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Sally Forth and Zits, 4/4/07

Man, I guess the liberal media really is determined to undermine the traditional American family. First, Disney insists on churning out movie after movie featuring single parents, and now Sally and Ted and Connie and Walt have dropped any pretense of wanting to spend time with their offspring. The Duncans have at least waited until their son was legal to work in some dead-end job before abandoning him to his fate; the Forths apparently don’t care whether Hilary forth ends up as a child prostitute or in some kind of Dickensian pickpocket ring, as long as they’re left alone to screw.

Gil Thorp, 4/4/07

Typically, Gil Thorp storylines come to a screeching halt as soon as each team is eliminated in the playdowns. (Can anyone remember the last time that any Mudlark team actually won a championship? That’s the sort of hard-hitting question Marty Moon would ask Coach Thorp if he weren’t so drunk.) After each season ends in shame and defeat, a new one begins, full of hope and new difficult-to-follow drama. That’s why I’m so pleased to see that the lady jocks of Milford are moving from basketball to softball and still buzzing over l’affaire autoclub, as the French punks in Judge Parker would say. I’m dying to know exactly what it is that Tyler is going to say to the softball team that’s going to get Brynna Antenna back into their good graces. I hope that he stands there in the outfield for a minute while they all stare at him, then clubs himself in the back of the head a few times and runs off.

On the self-clubbing tip (ew), why haven’t more of you entered the Self-Clubbing Tyler lookalike contest? I mean, how hard is it to look like this?

Well, actually, it’s really quite hard, but the lure of fortune and glory should overcome that. I’ve gotten a few entries so far — and to be frank they’re all quite strong — but nowhere near the numbers we saw for the Finger-Quotin’ Margo contest. So send in those pictures, damn it!

For Better Or For Worse, 4/4/07

I really have no desire whatsoever to wade into the twisted swamp of teenage gender politics here. Really. None. Whatsoever. But I did want to feature this strip because it contains my new hero. I speak, of course, of the dude at the far right in panel two, the one with the gap in his teeth and the eyes the size of dinner plates who’s saying “Hoooo!” I shall call him “Gap-Toothed Starey ‘Hoooo!’ Guy.” It’s clear that he needs to be brought front and center in this feature right away, and possibly given his own spinoff strip. What makes Gap-Toothed Starey “Hoooo!” Guy tick? What’s his home life like? What, other than risque gossip with his buds, makes him say “Hoooo!”? Will he be going to university? Now I can’t wait until next month’s letters are up on the Foob site on May 1; I’m really looking forward to his missive, which will be entitled “Hoooo!”

Archie, 4/4/07

Man, right up until that last panel, I was convince that the Archie-Joke-Generating-Laugh-Unit 3000 had discovered absurdist whimsy. Replace Archie and his dad with Griffy and Zippy and it would make a great deal of sense. Sadly, it all gets very bourgeois in the last panel.

Archie himself has never looked more like a baffled and angry lowland gorilla than he does in panel two.

Beetle Bailey, 4/4/07

Ignoring the ostensible joke of this strip (remarkably easy to do, since it doesn’t make a lick of sense), I have to say that there’s something unspeakably creepy about the way that all of the assembled soldiery at the ostensible celebration in the second panel is completely lacking in any indication of joy or excitement or any other normal human emotion. The affectless Beetle handing a balloon solemnly to General Halftrack is just the icing on the cake. If you told me that all of these people were about to unholster their sidearms, blast their commanding officer to bits as he stands on his makeshift podium, and then walk away in silence, I honestly wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

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You know, faithful readers e-mail me stuff all the time, or post links to things in the comments, much of which I’d like to feature but often forget to. I’ve had a pile of stuff sitting in my in-box now for a while, so here’s a bunch of funny stuff all at once!

First off, there was some discussion in the comments a while back about a long-ago National Lampoon newspaper spoof that targeted several of our favorite strips. Faithful reader Moon Mullins dug out his copy, scanned the strips, and sent ’em to me, and I repost them here for your memory-lane-travelling-down needs:

Also, faithful reader commodorejohn mashed up two of our favorite targets in They’ll FOOB It Every Time:

And hey! Did someone say “wacky YouTube videos”? Here’s a couple that found their way to me. The first is a super-surreal film school project called Rex Morgan, M.D.: The Motion Picture:

The second, Protectors of the Earth, answers the long-standing question, “What if Mark Trail, Mary Worth, Rex Morgan, and Garfield were a crime-fighting team?”

On an actually sort of educational tip, if you’re fascinated by those uncanny spoof editorial cartoons in the Onion, you might be interested in this story, in which LA Times opinionista (and faithful reader) Tim Cavanaugh tracks down the artist.

And finally, a faithful reader known only as “J.” felt I should see this (he claims it’s been floating around the Internet forever), and so I share it with all of you. Happy Tuesday, everybody!

UPDATE: Faithful reader Sakurai also did this awesome TDIET spoof:

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Mary Worth, 4/1/07

Ah, a Charterstone pool party! Always a nexus of pettiness and backhanded sniping, and always an excellent opportunity for Professor Chinbeard to make an ass out of himself. Usually he achieves this goal by insulting people behind their backs or attacking those who dare to show an ounce of compassion for others, but he’s more than happy to blatantly ogle the troubled, mousy new girl in front of his wife if that’s what it takes. It’s a good thing he wore his sexiest rust-colored leisure suit and inky black shirt for the occasion!

It’s hard to know what’s going on in Vera’s head, since she’s so impossibly subdued and guarded, but I’m guessing it’s something like, “Yep, this is exactly what I was afraid this scene was going to be like.”

Mark Trail, 4/1/07

Meanwhile, Mark Trail is either very, very high, or about four years old. This is the only explanation I can offer for what we see here today. “Did you know … SUNSPOTS! They make … pretty girls in bikinis … and planes and dolphins and whales OUT OF CONTROL! And then the pelican made a big hurricane … WHOOOSH. That’s why we built this huge crystal rocket ship in Washington, D.C.! WE’RE GOING TO THE SUN TO FIGHT THE SUNSPOTS! HOORAY!”

The Phantom, 4/1/07

Hmm, it looks like “DePaul & Ryan,” who’ve been drawing the daily Phantom for a while now, have taken over the Sunday duties from Graham Nolan. It’s too bad, as I’ve been a fan of Nolan’s work in this setting, but now he’ll have more energy to lavish on June Morgan’s breasts (he’s the RMMD artist too). Anyway, today’s new adventure belies the notion that Bangalla is a happy, healthy post-colonial democracy. People walking with a suitcase at night, in the same neighborhood as the presidential palace? They must be … suspects! Some quality time down at the police station with a rubber hose will loosen their tongues and establish exactly why we should be suspicious of them!

Also today, a couple of throwaway panels of note:

Panel from For Better Or For Worse, 4/1/07

If you looked at this in your paper today and recoiled in horror but then consoled yourself by saying, “Well, at least nobody recorded this and then uploaded the MP3 to the official FBOFW site,” then I’m about to shatter your world of complacency into countless shards of anguish (note: don’t click this link unless you want to explain to anyone within earshot why you’re listening to FBOFW-themed “rock” music).

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 4/1/07

It may not be menacing as such, but it’s at least a little disturbing to see Joey and Dennis contemplate the tempting target that is Mr. Wilson’s enormous ass.