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Hi, everybody! I’m back at last. I see you’ve all been having fun in my absence (1270+ comments worth of fun!), but I’m rested and ready, if not tanned, and eager to get back in the blogging saddle.

So, how was your Christmas? Did it feel like it was brusquely shoehorned into someone else’s drama, as in Mary Worth?

Was everybody else busy and you had to get your holiday greetings from someone peripheral and random, à la Abbey the Wonderdog in Rex Morgan, M.D.?

Or were you fobbed off on some generic winter scene that had nothing to do with anyone you know or have even heard of, as in Judge Parker?

Or, perhaps worst of all, did you have to spend the week staring into the dead, soulless eyes of your hideous square-headed family, as in Gil Thorp?

OH FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, MAKE THEM STOP STARING AT ME! AAAHHHHHH!

Ahem. Anyhoo, not a whole lot of great interest to report in the comics, as they mostly treaded water during a low-readership week. The most action took place among the foobs, most of which was easily predicted and won’t be rehashed here. There were a few bright spots, though. Mark Trail featured this happy, non-beaver-slaughtering scene:

I don’t know what’s creepier: the chipper “Thanks for not killing the beavers!”, or the way daddy’s fondling that chicken leg.

Speaking of beavers, Barreto needs to get back to Judge Parker ASAP before Sophie turns into one permanently.

In non-beaver news, Mary Worth can pretend that she’s dreaming about her not-boyfriend, but thought balloons don’t lie: her main interest, as always, is herself.

And in Milford, we learn that the aesthetic requirements for “favorite couple” are shockingly low.

And! You may have missed your chance to give the gift of Comics Curmudgeon gear for Christmas, but Valentine’s Day is coming up! What better way to say “I love you” than a shirt bearing the crazed rantings of a drunk? Faithful reader Genetic Mishap, who designed this logo, here re-enacts this classic scene:

She also illustrates that the shirt also works when you’re not imitating comics characters:

Operators are standing by, so buy yours today!

Finally, let’s get the new year off on a good foot with a tacky joke about cancer:

Funky Winkerbean, 1/1/07

See, they totally set up a great Yul Brynner joke here and then completely failed to follow through with it.

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Beetle Bailey, 12/20/06

And Beetle Bailey’s queasy, uncomfortable treatment of sexuality continues apace. (See here, here, and here for more of it, if you dare.) There’s an increasingly disturbing undercurrent of sexual mismatch in the strip, as various desperate plays for intimacy are parried by hostility, apathy, or restrictive military regulations against sexual harassment and/or gayness. Since they’re denied by their cruel overlords the Walkers either the right to get it on with one another or to experience the catharsis of combat, it’s no wonder the denizens of Camp Swampy are such emotional wrecks.

Apartment 3-G, 12/20/06

Worry not, friends: we are only privy to these uncharacteristically humble meanderings through the cartoon magic of thought balloons; no other A3G character will ever learn of them, since Margo shuns human intimacy and all other forms of weakness. I’m just charmed to find out that she refers to herself by her last name in her negative self-talk.

Gil Thorp, 12/20/06

With Stormy Hicks and Stumpy Ritter bundled safely off to the Naval Academy Prep School and the Paralympics, respectively, it’s time for a new storyline in Gil Thorp. This of course inevitably involves confusion and chaos, since it can take days or weeks before anyone can tell what the hell is going on. At first I thought that our Syracuse-branded sweatshirt fan was ex-hobo Ted Pearse, but it’s actually the noted “Lisa Wyche.” Perhaps we’ll get an intriguing plot involving same-sex loving on the girl’s basketball team, or at least parental disapproval of tomboyishness. No matter what, though, I need to see as much of Lisa’s terrifying space alien mother as humanly possible.

Luann, 12/20/06

Allow me to translate, Puddles: you aren’t getting jack for Christmas. It’s a good thing you have some biped friends, or else you’d be in a burlap sack at the bottom of a river. Capisce? Now leave Santa the hell alone.

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Beetle Bailey, 12/13/06

You know, it’s kind of depressing that Beetle Bailey spends so much of its energy on the sexual frustrations of a pathetic old man. He wants to have sex with his secretary, his wife wants to have sex with him, blah blah blah. I personally would have liked to have been a fly on the wall at that sensitivity training. “But … but look at the way she’s dressed! I have to pound something!”

Mark Trail and Slylock Fox, 12/13/06

Congratulations, Mark Trail: I’ve read you for years, and you still keep me guessing. Usuallythe noise of the gears grinding as one plotline shifts to the next is audible from miles away; yet here we are, three months after the triumphant fisticuffs, and this damn this is still meandering along. At least we get to see what Rusty’s disturbing and lonely home life is like: taking many point-blank pictures of wounded, confused animals wandering around in a pen.

Faithful reader and long-time Mark Trail devotee MossMoses points out that the Trails not so long ago adopted a flightless goose that they called Lucky, which conflicts with the new name of our little beaver friend. But I think Mark took care of that: what do you think he fed to the bear, eh? Watch out, Lucky Beaver: the next adorable wounded animal that comes in here and you are Molly chow. I’ve appended today’s Slylock Fox to show you how that scenario will play out.

Gil Thorp, 12/13/06

So self-loathing, fake-hero-turned-real-hero, lounge-singer-named Stormy Hicks will finally be getting that commission to the Naval Academy he’s been dreaming about — not because of his heroism and honesty, and not because of the recommendation of a trusted coach and mentor, but because his girlfriend’s dad bankrolled the early stages of his Congressional representative’s political career, and now it’s payback time. BEHOLD YOUR SO-CALLED DEMOCRACY, AMERICA.