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OK, people, I know we’re all very broken up about Aldo’s possible demise (and I emphasize the possible — several commentors have already floated halfway plausible theories about ways reports of his death may have become exaggerated). Clearly, we all care about Aldo — today is, it may not surprise you to know, my heaviest traffic day ever, and there are still two hours left in it. But still, until we get closure, we must move on and enjoy some other strips.

Curtis, 9/25/06

See, like this Curtis: very enjoyable. I freely admit that when it comes to broccoli, I am a whiny little Barry type. I love the way his freakishly huge broccoli crown gets freakishly huger between the second and fourth panels, and the way Curtis, who we all know will eat anything organic and some things that aren’t, regards his little brother’s squeamishness with silent but undisguised contempt. Mrs. Curmudgeon made some broccoli for her dinner tonight, possibly under subliminal incitement from this very comic strip, and our kitchen was filled with the stink lines.

Gil Thorp, 9/25/06

Gil Thorp is so spastically paced that it’s hard to get your footing when it shifts gears, plot-wise, but I’m starting to be intrigued by the tale of Bill Ritter and Stormy Hicks. See, Bill and Stormy are inseparable and the best of pals. Stormy is ostensibly dating Bill’s sister, but he sure never seems to spend much time with her, no doubt because it would cut in on Bill and Stormy’s quality time together, which they mostly spend chainsawing wood. Yep, just a couple of guys in tight jeans and goggles, working some power tools, putting in a good, honest day’s work. One of whom is named “Stormy.” Yep.

The drama part is that Bill’s mom objects to his presence in the family home, refusing even to call him by name (“That’s a name you call a dog — or a lounge singer!”) and only offering as an explanation for her enmity the fact that “I went to school with that boy’s father!” Since interracial romance has already been covered in this strip, I await breathlessly to find out just what Mrs. Ritter has against poor Stormy. Meanwhile, he and Bill will keep working out their feelings with their chainsaws. Yep.

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Mary Worth, 9/4/06

Let’s get my assessment of this out of the way right now: Lame. LAME. LAAAAAME. This is just typical of the touchy-feely logic of this strip’s southern California locale: they think they can talk Stalky McStalker out of his stalking ways. Well, some mustachioed monsters can’t be reasoned with, you liberal namby-pambies.

We can’t see Dr. Chinbeard’s hands in panel one, so there’s still an off chance that he’s holding on to a pillowcase full of doorknobs and is about to start wailing away at Aldo’s face and chest. I like the fact that Wilbur is standing there with his arms crossed, like he thinks it makes him look like a bad-ass. Nobody wearing that shirt looks like a badass, Wilbur.

Gil Thorp, 9/4/06

Gil Thorp, meanwhile, is the diametric opposite of lame, as unlame as a comic strip can possibly be. Clearly Sean Pettibone has stumbled upon some sort of avant-garde band from the 1980s attempting to refresh their cutting-edge creative efforts by working up a new chainsaw-based act out in the deep woods, which they’ll record for their new album, Clearcut Symphony. Either that or they’re chainsaw-handed cyborgs, sent back from the future to prevent Milford from winning the football championship this year. Either way: distinctly non-lame. The retro Moose Miller t-shirt is just icing on the cake.

Dick Tracy, 9/4/06

It’s always kind of hard to follow the jumbled Dick Tracy chronology, but I’m reasonably sure that Dick is either engaging in pre-sex tie removing or post-sex tie retying in panel three.

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Sally Forth and Peanuts, 9/2/06

It’s never particularly fair to compare any comic to Peanuts, but I was struck by the convergence of Ted’s team snatching defeat from the jaws of victory with one of the earlier Charlie-Brown’s-baseball-team-are-losers storylines. This strip again goes to show how routinely Peanuts was probably the bleakest thing not just on the comics pages, but in the entire newspaper. Ted at least is directing his rage outward in an emotionally healthy manner. Presumably the tears and self-recrimination will happen later.

Gil Thorp, 9/2/06

More interesting than the dating etiquette of Milford High students is … well, anything, really, but I’m thinking here of Marty Moon’s sad little face in panel two. “Hey guys, I thought maybe the three of us could hang out … guys? Oh, um, that’s OK, I’ll just go back to my car … I have some booze … I’ll be fine…”

If you’re wondering how Von and Mandy managed to save Marty’s bacon … Ben Franklin figured out pretty quickly that the two of them were pulling some elementary scam, was impressed by their moxie, and cut Moon’s $5,000 debt down to $500. No, I don’t understand it either.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 9/3/06

Note that Lugbutt and his bartender are totally capable of speaking in complete sentences, but that he and his doctor communicate entirely in a disconnected series of proper nouns. For me, the ironic reversal would have been much better if he and the sawbones had spent the whole visit talking about booze. “Beer … malt liquor … scotch … vomiting … rum … cirrhosis of the liver … vodka … etc …”