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Gil Thorp, 12/7/08

Say what you will about Gil Thorp — that it’s confusing and irritating, that its relationship to actual teenage athletics is tenuous at best, that its rapidly shifting narrative and visual perspectives can induce nausea and seizures — but at least it’s unpredictable! By this, I mean that the storylines often seem to point to one obvious and lame denouement, then suddenly zig in another direction that’s equally unsatisfying but has the added benefit of also not making sense in terms of what came before. Thus, for a while we’ve been set up to have the ’Czak foisted onto Prep Spotlight Live From Marty Moon’s Basement as the dotty Kelly Ripa to Marty’s exasperated, avuncular Regis; however, it’s now clear that the 6′ 9″ heart attack waiting to happen will be cohosting the show with his best pal Matt the Hat, with Marty nowhere to be seen. Presumably he’s tied up in the back room, watching in horror as these two clowns wear stupid clothes and flash up phony gang signs; or perhaps his TV overlords simply gave him his “severance package” (i.e., a case of discount gin) and shoved him in the general direction of his car.

Gasoline Alley, 12/6/08

When I think about Gasoline Alley at all, my thoughts are usually driven by my unreasoning entirely reasonable hatred of Slim, so I was annoyed to see that he’d be the focus of the Christmas-themed storyline. But now that I see that said storyline will involve him being urinated on, I’m beginning to rethink my opinions on the matter.

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Dick Tracy, 12/3/08

Since I’m in a vaguely good mood today, let me say something nice about the art in Dick Tracy: The art in Dick Tracy is really pretty good. Today’s strip strikes me as a particularly fine example of how Locher uses blacks and whites to very striking effect — no endless slathers of zip-a-tone here! I love the shocked face of Braces’ henchwoman in panel three quite a lot — it looks like a print, or a woodcut, and I think it could stand alone as a sort of minor pop art masterpiece.

Of course, all this visual appeal is deployed in the service of violence and insanity. At long last, we learn today why villain-of-the-month Braces has braces — so that his dismembered robot could electrocute him through them, obviously. Remember, no Dick Tracy storyline can end until somebody dies in agony.

Gil Thorp, 12/3/08

Speaking of violence and insanity, check out panel three of today’s Gil Thorp. You can try to tell me that we’re seeing the Mudlarks put a short running play into action to get that first down, but if that’s the case, why isn’t number 22 holding the ball? Why does the Valley Tech player in the middle of the panel look like he’s about to shiv someone, and why is the Milford player just to right of him clawing one of his opponents’ eyes out? No, it’s clear that this game has completely collapsed into an anarchic brawl. Assistant Coach Kaz (recongizable by his now-almost-sedate earrings), with his well-known propensity for savagery, cannot be counted on to put a stop to this madness; indeed, his defensive corps (whom he has reduced to mindless obedience by refusing to acknowledge them as individuals) will soon run onto the field to join in the melee.

Crock, 12/3/08

Yes, I’m sure the US tax authorities are very interested in auditing the income of a French military officer, stationed in North Africa.

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Gil Thorp, 12/1/08

Good lord, what … what is that that Gil’s wearing in panel one? It looks to me an awful lot like part of one of the uniforms from the earlier Star Trek movies, which suddenly throws the whole insanity of this strip into a whole new light. See, Gil was really a big sci-fi nerd in high school, relentlessly persecuted by jocks, until his mind snapped and he hatched a terrible plan of revenge: he’d take a job as a high school athletics director, and subject the next generation of jocks to a hellish regime of incompetent coaching that always resulted in either total failure on the field — or, worse, a glimpse of victory snatched away by cruel defeat in the playdowns. Then, secure in the knowledge that the dozens of student athletes in his care have had their little hearts broken, he goes home to his hot blonde wife and engages in his real first love: Star Trek cosplay.

Meanwhile, Marty Moon’s producers are plotting to put known fraudster Jeff Ponczak on the air to provide a counterpoint to Marty’s drunken, anti-Thorp diatribes. I love the way they’re plotting all this so carefully behind his back, as if he’s a brilliant but insane dictator with a hair-trigger temper and a platoon of fanatically devoted bodyguards who will kill on his command, when in fact he’s their employee. They can just say “Hey, Marty, your ratings are dropping because your shows are meandering and pointless, so we’re hiring that high school kid that lied about his heart condition to be on the show with you, and if you don’t like it, you’re fired.” And then he’d go and cry in his car.

Apartment 3-G, 12/1/08

Note: Starting tomorrow, the “Comics Curmudgeon” blog will be replaced at this URL with a new site, entitled “Margo Magee Says Hilarious Things That Make You Laugh.” Installment one will be entitled “Ya think?!” We thank you for your continued patronage.

Momma, 12/1/08

“Get it? Get it? ‘Correspondence’? Get it? Will you get it if I emphasize the first syllable even harder? ‘Correspondence’? Get it? Of course not, because it makes no fucking sense, you know? Correspondence? Hengh?”