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Mary Worth, 8/18/06

The scariest thing about this strip is that, in panel two, Mary’s eyes actually do sort of seem to be saying … well, if not “Yes,” then at least “Maybe.” As in, “Maybe I should give this guy a chance. Jeff’s away, and I never really promised him anything … and Aldo really does seem like he’d be quite the devoted type … not always running off to crazy Oriental countries on barely a day’s notice … and it has been a while since I’ve had a good mustache ride…”

Uh. I’m stopping this rumination right here, in the name of all that is decent. Let us never speak of this again.

Mark Trail, 8/18/06

Well, this is certainly a disturbing surprise. I have to say that if you had asked me two weeks ago, “What Mark Trail character will cause a truck to fly off a cliff because she was trying to put her tongue in someone else’s mouth?” I would have had to have said Kelly. After the car wreck, I’m sure Molly will stare mournfully at the mortally wounded Buck for a few minutes before she starts eating him.

B.C., 8/18/06

No, you’ve got it backwards: Wal-Mart will be leveling this vista in order to build four new Wal-Marts.

Dick Tracy, 8/18/06

Blasted Al Kinda! He’s already violated the laws of the United States and human decency; now, even in death, he’s managed to violate the laws of physics. Seriously, I’d love for someone to explain to me how he ended up under that flag.

For Better Or For Worse, 8/18/06

Everyone who thinks that April is going to be experiencing “nature’s most amazing miracle” the hard way before she turns 18, raise your hand.

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Dick Tracy, 8/14/06

So Lottie, in addition to not being dead, has changed from weird suit and tie drag to a weird 1970s suit jacket/turtleneck drag look that matches Al Kinda/Zombie Reagan’s. But this strip tells us something else: I’ve already established that I don’t know much about guns, but I know enough to know that if you can shoot a man in the heart with a handgun from, like, a quarter-mile away, you are a bad ass. Who cares about her nefarious past and gender eccentricities? Clearly we need her on our side. Don’t ask, don’t tell, detective Tracy.

Mark Trail, 8/14/06

Just when I thought the current Mark Trail storyline couldn’t get any better, that devil Elrod adds this crazy dude and his tame bear into the mix. Of course, we’re going to end up with some nail-biting adventures in which Mark and his friends need to rescue Molly from the poachers, but for the next eight hours or so, please let me hold onto the dream that tomorrow’s strip will involve Molly mauling Rusty while Doc and the porn-star named “Buck Jones” make small talk.

For Better Or For Worse, 8/14/06

Now, let’s be clear here: this strip exists to give April her stinky comeuppance, and I sincerely appreciate it on that level. However, I question whether her iPod (or non-branded “tunes”) is the culprit here. After all, the problem is with her vision and coordination, not her hearing. At least she didn’t have to hear whoever is hiding in the floorboards shouting “trip” as she falls.

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Dick Tracy, 8/8/06

The composition in this Dick Tracy cartoon is so striking — with the two lone figures crawling along the parapet of the Capitol dome, glowing in the dark night — that it seems a bit petty to note how spectacularly lame the dialogue is here. I’m particularly dissapointed in Detective Tracy’s choice of epithets: “Loser” seems a little, well, dude-ish to be coming out of the mouth of this hard-boiled agent. How about “terrorist scum”? Just a suggestion. Admittedly, from what we’ve seen of him so far, Al Kinda is kind of a loser, but that doesn’t mean you’re exempted from your responsibility to keep the patter snappy.

Also, note to Dick: “Chicken” usually consists of two people running towards each other, not one person running away from another person while they shoot at each other. Just FYI.

Gil Thorp, 8/8/06

As Ben Franklin goes all golf shark and starts bilking gambling addict Marty Moon out of his pathetic DJ salary, and Coach Brown feeds her charges the socially acceptable lie that real beauty is on the inside, Gil Thorp gets into its adrenaline-fueled groove, switching back and forth between plotlines willy-nilly. This might generate some excitement if either golf or gymnastics were interesting, but they aren’t so it doesn’t.

Archie, 8/8/06

I’m not one to get hot and bothered over the smuttiness of comics, but Betty’s shorts are, um, alarmingly short.