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Gil Thorp, 2/11/11

Oh hey, what’s going on with Gil Thorp’ presumably gay basketball prodigy? Well, it turns out the only thing he cares less about than winning basketball games is love, or at least yucky heterosexual love. But don’t worry about this negative stereotyping; for “balance,” his devout Christian future nemesis also turns out to be a brutal elbow-throwing thug.

Anyway, we can’t possibly be mad at Lini’s heartlessness, since his advice that Kayla dump Parker brought us the delightful and hilarious scene in panel two, where Parker is ripping off his own face out of grief. His friend sure seems to be having a good time watching the waterworks. “This is better than TV!” he thinks, while stone cold munching on a sandwich.

Apartment 3-G, 2/11/10

I’m going to pass over the rather predictable revelation that going on about your delusions of world-changing grandeur will cause Margo to want to do sex things with you, and instead focus on the freakish vehicle that has brought them to the deserted, pristine hillside that Trey will despoil with his green energy McMansion. Is that a Volkswagen Thing? Is Iris still passed out in the back seat?

Mary Worth, 2/11/10

Ha ha, Wilbur doesn’t have any idea how to work a Twitter machine! He’s just trying to lure Mary and her groceries back to his apartment, as he suspects she might have a jar of delicious mayonnaise in that bag.

Dennis the Menace, 2/11/10

“Oh, and how come you and Mrs. Wilson have different beds? Dad says it’s because you’re a couple of sexless old farts, but it always smells nice at your house!”

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Mark Trail, 2/5/11

Who says that Mark Trail compositions are clumsy and artless, mostly focusing on poorly dressed mannequins shouting at each other while disproportionately large photocopies of wildlife loom in the foreground? Well, everyone says that, really, but today’s strip is actually structured in a somewhat interesting way, with everyone gazing intently at what they most desire: Ben Smith at the precious smuggled diamonds, Mark Trail at the proof he needs to put a bad guy in jail (possibly after punching him), and Kelly at Mark himself. The fact that Kelly is disrobing as she wonders what Mark’s up to strikes me as significant.

Beetle Bailey, 2/5/11

Sarge’s body language — eyes shut, body completely stiff — seems to me indicative of total panic and mortification, but I think it’s cute that Beetle has downgraded this to “embarrassment.” I also think it’s cute that Beetle refers calls the gay porn clip they’ve downloaded a “love scene.” I leave open the question of what Sarge is referring to as “shooting.”

Gil Thorp, 2/5/11

Since Gil Thorp doesn’t run on Sundays, we’ve got quite an end-of-week cliffhanger set up here. What are Jefferson’s plans for Milford’s Number 11? More suspense might be generated if anyone anywhere knew any of the various Mudlarks’ uniform numbers.

Apartment 3-G, 2/5/11

Seeing as Trey and Margo are gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes as the car hurtles down the highway in the midst of a dense fog, perhaps Iris hasn’t so much fallen asleep as passed out from terror.

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Shoe, 1/12/10

Now here’s a lovely example of how a single word balloon can transform a comic from boring and pedestrian and vaguely insulting to completely bonkers. I’m referring, of course, to the balloon emerging from Roz’s sundae. What could have been a sub-Cathyism — hee hee, the ladies, they like eating fatty food and are awash in body image self-hate! — instead becomes a rapid descent into madness. This descent takes one of two paths. Roz may have gone insane, and is now hearing voices emitting from ordinary inanimate objects; it’s also possible that this is in fact a sentient, talking dessert. The latter possibility is pretty strange, but is it really any stranger than talking birds who use their wing-hands to eat ice cream? In this scenario, Roz’s admonishment to keep her gluttony a secret from her thighs isn’t a mere whimsical joke, since there’s no reason to think that those thighs can’t think and speak as well.

Either way, I like the fact that the ice cream sundae is neither cheerfully declaring its desire to be consumed (as one might expect in the “Roz is nuts” scenario) nor screaming in terror as the instrument of its murder approaches (as you’d guess a self-aware ice cream sundae would react in this situation); instead, it just gives Roz a standoffish “Uh … okay,” as if waiting to see where this is all going.

Mary Worth, 1/12/10

Today’s Mary Worth demonstrates the limits of Mary’s memory self-modification techniques. Jill urges everyone to purge from their minds the image of her making a drunken scene and being forcibly removed from the rehearsal dinner; and yet panel one demonstrates with its complete awesome hilariousness that we can never, ever let such good times vanish from our recollections. Is Jill sticking her tongue out? Is Dr. Jeff raising his upper lip in a tough-guy sneer? Never forget, I say. Never forget.

Gil Thorp, 1/12/10

Oh, hey, remember Gil Thorp’s new extremely thinly veiled gay character? Turns out he’s Gil Thorp’s new extremely thinly veiled gay basketball prodigy! Also, he really, really likes vests, for some reason.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/12/10

Ha ha, looks like somebody stopped just talking about it and actually had Snuffy brutally assaulted!