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Dennis the Menace, 2/8/07

Well, OK, so it’s a little menacing to fill some little kid’s head full of tales of supernatural demons to the extent that his eyes are wide with mortal terror and (presumably) his bladder is emptying onto the sheets. However, the little kid is Joey, who is such a tremendous feeb that it isn’t even sporting to try to scar his psyche permanently. Dennis could have gotten the same results by saying, “Look, under the bed! Shoes!” Or just making a loud noise.

Mary Worth, 2/8/07

“No, I came halfway around the world to drag you back to the stultifying suburban existence that you’ve tried so hard to escape! If it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for you! The fact that I got to insult a third-world doctor and condemn dozens of children to a lifetime of suffering in the process — well, that’s just a bonus!”

Seriously, Mary Worth is an awful, awful human being. If Jeff manages to muster his last reserves of strength, sit up, and bite off the tip of Mary’s pointing finger, he will forever be my hero.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 2/8/07

Today’s TDIET shocked and horrified me — not for the usual reasons, but because Loopina is actually a type recognizable to modern, vaguely with-it people. Surely we all know that young contrarian hipster — probably not a teenager, but certainly under the age of 35, which, for the typical TDIET reader, amounts to the same thing — who’s all techno-enabled and blog-happy and whatnot but when it comes to music will wax rhapsodic about the warmer sound you get from LPs. Heck, he or she may very well have a blog that focuses on that very subject. It’s a good thing that this panel includes characters dressed like they’re from some bizarre alternate-universe 1950s and the delightfully weird phrase “computer-armchair potato” or my head might have exploded.

Update: Well, obviously the reason this TDIET depicts life after the end of the Truman administration is that “Leila Louise Henly” is none other than faithful reader Non-Shannon (you might remember her from the picture that accompanied this post). Congrats, Non-Shannon. I like the bow in your hair, but I’m frankly shocked that you weren’t depicted as listening to a Victrola.

Mark Trail, 2/8/07

Hmm, I may have to rethink my heroin theory. The only way you make tropical-island-retirement money in a national forest is through shady logging deals. If we get to see Mark punch out Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne at the end of all this, I will be a happy guy.

Garfield, 2/8/07

Ha! Garfield got a text message! And it spelled you like u! It’s funny … text messages … kids today … um … oh, God … [soft, persistent weeping].

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Cathy, 1/27/07

Dilbert, 1/27/07

Kudzu, 1/26/07

Some comics get trapped by success. They build a big audience with a new message – professional women are insecure, cubicle life is tough, Southerners are people too. But their audiences develop expectations the authors are afraid to disappoint. So they stop taking chances. Creatively, the comics stop growing and die, often at the peak of their popularity. But they don’t go away. They keep going and going and going and merciful Heaven why don’t they stop stop just freakin’ STOP YOU HEAR ME CATHY I’M TALKIN’ TO YOU!

Ahem.

Everybody admires giants who walk away at the height of their game: Gary Larson, Bill Watterson – have there been any others?

But credit two authors trying to revive franchises that died long ago:

Garfield, 1/27/07

When he gives Jon Arbuckle a life, Jim Davis pushes Garfield out of the frame. And that could cost him a lot of desk calendars, Mylar® balloons, and suction-cup car toys. I don’t like Garfield, but I’m not the one keeping Davis in lasagna. So: bold move, pal. Way to go.

Mary Worth, 1/27/07

I owe Karen Moy a debt. I have followed Mary Worth since the freaking Kennedy administration without seeing a centimeter of character development. Now, in just six months, Mary is the center of the story, out of Charterstone, and showing the faint beginnings of self-awareness – even self-doubt. Baby steps, maybe – but steps. Thank you, Karen Moy!

OK, blah, blah, blah. Where am I going with this?

For Better or Worse, 1/27/07

Trapped between a huge, dim, slavishly-devoted audience and a self-satisfied, ham-handed Stalinist author, this strip is creatively as dead as they come. Yet it will run on and on as a Frankenstein’s monster stitched up from Mike’s mewling brats and zombies from the Good Old Days, glued up with glop from that “novel.”

But suppose somebody wanted to make it good — and without losing the current audience. Could they do that? How?

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Dennis the Menace, 1/25/07

I’ve remarked earlier that Joey’s main purpose in life seems to be to make Dennis look like a bad-ass by comparison; as Dennis has grown increasingly cuddlier, so Joey is forced to become ever more innocuous. It seems that his level of friendly harmlessness has reached a point that is dangerous to his physical and emotional health. I’m not sure if Joey is supposed to be weeping openly because of some perceived slight from one of his thicker-skinned friends, or if he’s just covering his eyes in a sad and desperate attempt to cut off all external stimuli (because if he can’t perceive the actions of others, he can’t have his feelings hurt!), but I’m worried about the guy.

Speaking of breaking easy, those freakishly thin bird-like legs look like they’d snap like twigs if you looked at them wrong. Or maybe his legs are long gone and those are second-rate prostheses made from broom handles.

Gil Thorp, 1/25/07

There’s nothing particularly exciting or ground-breaking about today’s Gil Thorp, but it seem to really exude the vibe that makes me love it so. There’s ex-hobo Ted Pearse in his groovy thrift-store vintage shirt; there’s the weirdo taunt that no teenager would ever utter, ever; there’s the slow-burn reaction to same on the part of the one of the dimmer characters; there’s the typical use of “the Bucket” as part of a barely veiled sexual euphemism; and there’s lots of very oddly drawn hair and foreheads. Pure bliss.

Garfield, 1/25/07

Oh, hell no. Bucky’s innocent and wholly accidental marijuana legalization campaign gets censored across the country, and this filth gets a pass? There ain’t no justice.