Post Content

Spider-Man, 3/21/11

I know this is a superhero comic, where heroes and villains typically engage in expository banter in mid-battle, and science is routinely ignored when not actively being laughed at. Still, everything about Morbius’s little soliloquy irritates me. I mean, the guy went through some quasi-scientific metamorphosis that made him an actual vampire (a “living vampire,” he calls himself, which, I can’t even deal with that right now) and apparently lightened his bones, but … he can’t fly? I mean, why stop short of flight? Too unrealistic? Or, worse, do the writers think they’re being somehow more accurate to bat anatomy and locomotion? Because, you know, bats really are the only mammals that actually fly. Morbius didn’t get his powers from experiments with flying squirrels, did he? I don’t know why I expect any such attention to detail from a strip that routinely describes spiders as insects, but it still galls me.

Hi and Lois, 3/21/11

Well, Trixie, it’s because your dad’s bowling has less to do with “bowling” and more with “not spending time with his family, because you’re all unbearable.” I’d make some joke about how Hi is having a secret affair, but it’s more likely he just goes to a bar and drinks in blessed silence for most of the evening.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/21/11

Man, that bird looks awfully pleased with itself. “Yeah, I totally crapped on that hillbilly lady’s head! I’m pretty cool.”

Ziggy, 3/21/11

Ziggy’s undereye bags really sell the joke here. Ha ha, Ziggy finds his poverty to be exhausting and emotionally taxing! That’s the joke, right?

Post Content

Beetle Bailey, 1/23/11

This is, without doubt, the saddest Beetle Bailey I’ve ever seen, sadder than all the “Beetle and Sarge have a forbidden love for one another” strips combined. Never mind the fact that Beetle’s family lives in some kind of bygone day when hand-written letters constitute the only means of communication at a distance; Beetle’s brother’s speculation that the soldier no longer loves his family is all the more heartbreaking for being so matter-of-fact. But the real emotional gut punch comes in the final panel. Little Chigger is young or stupid enough to think that the mere receipt of a letter is enough to maintain the emotional ties within the Bailey family; but the expressions on the faces of his parents show how devastated they are by Beetle’s affectless, demanding letter. They’ll send the money — if that’s the only way they can keep the thin thread between themselves and their son in place, they’ll do it — but something inside them has been snuffed out.

As a side note: Beetle’s brother is named “Chigger”? Really? As you may or may not know, Hi and Lois‘s Lois is Beetle’s sister, so we have to wonder what her real name was — Ladybug? — before she got married and fled this sad, creepy family for good.

Crankshaft, 1/23/11

Oh, look, it’s another cheery day in the Funkyverse. Today, we learn that you can either be driven mad by the horrible scratching of the vermin that live in your walls, or you can turn up the TV and be deafened with awful news about our nation’s economic crisis. Those are your choices!

Panel from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/23/11

Here’s the question I want to ask, doctor: why are you having Loweezy lower Li’l Tater into that enormous pie shell? How many more infants will you need to complete your monstrous baby pie, and who will be eating it?

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 1/23/11

Ah, the narcotic of television sedates unruly children and elders alike, putting them into a trance-like state so that they won’t bother you with their irritating opinions or desires. I preserve the first panel here mainly to note that Dennis the Menace has finally caught up to 1999, with unsettling results.

Hagar the Horrible, 1/23/11

Ha ha, it’s funny because spending time doing things with your wife that she enjoys is worse than the most heinous physical torture!

Hi and Lois, 1/23/11

Ha ha, it’s funny because an open and honest relationship with your wife will be seen by your male friends as a betrayal!

Post Content

I normally don’t do this, but let’s backtrack a day to yesterday’s Gasoline Alley:

Gasoline Alley, 1/9/11

This is an actually rather poignant fantasy sequence in which Slim begs God to help him control his appetite. In awful display of self-loathing, Slim attempts to condition himself away from overeating by visualizing delicious foodstuffs as being created by horrifying demons, in hell. And how does God respond to Slim’s prayers?

Gasoline Alley, 1/10/11

Apparently by inspiring him with insatiable hunger, by means of the Bible! Though it could be that this Bible has become so mangled and rearranged that it has accidentally summoned up some of the food demons from yesterday’s strip. Another possible explanation is that Slim is just hungry.

Hi and Lois, 1/10/11

Meanwhile, Dot and Ditto seem eager to give thanks to God, despite the fact that He has cursed them with deformed lobster-claw hands.

Marvin, 1/10/111

You know, when most babies show a signs that they might become ill, the adults who care for them show concern, monitoring their health and perhaps even seeking medical attention. But that doesn’t apply to Marvin, the worst baby in the world! Instead, his family has abandoned him on the couch, hopefully to die.