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Gil Thorp, 7/27/11

Hey, everyone, in case you were wondering, Gil Thorp hasn’t been cancelled or anything. Due to my extreme displeasure at the second summer in a row featuring a shenanigan-free golf plot, I refuse to do even a cursory job summarizing the storyline for you, but I do want to point out with icy disdain the “FOOZLE!” in panel two. Can you imagine any circumstance under which hitting a golf ball would result in a noise that sounds even remotely like “FOOZLE”? No, of course you can’t, other than maybe Dr. Scavuzzo has a special wacky trick club that emits hilarious vaudeville noises. Gil Thorp, we want our insane summer plot! We will not be bought off by supposedly zany sound effects.

Mary Worth, 7/27/11

Potential reasons why our waitress is flabbergasted at Mary’s very mild health-based oversharing:

• “Oh, no, we don’t have anything even remotely healthy on our menu! Even the salad is garnished with fried onion rings and lard-flavored dressing! Literally anything I serve to this woman will kill her right here in the booth!”
• “Wait, I wasn’t listening to anything she said until the very end. ‘Dodged a bullet?’ Is this seemingly feeble old woman a ninja with superhuman powers?”
• “Hey, it’s that jerk Mary Worth, who meddled in my affairs a few years back and ruined my life!”

Archie, 7/27/11

Of course we all know that Jughead loves a good hot dog, but now we’re discovering just how much: take one from him and in his rage he’ll commit genocide.

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Dick Tracy, 7/15/11

I hate to criticize the new Dick Tracy team, who I think do a great job in terms of art and tone, and are clearly huge fans of the Dick Tracy mythos; however, much of their early work has consisted of endless callbacks to what I assume are beloved characters from the past, making the whole thing kind of baffling to the uninitiated. At least I feel confident in guessing that this so-called “Mr. Crime” is a criminal of some sort; I’m also reasonably certain that he’s a lizard-man.

Mary Worth, 7/15/11

Oh ho ho, it looks like Dr. Jeff hasn’t given up in his continued quest to make Mary the next Mrs. Dr. Jeff, and he knows there’s nobody more marriageable as a tuxedo’d gent who’s just raised a lot of money for charity. Be warned, sir: you know what happens when people put on bow ties to win Mary’s heart? They end up dead.

Gil Thorp, 7/15/11

Gil Thorp’s summer golf storyline has been as dull as you might expect, featuring teens flirting as they learn about our most boring summer sport. So you can imagine the relief I felt when I arrived at panel three and discovered that some cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers are about to make an appearance.

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Baldo, 7/9/11

Does anyone remember a series of PSAs that ran during children’s programming in the late ’70s and early ’80s that tried to convince kids not to scarf down all the delicious-looking prescription medications their parents had in the medicine cabinet? They featured some vaguely Sid-and-Marty-Kroft-esque blue spherical felt puppets with little beady eyes that I guess were supposed to represent pills, and they sang a weird, warbling little tune called “We’re Not Candy,” the only lyrics to which I can remember are the end of the rhyming couplet, “fine and dandy.” They were of course horrifying and made you not want to take drugs, or even eat candy; I don’t watch a lot of kid’s TV anymore, but I’m assuming they’ve long gone off the air. At any rate, this is my roundabout way of getting to the fact that Gracie and her little friend are well on their way to becoming pill fiends.

Crankshaft, 7/9/11

I hate myself for having become even accidentally aware of the Funkyverse’s dark spiritual pantheon, but isn’t Le Chat Blue the talking cat-demon who appears to taunt Les when he’s hitting a low point of suicidal depression? I didn’t know that this monster had a band, but I’m guessing it didn’t take a lot of data mining for Amazon to suggest its brand of mope-jazz to everyone with a Westview address.

Herb and Jamaal, 7/9/11

Speaking of suicidal depression, based on Herb And Jamaal’s Nameless White Customer’s thousand-yard stare in the last panel, I’m guessing he’s confused “being haunted by one’s own mortality” with “a mature philosophy.”

Gil Thorp, 7/9/11

“As you can tell by my fashionable attire, I’m a caddie! It’s the summer job to have, if you’re a fan of staring at teenage boy ass.”

Dennis the Menace, 7/9/11

Ha ha, it’s funny because Dennis is taking joy in spending the day with his father, but all his dad cares about is his dumb golf score!