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Spider-Man, 6/25/09

Actual super-hero combat has been taking place over the last few days in Spider-Man! Since it doesn’t feature the strip’s core storytelling competencies (whining, television watching, costume forgetting) it hasn’t really held much appeal for me, but I have to say appreciate the vague sexual awkwardness that underlies the slapstick here. It’s like somebody made a porno version of The X-Men Meet The Three Stooges.

Archie, 6/25/09

It appears that Archie and Jughead will be fired from one job after another this summer; already their trail of failure has led them to the ultimate shame for any middle-class suburban teenager: actual physical labor. Sadly, they’ll never have a chance to learn the true dignity that comes from working the soil; instead, they’ll inevitably be sent packing once Jughead leaps onto that ice cream truck like a feral animal, tearing it to pieces and devouring anything even vaguely edible within, including the driver.

Family Circus, 6/25/09

“So whatever happy-time pills you gave to your brother to make him look so blissed out, you’d better share ’em, if you know what’s good for you.”

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Gil Thorp, 6/18/09

I’m kind of shocked that the word “sexting” has actually made an appearance in a Gil Thorp word balloon, but I’m not at all shocked by the context, in which Dr. Pearl (is this her first appearance under the new artist?) appears to be half-assedly principaling, since she presides over Milford High, America’s most half-assedly educated school. “But Dr. Pearl, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t constitute sext–” “I’m sorry, didn’t you hear what I said? This term appeared in major newsweeklies that my doctor leaves in his waiting room! I just learned the word last week and I’m going to use it, by God.”

Meanwhile, the prospect of Bill Hawkins being charged with a felony for not actually forwarding a totally non-revealing picture of his girlfriend in a cardboard bikini made me confront how little I actually like him. The problem with this story is that it revolves around the battle for the baseball team’s soul between Shep Trumbo, who is an unlikeable douchebag, and Bill Hawkins, who is noble and upright and good and also wholly unlikeable. I suppose if I had to choose which one I’d rather see go to jail, it would be Shep, but really if the whole team could just be dragged off by Milford’s jackbooted thugs and thrown in a dark hole where none of us would ever have to see them again, I’d be a happy guy.

Slylock Fox, 6/18/09

This is definitely the most intriguing Six Difference drama I’ve seen in some time. Let’s start with the obvious: the fellow in the chair has a charming mustache, the sinister lunatic in the child’s drawing does not. This implies two separate potential background narratives. Either chair-baldy is the kid’s stepfather, and, just in time for father’s day, he’s being passive-aggressively presented with a drawing of the absent bio-father; or the child has decided that the terrible voice in his head, the one that tells him to burn and kill, is his “real” father, and has drawn a picture of what he thinks this demonic force would look like: something like the man everyone says is his father, but with an evil grin and a glazed, murderous look in his eyes. Either way, the kid’s vacant smile and stab-ready crayon are things to worry about.

Family Circus, 6/18/09

Speaking of multiple wonderful possibilities, are we meant here to believe that Big Daddy Keane is actually trying to offer a skateboarding clinic, only to fail utterly and humiliate himself? Or has Billy just left his skateboard out in the middle of the floor, resulting in an accidental tumble, spun as “look, Daddy’s showing me how to skateboard!” in the usual self-serving darnedest-things-saying way of the Keane Kids? Either way, Daddy is going to be terribly injured, and this is pretty much the greatest Family Circus week ever.

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Shoe, 6/17/09

The thing that most unsettles me about Shoe is of course its occasional portrayal of “sexy” lady birds, but the “goggle-eyed look of horror reaction shot” is a close second, especially since the punchlines in this strip are generally good-natured jokes about everyday life and not, say, an announcement of existential crisis. For instance, going by today’s text alone, I’d guess that this is supposed to be some wry commentary on how low the resale value is for all those expensive consumer goods we buy, and what’reyagonnado, amiright? But the way that our two characters are looking at each other in undisguised shock in the final panel implies that this sale of the Perfesser’s possessions was a last-ditch effort to raise funds that they desperately needed, and that the bad men will be coming to cut off their thumbs shortly.

Family Circus, 6/17/09

Wow, this week’s “Little Billy, Age 7” cartoons sure are extra harrowing, aren’t they? I have no idea where Big Daddy Keane’s day job is supposed to be or why Billy is there with him, but the meaning of his display of violence is fairly clear. “See what I did to the machine, when it didn’t give me the bag of Funyuns that I paid for? Well, just think of what I’m going to do to you and your sister and your idiot brother if I don’t get the [kick] God [kick] damned [kick] peace and quiet [kick] I deserve [kick] once in a while!”

Sally Forth, 6/17/09

Ah, a mother’s love! It encourages us to speak in the sweet, comforting voice of LIES. Really, Sally, if Hillary always “do[es] great” on her finals, then why, after 27 years, has she still not advanced to the sixth grade?

Dennis the Menace, 6/17/09

“So I thought you might want to stab him with this, to teach him not to shoot off his big mouth.”