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Gil Thorp, 11/7/08

At long last, the how of Matt the Hat and Jeff the ’Czak’s crackpot Jeff-killing scheme has been revealed, and it actually makes a shred more sense than one might have expected from this strip. Now all we’re missing is the why, though this being Gil Thorp we’re obviously never going to get it. If Jeff didn’t know that his heart was a ticking time bomb of death before he went to the doctor, then this is just the most pointlessly “wacky” high school dude prank in recorded history. And if he did know, then how did he know? Did he spend the entire summer eating mayonnaise out of the jar with a spoon and just sort of draw the obvious conclusion? Or did he literally feel his heart begin to die inside his chest one day? The latter possibility would at least explain why he’s so damn melancholy.

Dick Tracy, 11/7/08

There’s been an insanely long and interminable buildup in Dick Tracy as we were introduced to these two titanic metal men on a collision course, but at last they’ve met and we get to see what we’ve been waiting for all this time: robots insulting each other like fifth graders, using txt spk. Whee!

Apartment 3-G, 11/7/08

“My heart is racing with anticipation”? Tommie, with that sort of wooden, sub-par thought ballooning, it’s no wonder that you never get any panel time, and that your boyfriend and the other guy who was trying to be your boyfriend are secretly having a sex affair.

Psst! There is a great deal of invigorating talk about the recent election right over here.

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Gil Thorp, 11/1/08

Ha ha, at last the big fall Gil Thorp plot twist has been REVEALED, and it’s every bit as insane and asinine as “Elmer gets to stay in America as a bilingual publicist, even though that doesn’t match up with his visa and he doesn’t speak Spanish” and “Tyler bludgeoned himself.” You see, for the first time ever in Gil Thorp history, the fact that a panel was drawn with word balloons coming out of a random building was a deliberate attempt to create ambiguity, rather than a ploy to avoid drawing human hands and/or hairstyles. In fact, Matt the Hat’s ticker is perfectly healthy, whereas the ‘Czak truly does love gettin’ naked with other dudes more than life itself. And now that the doctor has arrived, we’re all going to learn a valuable lesson about why medical professionals should ideally write things down. As punishment, Matt will be forced to have Jeff’s heart attack for him.

In panel three, Matt reveals that after his time in this two-bit comic is over, he’ll be moving on to bigger and better things, portraying Will Eisner’s The Spirit.

Mary Worth, 11/1/08

I’m hoping we get beyond the dull “Frank is an overbearing stage parent” story here and go right on into “Frank is a paranoid schizophrenic.” “The judges are always watching! They have a network of spy satellites and bugs, and can see out of any sign painted red! They put tracking devices in fillings, which why we never go to the dentist! If I hadn’t covered the house with tinfoil, we’d never have a moment’s peace!”

And let’s get a quick precis of Sunday’s comics, via the opening throwaway panels!

Panels from Curtis, 11/2/08

Oh, Curtis, are you really stooping so low as to borrow narrative techniques from Herb and Jamaal? Still, I have to admit that we’re certainly being set up for excitement here. Something of value, you say? But what could it be? I am on tenterhooks!

(True fact: it turned out to be a toilet.)

Panels from Judge Parker, 11/2/08

“The angle at which the body crumpled, the blood splatter pattern, the powder burns — all aesthetic abominations! Usually murder scenes are things of beauty, or at least have something to keep you engaged. This … this was just a big disappointment.”

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Mary Worth, 10/25/08

Oh, Mary, Mary, Mary — sure, this is all very good fun, but any pretense that you’re rewarding Dr. Jeff’s inexplicable devotion to you with anything but mind games has now gone right out the window. The subtle reminder in the second panel about all the oral sex he’s not getting is a nice touch, I have to admit.

Gil Thorp, 10/25/08

Wow, no sooner did I mention Milford alum Von Haney and his occasional triumphal return to his old stomping grounds than Von himself actually appeared in the strip! I had forgotten the most hilarious aspect of the Von story, which is that he actually got into Yale. Yale! From reading the strip, you’d doubt whether the IQ and/or SAT scores of all of the characters in Gil Thorp put together could garner admission into a third-tier state university, but there Von and Nick are, Ivy-ing it up. Of course, they did ultimately decide not to go back to see their idiot friends for homecoming, so maybe they’re smarter than they look.

Kudos to Rod Whigham to making Von’s hair even more ludicrous than its earlier incarnation, but the less said about Nick Zollar’s knuckles, the better.

Mark Trail, 10/26/08

Bizarrely, Mark Trail seems to be trying to actually portray a semi-intelligent discussion about balancing the needs for development against the value of environmental protection. Too bad it’s in the context of Sue attempting to get into Mark’s pants for some hot, sandy beach-sex. And speaking of pants, Mark seems to be dimly aware of the romantic possibilities here to the extent that he’s jettisoned his usual all-tan outfit, pairing his everyday tan shirt with some nice grey slacks that match not at all.

All these political, sexual, and fashion-related questions will of course be moot once the savage mutant seagulls attack.