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OK, so I skipped a day yesterday … so, to make it up, here’s a big mishmosh of stuff from the last couple of days, arright?

Get Fuzzy, 3/7/06

When I was a little kid, I used to think that white people were pink, in the sense that, if I were coloring and I wanted to color in a person who was supposed to be white, I’d reach for the pink crayon. Kinda weird, I know, but I also thought my father was black. (Hey, he has kinky hair and is really swarthy and I didn’t understand genetics, alright?) One day in first grade, this little girl who I had a crush on (to the extent that a six-year-old can understand what a crush is) decided she wanted to color with me, and we were coloring together and then she asked to borrow a pink crayon, and I assumed it was to color one of the people we had drawn, but she started using it to color in the background instead, and then I got upset yelled at her that she wasn’t doing it right, and so she left in a huff. First in a long series of relationships I managed to sabotage from the start. In retrospect, the fact the she herself was black might have had something to do with it. Interracial romance is tough, don’t let anybody tell you different.

Anyway, this may be why my all-time favorite Bucky-deployed anti-Rob slur is “Pinky.” This strip gets special props from me because it manages to use three different variants of the term in four panels.

Gil Thorp, 3/7/06

God damn, but Gil Thorp is awesome. I don’t know what’s wrong with you all that you can’t appreciate it. Where else would you see a high school basketball fan taunt a homeless teen by dressing up as a hobo? North Bend must have a strong drama department, with an emphasis on the Theater of Cruelty.

Mary Worth, 3/8/06

Yeah, she’s a pilot of sorts … the “sort” of pilot who knows how to “fly a plane.” Which is pretty much the usual “sort.” There’s only two possible motivations for Salty Cal’s ripped-from-an-infomercial line in panel two: either he thinks “pilot of sorts” is code for something kinky (and is thus in for a bitter, bitter disappointment) or he’s the first character in the history of Mary Worth who knows how to correctly use sarcasm.

Also, that little sign at the bottom left of panel one, which appears to depict a giant fish playing pinball, is the single greatest bit of incidental art ever to appear in this strip.

Dick Tracy, 3/8/06

I have no idea why this horse is dragging an unconscious German infantry mime through the snow here. I just think it’s funny that Dick Tracy has finally come to terms with the fact that his wrist-phone is no longer cutting-edge technology.

Marvin, 3/8/06

Ha, ha! Marvin’s grandmother thinks Marvin’s grandfather is fat! Oh, that kills me. Really kills me. It makes me feel dead inside. Is this what you have to look forward to after forty years or so of marriage? I can’t wait. The best part is the contrast between her smug smile and his look of utter mortification. I’m surprised she isn’t extending the weigh station metaphor and charging him.

Meanwhile, in Judge Parker, Ned has been weeping one slow-motion, gelatinous tear after another for five straight days:

Also, Rex Morgan? Still gay.

Oh yes, let’s.

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Gil Thorp, 2/25/06; Panels from the Phantom, 2/25-6/06; Apartment 3-G, For Better or for Worse, and panel from Mary Worth, 2/26/06

Is this the comics’ first prime number joke outside of Fox Trot?

Are these teasers — the latter acknowledging that no reader can be expected to have a clue as to what’s going on in the Sunday Phantom, the former being just flat-out cold — even better than Spider-Man’ Olivia-Newton John reference last year?

Has Margo, desperate for company now that her boss hates her and her roommates are snubbing her, gone and joined the Happy Hands Club?

Is it true that this bird you cannot chai-yi-ay-yi-ay-yi-aynge?

Psychedelic shock-happy bunny: Awesome, horrifying, or horrifyingly awesome?

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Gil Thorp, 2/23/06

See, now this is why I never wanted to play sports in high school. To catch up those of who don’t follow the Thorpmeisters: Ted Pearse (he of the Mary Tyler Moore ‘do) has just this week had his big secret revealed in a very public fashion by the legendarily vile Marty Moon. It seems that his laid back “man of mystery” demeanor covered up the fact that he lives in a homeless shelter with his out-of-work mom. He kept mum because he was terrified that his chums would reject him if they found out about his hobo status; this is the second time in as many days that he’s used that “being homeless isn’t contagious” line. But in this heartwarming strip, his teammates show their love for and acceptance of him by this little stunt — it’s like when a child goes through chemo and his classmates all shave their heads in solidarity — and Ted’s so happy that he looks like Jimmy Stewart at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Except that they’re showing their love and acceptance by playing to his worst fears and pretending that homelessness is contagious. It’s as if that little kid’s classmates didn’t shave their heads, but instead covered themselves with ghoulish makeup and held up signs that read YOU HAVE CANCER AND YOU’RE GOING TO DIE. I mean, Jesus, if this is how they treat their friends, I wonder what they do to people they don’t like. Presumably the wet towels will come out in a minute and the savage ass-whippings will commence. All in good fun, of course.

Ted’s homelessness was correctly predicted weeks ago in the by some smarty in the comments of this very blog, who should step forth and take a bow. One thing I should note about Ted is his collection of deeply groovy retro shirts. Presumably he’s been able to get these at the thrift stores to which his poverty condemns him because mega-squaresville Milford is utterly lacking in the sort of slumming, underemployed hipsters who would snatch them up in the big city.