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Beetle Bailey, 1/17/07

Wow, so I bet you never thought that the latest chapter of Beetle Bailey’s ongoing storyline about Beetle’s failure to bust a move on Miss Buxley would take a turn for the regulations-breaking same-sex affectionate. Anyone who reads this strip regularly has seen this coming for years, of course; I’m more surprised that Miss Buxley, who works on a military base and spends most of her time with earthy military types, is so shocked by cussing that she opens her eyes wide enough for us to see the irises for the first time, like, ever.

Garfield, 1/17/07

Now, look here: one of the defining features — some might say the defining feature — of Garfield is his compulsive eating problem; longtime Garfield readers know that if the fat cat ever did get his paws on a couple of chocolate chip cookies, his primary mission would be to cram them down his gullet with a minimum of chewing, not to festoon some whimsical snow sculpture with them. Well, if they had to violate a fundamental, long-established character trait, at least they did it in the service of a really great joke … oh, wait.

Dick Tracy, 1/17/07

A lot of you have marveled at Detective Tracy’s ability to get a hold of all of the United States’ intelligence agencies at once on his cell phone; I’m more concerned about his obvious joy in giving some terrifying Big Brother-esque mind-reading (and mind-erasing) device to every spook in town. Look for a wave of laws out of Congress setting mandatory sentences for thoughtcrimes. Thankfully, I have my tinfoil hat to protect me.

Hi and Lois, 1/17/07

Good God, but panel two is disturbing. I guess the cane is supposed to indicate that this freakish, gigantic baby-headed thing is an old lady rather than some kind of circus sideshow attraction, but it doesn’t really help.

Incidentally, I too would be upset if a sunbeam urinated on my carpet. And in panel one, it looks like Trixie’s doing some open-mouthed thought-ballooning. It’s almost as bad as a cat trying amplify the volume of its thoughts.

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Beetle Bailey, 1/4/05

This cartoon made me tingly, but not in a good way.

Hi and Lois, 1/4/07

Dot and Ditto seem to be adapting well to their parents’ loveless sham of a marriage.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/4/07

If someone’s physical agony is the set-up to someone else’s wistful little joke, this must be Funky Winkerbean.

Luann, 1/4/07

This disturbs me so very, very much that I’d rather see what wacky antics Puddles has gotten himself into this week. Please. Cut away to Puddles. Now. Please.

Oh, also: if you’d like to know what Dr. Jeff’s up to in the ‘Nam, faithful reader Smitty Smedlap has the answer. (Scroll down to where it says “UPDATE”.)

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They’ll Do It Every Time, 11/22/06

“Douglas Iannuci” is a distinctive name; having seen it fairly often in the comments section of this blog, it immediately caught my eye at the bottom of the TDIET. So take a bow, Douglas, from down there in the balmy Virgin Islands! I hope for your sake that the Pestina in your life doesn’t actually fly into these sorts of Scadutized rages over old flames.

For me, the best part of this cartoon is that Pestina is giving Fignewt the third degree about his prom, which, from all appearances, must have happened about thirty years before.

The Phantom, 11/22/06

The Ghost-Who-Walks has a whole bevy of tricks that work on two-year-olds. “See, he’s right there … GASP! OH MY GOSH, THE ONLY THING I CAN SEE THERE NOW IS AN OBJECT THAT IS LARGER THAN HE IS! WHERE COULD HE POSSIBLY BE???”

Gil Thorp, 11/22/06

You know, if I were Liz Ritter’s mom, I’d care less about some imagined defects in Stormy Hicks’ character and more about the fact that he’s a whiny little brat. “Waaah, everybody is paying attention to me and judging me all the time, waah waah waah.” If you haven’t been following Gil Thorp, words cannot even describe how uninterested I am in telling you how we got to this point. I mostly wanted to point out the dude half-heartedly doing the robot in the first panel, and say that “Liz Ritter all but forces Stormy Hicks to go to The Bucket” may be the greatest sentence every constructed in the English language.

Hi and Lois, 11/22/06

Since Lois is a classic cartoon stick figure, I’m not even going to get into the horrifying body issues going on here. I’m more intrigued by the fact that Hi is sitting unshaven, unkept, and decidedly unattractive on the bed in his old man pajamas, while Lois is parading around in what appears to be a football jersey over a slip. Presumably it’s the uniform of the local high school quarterback, who she’s banging on the side because her schlub of a husband can’t satisfy her.

Mark Trail, 11/22/06

Oh, man, say what you will about the interminable buildups in Mark Trail, but once the action starts, it does not disappoint. Check out the flying strands of mullet in panel two. It almost makes up for the semantic nightmare of a sentence coming out Mark’s mouth in panel three.

Mary Worth, 11/22/06

Ye cats, Mary has expressed a genuine human emotion! It’s only in thought balloon form, of course, and it’s evil, but it’s a start. Still, it’s kind of condescending of her to offer to run errands for Ella right after Ella makes a point of saying that she’s not an invalid. Maybe Mary will grab “Citizen Cane” (so awful, yet so awesome) as she heads out the door to make sure the new biddy knows who’s boss.

Yeah, that’s real funny, smart guy. I can’t wait to come back hours from now, when you’re still holding that balloon up in the air like a jackass.