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Gil Thorp, 9/15/09

Yes, Gil Thorp’s fall sports action is about to begin, and it looks like the coaching staff (including seldom seen non-Kaz Assistant Coach Beardy McBeardster) has already pretty much written the whole season off, because they’ll still be paid the same win or lose, so why bother? Sure, let’s put known snitch and killjoy Robb Larue in as running back, why not; after all, the offensive plan will mostly consist of the terrified quarterback hurling the ball downfield at random as he runs towards the sideline, shrieking in terror, so he can’t hurt anything. At least Robb will be able to impress some girls with his new starting position — girls who aren’t repulsed by DISLOYALTY, anyway.

When I saw the reference to a pass-happy offense, I assumed that the team would be going with the crazy Wing-T offense they used as a last-game bit of showmanship from the previous season, but it turns out the Wing-T storyline was from two years ago, and it’s actually a running offense, anyway. I’m much more embarrassed about my inability to instantly recall Gil Thorp narrative chronology than by my lack of football smarts.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/15/09

Not that I’ve seen either of these plays, but Broadway musicals generally have enormous casts and elaborate sets, and require musical accompaniment of some sort; they are, literally, huge productions, and would be an enormous pain in the ass for a high school drama department to put on. Pulitzer Award-winning drama, conversely, can generally be put on with minimalist staging, because it’s artier that way. But, you know, go ahead and defend your choices on the grounds of “cancer is awesome, embrace death before it embraces you,” if that’s what does it for you.

Mary Worth, 9/15/09

Oh, well, I guess serial fiancée Adrian Corey decided that she finally felt ready to merge in complete wholeness with Officer Scott after, what, a whole hour and a half of soul searching? Or maybe she just wanted to taunt or possibly blind Mary with the ring, who knows. Anyway, I sure hope she got around to telling Scott that she had decided to accept his rash, ill-thought-out proposal before he headed out for the inevitably botched “Operation H-Town,” because explaining things to his bullet-ridden corpse is going to be awkward and unsatisfying.

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Gil Thorp, 9/12/09

Hey, it’s September, which means it’s football season in Gil Thorp again, which means that, after a summer of struggling with his personal demons, Marty Moon is going to make some kind of effort to be a legitimate sports journalist this year, even if it’s only as a minimum-wage stringer for whatever local newspapers and AM radio stations still feel a perverse obligation to use their rapidly diminishing resources to cover high school sports. You can see Marty’s resolve in the fact that he’s decided to actually put on a tie, even though he’s wearing it aggressively loosened, either to project a sort of classy-but-casual air or because he’s physically unable to tighten it, thanks to delirium tremens. Anyway, his very first question of the year has already brought home how completely pointless the kabuki theater of sports reporting is, and he will be passed out drunk in his car in short order.

Mark Trail, 9/12/09

It’s amusing to me that even the terminally dim Rusty is beginning to understand that tangling with dangerous criminals might not ultimately make for fun vacation time; Mark, whose ability to feel fear was conveniently eliminated by some kind of massive head trauma, thinks of only of punchy justice, and not the danger into which he’s placing his young ward. Fortunately, there’s presumably an endless supply of malformed orphans down at the Lost Forest poorhouse who will be perfectly willing to answer to the name “Rusty” if it means a few years of fresh air before they too are used as poacher bait.

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Herb and Jamaal, 9/8/09

Perhaps stung by allegations of rampant nonspecificity, Herb and Jamaal has decided to go the political cartoon route and just start labeling the crap out of things. For instance, while Herb’s coffee mug has long been designated as such by a label that reads Herb, Herb’s mother-in-law has traditionally drunk her morning pick-me-up out of a mug decorated with a triangle-ish shape that looks vaguely like the Star Trek logo. However, it seems that, having gotten tired of people asking her if “that’s the logo from the science fiction TV show first broadcast in the ’60s that everyone’s talking about,” Eula has traded her old mug in for one that simply has “STAR TREK” written on the side of it.

Alternately, it could be that her name is actually Star Trek, and Eula is just a nickname, a shortened version of what she said to her parents when she finally got the nerve, which was “You lunatics named me ‘Star Trek’?”

Family Circus, 9/8/09

Boy, Billy and Dolly sure look depressed, don’t they? And the reasons are obvious: they have to dress nicely and troop off to school for the day, but, as we can see from Jeffy’s appearance, if they got to stay home they could just wander around in their underwear, covered with filth.

Mark Trail, 9/8/09

I’m not some kind of big expert on killing and skinning alligators, but I question the utility of that tiny little knife that sideburnsy #1 is brandishing in panel two, unless he’s planning on tickling the great thick-skinned beast.

Mary Worth, 9/8/09

Isn’t this what we all hope for when we pop the question to that special lady? That she recoil from the shock, and cover her mouth so that she doesn’t splatter you when she vomits in terror?

Gil Thorp, 9/8/09

So these are the protagonists of our Gil Thorp football-season adventure: a kid who’s learned that he doesn’t need alcohol to have a good time, and a marginal athlete who likes to come up with nicknames for himself. Pretty thin material to work with, but things should get more exciting upon the arrival of the invasion fleet of spherical alien spacecraft that you can see in the background of panel one. Once Milford’s inhabitants have been rounded up to toil in the Zyrgt mines back on Planet Nebulon VI, there’ll be all sorts of interesting dramatic possibilities.