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Gil Thorp, 10/23/08

Wow, it looks like our hero the ’Czak may be Gil Thorp’s most introspective and self-aware character in recent memory. Admittedly, given the parade of goofy, grinning morons who populate this strip, who refuse to turn their gaze inward even when they’re perpetrating grievous self-harm, this is like calling Jeff “the Gil Thorp character least afflicted with mutant-deformed-hand-itis in recent memory”; still, there’s something sad and appealing about his realization that his days as a goofy, grinning moron, getting up to vaguely homoerotic hijinks in the locker room, are numbered.

One of the things I actually unironically like about this strip are the occasional return visits from Milford alums — a couple of years ago, Vanilla Ice lookalike Von blew back into town to help dry out Marty Moon and romance high school girls — so I’m hoping that a few years down the road we get to see glimpses of Jeff sitting around the dorms at his third-tier state university, drinking heavily and listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” and calling angrily in to Marty Moon’s public access TV show. He’s clearly on the road to gloom already, as not even Trisha Jones’ navel in panel one, nor her blatant kissy face in panel three, can pull him out of his pit of preemptive despair.

Dick Tracy, 10/23/08

Dick Tracy is getting slightly artsier when it comes to its gratuitous violence. Sure, it could have just shown us that hapless Genesis Corporation employee being beaten to death by a giant robot while Braces laughed maniacally, but I like the fact that we’re just shown the aftermath, and left to wonder how exactly the broken window figured into the scene of carnage that we just missed.

Blondie, 10/23/08

Here, let me translate today’s Blondie for you. “Those Dagwood Sandwich Shop franchises aren’t extracting as much money from this zombie comic brand as I might like. If those stupid Peanuts kids can sell insurance, then I don’t see why this crap can’t sell … pretty much anything anyone would pay for. USE ME, CORPORATE AMERICA! I WILL DANCE TO YOUR TUNE! I, DAGWOOD BUMSTEAD, AM YOUR WHORE!”

Spider-Man, 10/23/08

Behold, the power and majesty of … NAP MAN!!! If only there were something that could keep Peter Parker awake. You know, like the anticipation of fighting a super-powered nemesis and clearing his good name, or a television set.

Apartment 3-G, 10/23/08

…aaaaand another barely disguised sexual advance from Tommie goes completely ignored.

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Gil Thorp, 10/18/08

You know, I think new Gil Thorp artist Rod Whigham is really starting to find his footing in this strip, creating evocative scenes for our Milford heroes. Yesterday, he served up a sort of film noir pastiche, with tough, wise-cracking heroes and the dames that break their hearts; today we go further back, to the Middle Ages, as miserable peasants pull up their rough-hewn hoods for protection from the pelting rain as they trudge back to their leaky, plague-infested hovels. You can tell how hard it’s raining in panel three: it appears that Gil’s flattop has been so thoroughly soaked that it’s lost structural integrity.

Beetle Bailey, 10/18/08

I was about to say that panel one was kind of edgy for a newspaper comic, as it features two men who are clearly drunk — and not happy, wacky drunk, but bleary-eyed, vaguely depressed and irritated, and surrounded by empties drunk. But then I saw panel two and realized that booze was least of this comic’s problems.

Marmaduke, 10/18/08

Marmaduke is about to kill and eat yet another poor soul who’s come to the front door of his house, but at least in this case you could sort of argue that it’s in self-defense.

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Beetle Bailey, 10/17/08

As part of my thrice-annual attempt to be nice about Beetle Bailey, I’ll say this: I find it pretty funny that Otto is so lazy that he’s drinking out of his water bowl through a straw, so he doesn’t have to leave the cozy confines of his neatly labelled box. I’d probably find it even funnier if I weren’t distracted by the fact that said straw appears to have materialized out of thin air between the first and second panels.

Gil Thorp, 10/17/08

Speaking of giving credit where it’s due, I find the line “Wherever girls go after they dump a guy” utterly charming. It has certain film-noiry world-weariness about it, not that that justifies the stupid fedora, Matt.

Momma, 10/17/08

You know, I bitch about the romantic drama in Luann, but it does have this going for it: it never consists of a series of baffling and repulsive non sequiturs, like the romantic drama in certain strips I could mention.