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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 …”

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Pluggers, 8/28/06

I have nothing particularly hateful to say about today’s Pluggers, which is a good thing, because “Jason Rhea” of “Littleton, CO” is none other than Comics Curmudgeon faithful reader and occasional commentor Racing Js! So, congrats, Jason, on being the first Curmdgeoner Cardinal (but not, we hope the last) to get your home-spun wisdom enacted by freakish beast-persons.

Meanwhile, the comics’ other great reader-entry feature is proving itself to be a tougher nut to crack.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 8/28/06

Could this be the most cold-hearted TDIET yet? Allow me to paraphrase: “When he was healthy and in the prime of his life, Grandpa Croaker enjoyed his body’s youthful strength, and thought nothing of walking from place to place. But now that the ravages of age have broken down his joints and sucked the energy from his soul — howzat? — he’d prefer not to walk if he doesn’t have to.” The name “Croaker” is just piling on, letting us know that his inability to walk to the corner is a herald of his swiftly impending death. Oh yeah!

Gil Thorp, 8/28/06

Last summer, square-headed superteen Von Hanley managed to defeat a stalker with just a bunch of flashlights and his quick wits; this year, he, Marty, and Mandy, presumably after repeated viewing of The Sting, are apparently conspiring together to grift the grifter, and prove that two wrongs really do make a right. Since golf isn’t Von’s forte, and our three wannabe hustlers probably have about 130 IQ points between them, I have to assume that once Mandy arrives, she and Marty are just going to hold Ben Franklin down while Von administers a savage beatdown with his $4 Salvation Army putter.

For Better Or For Worse, 8/28/06

God damn, is Liz going to have all of her problems solved by women leaving their husbands?

By the way, Liz is way, way too excited about the opportunity to teach little suburban children. Yeah, it’s her life dream and blah blah blah, but you can’t tell me that any job short of, oh, I don’t know, the Governor General’s Official Fluffy Kitten Petter And Delicious Chocolate Eater would generate the kind of deranged enthusiasm portrayed here. No, her over-the-top reaction to a mere interview (which magically morphs into a job offer the moment she hangs up the phone), combined with her freakishly dilated pupils, the slovenly nature of her hovel, and her inability to focus on one thing long enough to pour her mac and cheese out of the pot and into a bowl can indicate only one thing about Liz: she’s all methed up. I for one look forward to the heartbreaking lessons about drug abuse that we’re about to learn.

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Gil Thorp, 8/25/06

A few weeks ago, I pondered the ethics of enjoying Marty Moon’s spiral down to rock bottom. Now that he’s gotten there — passing out drunkenly in your car because you lost a four-figure sum to a Ben Franklin lookalike playing golf being pretty much the lowest point of spiritual debasement I can come up with — I stand by my conclusion that it’s not just ethical, but mandatory. I particularly like how he goes from unshaven, crooked-grinned drunken bravado in panel one to head-in-hands shame in panel two. In panel three, it appears that his coffee arrived just a few seconds too late, and he’s about to flop face-first onto the table in blessed unconsciousness.

Crock, 8/25/06

Haw, haw! Overeating men are from Mars, and overeating women are from Venus! Seriously, though, if you could get a big Box O’ Tacosâ„¢, I might seriously look into how much one cost.

Beetle Bailey, 8/25/06

I’m pretty sure that Beetle will be recounting this conversation on the witness stand at Rocky’s war crimes trial.