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Gil Thorp, 4/7/08

And so the Frank Bolle era, which was always intended to be transitional, passes on into history, and we meet the new permanent Gil Thorp artist: Rod Whigham! Rod’s reign of terror begins, naturally, with Gil thrusting his ass at his wife as he roots through the refrigerator, desperately looking for some sweet, sweet booze to take the edge off of his Andrew Gregory-blighted existence. I heartily approve of Gil’s awesomely chiseled flattop, manly nose, and protruding Adam’s apple, along with the return of the detached hideous claw-hands (gripping the cold one in panel two), Mimi in a vest for some reason, and a bowl full of unidentifiable ovoids sitting on the kitchen table. Yes, sir, Rod, you and I are going to get along together … just fine. There’d better be some damn earrings on Coach Kaz, though.

Dick Tracy, 4/7/08

One thing I don’t approve of in the new Gil Thorp is the use of Comic Sans for the dialog text, an affliction that seems to have metastasized into Dick Tracy today. While I don’t harbor the same animosity towards the font that some do, I do think that using a font that’s available on just about everyone’s home computer makes a strip look less polished. Admittedly, it’s not my hand cramping up from writing out the completely demented dialog in Gil Thorp or Dick Tracy, but I think the handwritten text looks better.

On the other hand, having Dick Tracy’s dialog all computer-y does makes it look like it was automatically and badly translated from the Chinese, which sort of makes the strip easier to enjoy, for some reason. Also, I think IN ANOTHER ROOM may be the lamest narration box ever. If you really need to make that clear, you always could just, you know, draw it differently.

Mary Worth, 4/7/08

Oh, man, Donna Amalfi in room 305, Mary Worth is going to meddle the hell out of you. She’s probably not actually bereaved at all, but just interested in learning more about a potential new career path while she recovers from routine surgery, but that won’t stop Mary’s relentless attempts to make her realize that life is still worth living, and that inside every cloud is a silver lining, and tomorrow is another day, and blah blah blah YOU CANNOT STOP HER SHE IS A MONSTER.

Family Circus, 4/7/08

“I only know how to think and feel in terms of references to products and corporate marketing! I’m the bastard, malformed spawn of late-stage capitalism!”

Apartment 3-G, 4/7/08

Now that Frank Bolle is done with his Gil Thorp stint, he’s free to dedicate his full attention to Apartment 3-G. Today, using only Blaze’s wordless expressions, he masterfully captures what it feels like to watch some junkie grope your cousin while prattling on with a bunch of nonsense that nobody in the room actually buys.

One Big Happy, 4/7/08

“And the bodies we hid in the shed are starting to smell!”

Dennis the Menace, 4/7/08

[uncontrollable shuddering]

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Curtis, 4/3/08

In the interest of saying something nice once in a while, I will admit that today’s Curtis cracked me up. The “Curtis is obsessed with Michelle” bit is overdone, but I found his dad’s anti-cheese diatribe to be completely hilarious. “Double cheese, melted cheese, cheesy sauce, cheesy sticks, cheesy cheese! Cheese cheese cheese!! It doesn’t make sense!” I mean, sure Curtis’s non-stop mooning is annoying, Greg, but at least he isn’t going to bust a vein about cheese.

Apartment 3-G, 4/3/08

“No, Lu Ann, I believe that women are parasites! And men are junkies! Those are just the core values I was brought up with!”

Actually, Alan isn’t so upset about taking a loan from a woman as he is at taking a loan from an elementary school art teacher. That’s a sign of being pretty darn hard up, that is.

Family Circus, 4/3/08

Jeffy thinks he’ll get in good with his God if he provides Him with new worshippers. IT DOESN’T COUNT IF THEY’RE INANIMATE OBJECTS, JEFFY. YOUR RUBBER DINOSAUR HAS NO SOUL TO SAVE.

Most of these toys I could vaguely buy as things you could fold up into the kneeling position, but that clown looks way too much like a living little clown homunculus. Frankly, it scares the crap out of me.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/3/08

Sure, it seems like this is a joke, but since he’s testing for syphilis, it actually could work.

Beetle Bailey, 4/3/08

It seems that knowledge of “goths” has penetrated into the Walker-Browne compound. GOD HELP US ALL.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/30/08

While Rex does his best to wriggle out of any obligation he might have to fight MRSA, June, it goes without saying, knows what has to be done. Specifically, she’s preparing to protect herself and the clinic from the coming Great Plague by insulating herself behind a wall of hand sanitizer and latex. I look forward to the climax of this story, when the hideous Infected, their flesh falling off in great chunks thanks to MRSA’s ravages, are desperately clawing at the gates to June’s hermetically sealed clinic. June herself, having taken on position of God-Priestess and absolute ruler of the Surviving Clean Ones huddling inside, will be on the ramparts, clad in a hazmat suit and wielding a very large shotgun.

Shoe, 3/30/08

The Elderly, Angry Bird-Man With The Big Beak is quickly becoming my favorite Shoe character. (Admittedly, the competition for this title is not particularly intense.) Earlier this week, we saw him berate a child with nonsense in a vaguely threatening matter; today, beer in hand, he snorts derisively at the delicate sensibilities of us young folks, allowing himself to ruminate fondly on his youth, when he perpetrated acts of unspeakable carnage against the Nazis or striking Wobblies or whoever he fought Back In The Day. The throwaway panels prove that he’s still got it: he probably viciously bludgeoned that poor sap to death with the TV because he talked during Matlock or wore his hair too long or something, and Roz and the Perfersser are too terrified of him to say anything about it.

Spider-Man, 3/30/08

As I’ve frequently noted, the Spider-Man comic strip is some kind of elaborate literary experiment in narrative frustration, carefully designed to prevent anyone from drawing any kind of enjoyment from it on any level whatsoever. Its gamesmanship is all the crueler because it occasionally looks like it might become slightly engrossing, only to dash those hopes soon thereafter. For instance, you might be excited because today’s strip seems to imply that all of the major players in this painful storyline, including Spider-Man himself, are about to be killed by electrocution, thus ending the strip forever. But don’t worry: by Tuesday, the drama will have been resolved in the least interesting way imaginable, probably due to someone tripping and falling.

Family Circus, 3/30/08

Ha ha! Today’s Family Circus proves that Jeffy is dumber than a dog — dumber than a dog named Barfy.