 bills weigh one pound, so I’d say QLUNQ is the noise that 102 pounds of money and a suitcase make when they run into the side of a human skull. 102 pounds of money and a suitcase thrown one-armed, incidentally. And they say scientists are skinny, nerdy types!

Dennis the Menace, 12/18/06

Well, Dennis has certainly left meancehood behind long ago, but we can take heart that at least he hasn’t gone so far in the other direction as to have become Christ-like.

Yet, anyway.