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Apartment 3-G, 1/9/08

Say what you will about Cousin Blaze’s ludicrous yet omnipresent cowboy outfits, but at least they make it possible to differentiate him from every other same-general-age-as-the-A3G-girls-whatever-that’s-supposed-to-be-exactly dude in the strip. Despite the fact that Blaze is identified in the first panel narration box, the comic is so dependent on the western wear to mark him out out that here we get his casual indoor cowboy look — no hat or jacket, but still the shirt and bolo tie, plus hair that looks like he was wearing a cowboy hat mere moments ago. I love the little arrow things on his shirt; I know it’s a feeble attempt to represent cowboy stylings, but in panel three in particular it looks like it’s just pointing at his bolo tie, as if to say, “Can you believe he’s wearing this thing? I know!”

Archie, 1/9/08

I suppose I should be bothered by the entire headache-inducing ill-drawn cubist nightmare in the third panel of this strip, but it’s Archie, so I can’t get too worked up. For some reason I can’t really stop thinking about the guitar, though. Why is it there? Is it Archie’s? Did he bring it over to serenade Veronica, to accompany the presentation of his tiny and oddly nonspecified gift, and then just lose interest when he was distracted by the Car Channel? And what’s all that stuff around the guitar neck — broken and tangled guitar strings, or a plant of some sort growing directly out of the wall of stately Lodge Manor?

Mark Trail, 1/9/08

[Cue the sitcom-style mute horn]: Wanh wanh waaaaaannnnnnhhhh

I mean, I’m glad and all that wacky radiology lab mixups are saving people’s lives rather than cruelly snuffing them out as in Funky Winkerbean, but come the hell on. It would be one thing if Luke Wilson’s X-rays had been mixed up with those of, say, Hollywood actor Luke Wilson, but do doctors really take a casual look at X-rays and say, “Whoops, looks like he isn’t terminal after all. Ha ha! I guess I was looking at it upside down! I don’t even think that’s a tumor — it’s probably his hypothalamus or some other whatsit. Maybe I should call him, right after I get back from golf.”

Family Circus, 1/9/08

Notice that in mom’s little fantasy, Billy is the only one praying. Is it because she believes that the Keane Kompound is the last bastion of piety in a fallen world of secular humanism? Or does she just know that Billy’s the dumbest kid in his class?

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Dick Tracy, 12/22/07

I’ve managed to go several weeks without mentioning Dick Tracy, and that’s because it’s been stupid and incomprehensible and insane. The meandering, pointless storyline has involved a maniac holding the governor hostage in an old haunted mansion at the end of a tunnel behind a painting; meanwhile, a wrecking crew has shown up to demolish the house the same day that a high-profile charity haunted house sleepover event involving local politicians is ostensibly in progress inside, and they refuse to obey the orders of the police. Today’s comic is worthy of mention, though, because it features the bad guy (or maybe the governor — I’m not entirely clear on this point) falling to his death, a mighty SPLATT ringing out as his organs are pulped inside his body cavity; then his corpse is mangled by a bulldozer, which the operator of said machine barely notices. I would bet money that this strip runs in at least one newspaper that pulled Zits last month because it used the word “sucks.”

Family Circus, 12/22/07

This sort of blasphemous sass that should definitely not bring a wry little smile to the lips of the mother of any ostensibly Christian household. Mommy needs to get out the crucifix and use it to bludgeon the devil out of her sinful son.

Judge Parker, 12/22/07

Hmm, pot brownies should really leave Abbey “inspired” to do little more than sit in the office and giggle about all the clashing color schemes she keeps coming up with. New theory: meth brownies.

Slylock Fox, 12/22/07

You know what America needs more of? Superheroes that pick up criminals by the scruff of the neck and then punch them in the face.

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Slylock Fox and My Cage, 12/17/07

Ye cats! It’s a sexy feline trans-comic crossover scenario! I’m ashamed to admit that I hadn’t yet added My Cage to my Chron custom page, mostly because rebuilding a page with 70+ strips is a pain in the ass. But I’ve liked what I’ve seen of it, and its writer, Ed Power, is a faithful reader, so Cassandra’s glamorous appearance in the strip’s humdrum office setting has finally gotten me off my butt to do so.

Norm will pay for dismissing Cassandra based on her appearance, though. She’s 100 percent qualified — to steal the hell out of all your crap, buddy.

Meanwhile, with Cassandra off running some kind of white-collar long con, her cousin Carla is picking up her slack, theft-wise. I find it kind of endearing that Carla is wearing a cat-burglar suit despite being an actual cat. And today’s Slylock actually teaches a valuable lesson, namely: DON’T EVER TRUST CATS.

Mark Trail, 12/17/07

Everyone knows that Mark Trail has incredibly powerful fist and an inability to feel distracting human emotions; but you may not know that he also boasts a supernaturally discerning palette. Some years back, he proved his ability to identify illegal narcotics by taste, always a useful skill when you get involved in high-stakes adventure as Mark is wont to do. Today, however, as we watch him gobbling up the soggy, week-old off-brand cigar butts that Andy is faithfully digging up for him, I’m beginning to worry about the guy a little bit.

Family Circus, 12/18/07

Dad bellows Charles Dickens to nobody in particular. The kids stare around dumbly, then smile in a greedy, Pavlovian response to a stray phrase that sounds like something they want. Enjoy this Christmas card straight from the heart of lunacy.

Gil Thorp, 12/17/07

YES! YES! After weeks of waiting, Milford is finally unleashing its nutty Wing-T offense!

…

…

Wow, so it turns out that confusing and badly-drawn football action in a comic strip is actually kind of boring.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 12/17/07

Yet another Comics Curmudgeon idea in TDIET! This one comes from eco-minded faithful reader Dave, who I urge everyone to refer to as “Gus Greenearth” from now on.

I love the way little Junior almost forgets his line in the first panel. “Uh … [damn it, I know it’s one of the classic TDIET catchphrases] … oh, yeah!” Also, bonus Scaduto-ism: “sooper-market.”