Post Content

Hey, kids! Before we tackle today’s comics, we have to go back to yesterday’s TDIET:

They’ll Do It Every Time, 8/27/07

Why this trip into the wayback machine? Well, it turns out that “the good daughter” is faithful Comics Curmudgeon reader TaxiGirl! She provides the real story behind this little drama:

In the interests of strict accuracy, my mother usually isn’t arranging a bridge meeting (I’m not sure if she’s ever played bridge in her life) — but “My mother demands that I call her back urgently … and then inevitably has to go to the bathroom as soon as she picks up the phone” apparently doesn’t suit this sort of a family feature.

The first panel, however, is right-on.

Sadly, this does not appear to give me “The Urge.”

I’m just amazed that Luluna’s phone is a wireless handset that could have actually been sold in a store in the last ten years.

And now on to today:

Baldo, 8/28/07

“Hello, there! We’re the cast of Baldo! We know that you normally turn to us for gentle humor about family life, teenagerhood, and the Latino experience in the United States. But did you know that we wouldn’t be able to bring you this enjoyable thirty seconds of the day if it weren’t for … newspapers? That’s right! They aren’t just repositories of day-old stories, stock prices you could look up on the Internet, news about city politicians you’ve barely heard of, and incomprehensible legal notices — they also keep cartoonists gainfully employed! So, for the love of God, please, keep subscribing to the damn newspaper! You don’t want Baldo’s creator to have to go back to a real job, do you?”

Funky Winkerbean, 8/28/07

And so the trip straight to the heart of death-flavored madness … begins! At first, I thought this might be a reference to that hospice cat that always seems to know when the patients are going to die, but clearly it’s seeking out Les, not Lisa. So it has a different kind of ability: namely, the ability to tell when someone is about to begin a booze-fueled descent into depression!

Also, it can talk, apparently? Yeah, sure, what the hell, why not.

Hi and Lois, 8/28/07

Not being a golfer myself, I use the comics as a sort of anthropological window into the golfing lifestyle, since so many comics artists seem to be obsessed with the game. For instance, it never occurred to me that you’d put on sunscreen to go play nine holes, though having read this of course that’s obvious. And it also never occurred to me that, if it were sunny enough to require sunscreen, you’d still leave on your ink-black, presumably wool suit, because they like formal attire on the course. And I never would have guessed that, if you skip out on work once in a while to do something you enjoy, you wouldn’t tell your wife, the person you’re ostensibly closest too, unless there was some other way that she’d find out. And finally, it was never so clear to me as it is now how “putting on sunscreen to play golf” would be a great cover for putting on sunscreen to go to a nude beach. The comics: so educational!

Pluggers, 8/28/07

Yup, ever since the Wal-Mart opened the next town over, there’ve been some changes in this plugger’s local neighborhood. Not to complain: now milk’s thirty cents a gallon cheaper, and isn’t that worth an extra twenty minutes or so of driving? But you can’t blame him from talking in the past tense: “take a left at the huge, empty, greyish husk of a building, go a couple of miles and it’s on the right across from the mid-sized yellowish burnt-for-the-insurance money husk of a building, next to the Dollar Store” just sounds depressing.

Mary Worth, 8/28/07

Mary’s “Uh-oh!” can’t be about Dr. Drew’s two-timing, since she doesn’t understand or care about ordinary human concepts like “love.” No, she’s more worried that he’s stealing her patented schtick: talking in annoying aphorisms with quote marks around them even though they don’t really appear to be quotes from anything. Also, he’s apparently been taking fashion advice from Ian Cameron — always a very, very bad sign.

Post Content

Mark Trail, 8/3/07

OH YEAH, MARK TRAIL BEATING THE CRAP OUTTA SOME GUY! That’s the best way to start your weekend right there. I love the way Buzzard is toppling over in panel one, less like an actual human being who just got socked in the jaw and more like the huge statue of a jowly, overalled dictator being pulled down in the wake of some kind of anti-hillbilly revolution.

Since he has no facial hair to punch off, we have to settle for the image of Buzzard’s hat flying off in the opposite direction of his head as he reels from Mark’s punishing blow. Some of you seem to believe that Mark’s punched Buzzard’s overalls off as well, but in panel two they seem to still be securely fastened. No, I think what’s happening in panel three, as Buzzard tries to distract us with his legal jibber-jabber, is that the portly rustic is actually taking off his clothes in preparation for the next phase of the battle. Tomorrow’s going to be awesome.

Apartment 3-G, 8/3/07

I surprised even myself yesterday by glossing over Margo’s blatant come-on, but today’s sordid aftermath is in the final analysis really more my style. Eric and Margo, ever the romantics, apparently did it fully clothed out on the balcony, and Eric, ever the gentleman, passed out almost immediately afterwards. If Margo were capable of feeling, she might be upset, but as it is the situation offers a perfect opportunity to root through Eric’s stuff. These two crazy kids are made for each other!

Funky Winkerbean, 8/3/07

I have to disagree with those commentors who are saying that Lisa is calling Darrin a mistake to his face. She’s saying that, if you don’t want to have a baby, it’s a mistake to have sex without using birth control — which is true, damn it. And Jessica’s comeback implies that the current generation of young Winkerbeaners were smart enough to know that. So, yay for the promotion of safe sex, even if only obliquely hinted at! I give you kudos on this point, Funky Winkerbean.

Darrin and Jessica will still die of cancer before they’re 30, of course.

Gil Thorp, 8/3/07

Gil Thorp continues to be the gift that keeps on giving, as Coach Kaz, P.I., works his way through the has-beens and burnouts that make up Gail Martin’s touring band. You can tell that Kaz has the great people sense that all good detectives need, as he openly condescends to one of the guys he’s going to be on tour with, though Cliff “Second Summer In A Row That Gil Thorp Has Featured A Benjamin Franklin Lookalike” Wrobek is probably too high to notice. I almost hope that Gail cancels her concert tour out of fear, because the image of a dazed and confused Cliff trying to sell insurance while waving his drumsticks around is just too delicious.

Wizard of Id, 8/3/07

After the United States adopted a single-payer health care system, most historians believed that the turning point in the debate came when the Wizard of Id joined the movement.

Ziggy, 8/3/07

Ha ha! Ziggy mouthed off and got punched in the face! Little dude just can’t win! Look at the bruising! Ha!

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 7/29/07

For shame, Margo Magee! I seem to remember that a certain young brunette was very pleased to received all sorts of aesthetically unsettling knickknacks from total strangers celebrating her liberation from white slavery. So don’t begrudge the brain-damaged girl her moment in the sun, OK?

Unless Eric’s note features magical talking handwriting, Tommie doesn’t know what it is that has Margo so excited, but we can all still join her in a hearty “Where?!” Eric said “dinner at my place tomorrow night”, Margo. Either she’s planning on spending a full 24 hours primping for their reunion, or she’s going to burst into his apartment early and catch him in the arms of his sister-in-law. Either way, it’ll make for four to six weeks of good fun.

Shoe, 7/29/07

I’m really starting to worry about Shoe. As I’ve noted, the strip suddenly seems fixated on wasted lives and impending death. Today, as if five consecutive panels of a sobbing, emotionally distraught Perfesser weren’t enough, in the first panel we actually get to see Gilmore the Goldfish’s last moment on earth, his heavy-lidded eyes solemn with the sudden realization that for him, the veil separating this world from the next was about to part and he would forever transcend to the beyond. Then, for good measure, we’re shown his corpse. Bizarrely, the whole thing is capped off with a nonsensical joke. It’s as if Roz is telling us that the only way we can escape the crushing pain that comes with the knowledge of our own mortality is by taking refuge in the deliberate nonsense of Dada.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/29/07

The Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For is here, more or less, though surely Darrin will spend weeks moping aimlessly with the knowledge that his birth mother is dying of cancer before he actually works up the nerve to talk to her. I mostly wanted to point out his look of stunned horror as his face looms above the “BEAN” in Winkerbean in the first panel. It really nicely encapsulates the mood of the strip, though it does leave us wondering about his mouth — a perfect O of shock, or a grimace of emotional distress?

Finally, today’s Mary Worth is too horrible for me to contemplate, but I did want to share this pic from faithful reader Dan, who offers it as proof that tiny, tiny horses like the ones Drew and Dawn are riding do exist — in Mongolia!

This frankly opens up a number of wonderful possibilities. Are Drew and Dawn training in the art of nomad horsemanship? Will they join a fearsome horde of warriors, swooping down upon the settled folk, burning their homes, stealing their gold, and leaving piles of bones in their wake? Will Charterstone be their first target? Please?