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Crankshaft, 8/10/07

If there’s one thing that redeems Crankshaft for me, its the fact that the title character really does live up to his name. He’s always angry about something — or about everything — all the time. Take today’s strip, for example. Most people in this situation saying this word would be making a light-hearted little joke. You might expect them have a smile on their face — or, in this context, the patented Funky Winkerbean/Crankshaft gentle smirk. Not the ’Shaft, though. He’s regarding that feeble little sapling with the same look of unbridled hate and rage that he also uses on his yuppie neighbors, the children who ride his bus, his friends, and his own family. When he says “timberrr!”, he’s saying, “Hey, little tree, I know you didn’t get to choose where your seed landed. I know that you’re an example of the magic of life, of that genetic code that orders everything alive to reproduce and to grow, even the harshest of circumstances. I know all this and I don’t care. You’re in my gutter and I’m going to kill you. Fuck you, little tree.”

Mark Trail, 8/10/07

Did you ever notice that Mark never punches rich people? His fists of fury seem almost exclusively aimed at low-life hillbillies like Buzzard, occasionally deigning to sock out a lower-middle-class striver like Diver Dan. I used to think this was part of some ugly class-based agenda in the strip, but today we see the real reason: rich people are cowards. I’m guessing Mark is starting to ever so gradually clench his right fist just below the bottom of the first panel, leading to Leo’s terrified sweat balls and eventual confession. “He did it! Him! Punch him, not me!” The poor either aren’t afraid to get a facefull of Trail knuckles, or aren’t perceptive enough to recognize the incipient fisticuffs and surrender in advance.

Gil Thorp, 8/10/07

Speaking of punching, the next time Mark decides to punch someone, could we see him winding up looking through the undercrotch of the punchee? Failing that, could every comic in every newspaper just be replaced by today’s Gil Thorp, forever? Thanks.

Hi and Lois, 8/10/07

Hey, look, kids, it’s a ghost! That is, if you think “some dude being paid minimum wage to wear an old-timey miner outfit” is some sort of acceptable substitute for “a ghost.” Considering Hi ruined his family financially to go on this vacation, this is a pretty poor showing.

Mary Worth continues to be ludicrous, of course, but nothing I say could match t.a.m.s.y.’s Mary Worth/TDIET mashup.

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Hi and Lois, 8/9/07

Ho ho! Hi’s decided to take his family on a bizarre Western “dream vacation,” which, as we’ve seen over the past week or so, several of the Flagstons are dubious about. Now we learn that they couldn’t even afford the trip! Hi knows the family is being crushed by credit card debt, and he’s looking desperately for some magical way to get out of the hole! Maybe they’ll go bankrupt and their house will be repossessed! Too bad about that housing bubble bursting, eh Lois? Wait, where’s Lois? My guess: prostituting herself so they can afford dinner tonight, or perhaps committing suicide.

Beetle Bailey, 8/9/07

Hee hee! Cookie has one job to do at Camp Swampy — one — and he’s terrible at it, and everybody on base — the men who are supposed to be his comrades — lets him know it. Naturally this is killing him inside, so he climbs up on the roof. Maybe he just wants to get away for a bit, maybe it’s a plea for attention. Either way, the soldiers’ hatred is just further inflamed, and they openly call for his suicide.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 8/9/07

Hardy hardy har! That feeling of overwhelming love and oneness you get at the beginning of a relationship? Turns out it’s just equal parts sexual attraction and self-delusion! Once you’ve finally chosen to spend your life with a person, that’s when the scales fall from your eyes and you realize you’re chained to another insufferably imperfect human being, forever — and the only way out is suicide.

(Dear God, I hope “you know who” isn’t Al Scaduto’s wife.)

The Phantom, 8/9/07

It’s been pretty well established that what’s-his-name, the dude with the gun, is pretty reluctant about using it, so it’s actually fairly plausible that this couple could literally be beating up an armed man with both hands tied behind their back (the husband is doing the head-butting today, but yesterday his wife managed to get in a good foot to the groin). This is fortunate, because otherwise the Ghost-Who-Doesn’t-Do-Much might have to intervene, which would cut into his valuable musing time.

Family Circus, 8/9/07

I feel weird saying this about the Family Circus, but there’s a lot I love about this cartoon. I love that Billy looks genuinely angry that he’s going to be spending four valuable hours a night staring at this tiny television set while they’re at the grandparents’ house — so angry that he appears to be shouting at the screen at the top of his lungs. I love the look on Thel’s face in the other room, as she realizes that her unruly, obnoxious children are once again going to make her look bad in front of her own parents. I love the way Big Daddy Keane is marching in from off-panel — because this is a panel from the pre-PC ’70s, presumably Billy will be getting the strap again in short order. And I love the fact that PJ is awkwardly holding his shorts up, probably because he’s just crapped in them.

Mary Worth, 8/9/07

Drew, you’re a healer! You took the Hippocratic Oath! And yet your colleague here is clearly either having a stroke or is bombed out of his mind on the job, and all you can say is “Geez”. For shame!

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Mary Worth and Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/28/07

Maternal visit or no, I certainly could not let these two explosive comics from Saturday go unremarked. I’d urge you to try to reproduce the bizarre angles of Drew and Dawn’s approach in panel two at home, but you might then be tempted to photograph it and send me a picture, the prospect of which makes me distinctly uncomfortable. I’m pretty sure the lines of radiance represent the aura experienced by epileptics just before a seizure, because that’s the only reasonably explanation for the awkward poses and facial expressions of otherworldly detachment from reality.

Meanwhile, in Rex Morgan, M.D., stuff (and here I mean “stuff” U English sense to mean woolen fabric, specifically the woolen fabric in the very U Hugh’s suit) blows up. Even more exciting than that, though, is seeing June say, “Did he grovel for you like he did for me?” That very well could have triggered the explosion — the explosion of sexiness.

Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois, 7/28/07

Meanwhile, although I’m usually left cold by golf jokes (and WE GET IT CARTOONISTS YOU’D RATHER BE GOLFING THAN DRAWING FUNNY PICTURES) and Beetle Bailey generally, I have to admit that Saturday’s Beetle Bailey golf joke actually made me laugh aloud. I do wonder why Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC doesn’t have team meetings once a week to prevent this kind of overlap, though.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 7/28/07

And once again TDIET is Curmudgeon-inspired! Gabe Owens is in fact faithful reader Gabe. Since Gabe is in the Navy, this cartoon could have featured some epically outdated uniforms and insignia, possible from World War I, but I guess that’s Beetle Bailey territory; when you’re in a TDIET, you toil away in a generic Eisenhower-era office and you like it, buddy. Gabe has used his real name (and rank? I thought MC2 was some variation on “Master Chief”, but I couldn’t find any evidence to that effect online; maybe it’s his rap name?), so he’d better hope that having “The Urge” isn’t a court-martialable offense.