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Gasoline Alley, 4/12/11

Let me tell you a little story that has something to do with the genesis of this blog. In 2002, I moved to Baltimore and, as was the style at the time, got a print subscription to the local paper. The early ’00s Baltimore Sun had four glorious pages of comics every day, including relics that I had heard about but never seen — Mark Trail, Rex Morgan, Apartment 3-G, and, of course, Mary Worth. The last strip was in the midst of a plotline involving a cantankerous old cuss named Smitty Smedlap, and I came in the middle of a dinner he was having with Mary (and maybe Dr. Jeff too? can’t remember now) at the Bum Boat — a dinner that lasted weeks, and that seemed to me to be extremely awkward, and yet day after day it continued, with no reaction from the other characters indicating whether that was the intended reading. By the end of the dinner, I was hooked, and there’s pretty much a straight line from that joyful discovery to these words you’re reading today on the Internet.

I bring this up only because this awkward dinner in Gasoline Alley seems to me a a pale shadow of the depth of awkwardness that Mary Worth is capable of. Still, you have to kind of respect the strip for its current metahumorous gambit, in which we have a character whose sole identifying characteristic is that he tells bad jokes, and yet each day his unfunny gags are presented as the strip’s punchlines. Still, a little of this goes a long way, and it’s already gone quite far enough.

Luann, 4/12/11

Like all artistic geniuses do eventually, Gunther has left behind conventional notions of what his chosen medium should do and has gone full-on into his experimental phase, just in time for Luann to be the most avant-garde contestant in Tiffany’s sham beauty contest. I like the fact that Luann begins the strip screaming in horror/aesthetic confusion, but by the time her parents arrive on the scene has settled into a state of droopy-eyed ennui. For is there anything more truly banal than a new artist’s first heavy-handed attempt to shock bourgeois sensibilities?

Crock, 4/12/11

I don’t think I’ve ever met this bugilist before, but since he’s a character in Crock I assume he has an entire backstory established over the course of the strip’s 109-year run, which is now mostly forgotten by everybody but can still be glimpsed in some of his characteristics. For instance, that round red blob on his head: is it supposed to be a beret (indicating that he’s a jazz-trumpeting hepcat) or a turban (indicating that he’s a cobra-charming fakir)? Fortunately, this is Crock, so we can move on with our lives safe in the knowledge that this character will not reappear for decades and we’ll never really have to worry about it again.

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Gil Thorp, 3/28/11

It’s never a good sign when Gil Thorp openly admits it’s recycling plot ideas. Hey, remember alt-country sensation Slim Chance from last summer? Well, this is just like that, except that it’s, uh, a chick! Yeah, that’s it! And nobody seems to like her music. Nobody except Mr. Preppie in the front row there, who looks like he’s very interested in what Woody Guthrie and this hippie-musician-ballplayer have to say, much to the consternation of his girlfriend. “Chad, I’m already sitting in your lap and thrusting my ample bosom up against you! All you have to do to look at my cleavage is just lower your eyes! What’s it going to take to get you to pay attention to me? Chad, stop looking at the open mic night girl! Chaaaad!”

Apartment 3-G, 3/28/11

We can’t say for sure because the lettering here is all in capitals, but I’m definitely detecting an upper-case “H” at the beginning of Blaze’s “Him” in the third panel. This makes sense, as we’ve gotten plenty of hints that Dan Diller isn’t the hobo Iris has mistaken him for, and the only non-hobo with that kind of hair/beard combo is obviously God himself. “Iris?! What’re you doing here with YHWH, the Creator of the Universe? We all know you’re ritually unclean!”

Momma, 3/28/11

Normally Momma jumps on any opportunity to denigrate her daughter-in-law and encourage her son to divorce her, so it’s kind of surprising that she isn’t more triumphant over Thomas’s suspicions about her infidelity. It’s not surprising, however, that she has some kind of sick posture fetish.

Luann, 3/28/11

I’m not a parenting expert, but I’m pretty sure that in this scenario you’re supposed to at least pretend to think that your daughter has a chance to win the beauty pageant.

Marmaduke, 3/28/11

“The first barbecue is like Christmas for Marmaduke! That’s because he doesn’t worship Jesus; he only worships delicious, cooked animal flesh.”

Slylock Fox, 3/28/11

Yes, we all know that silk is created by animals, not plants! That how we can suss out the lies of Shady Shrew … who lives in a world of … anthropomorphic … animals … OH MY GOD SHADY SHREW IS ENSLAVING SENTIENT SILKWORMS AND FORCING THEM TO CHURN OUT SHIRTS FOR HIM TO SELL ON THE ROADSIDE

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Hey, all before we start today’s comics, I thought I’d do something I don’t usually do: draw your attention to a non-comics blog. Longtime faithful reader and commentor ChattyGenes is an American who’s lived in Japan for many years, and she’s been chronicling the experience there in the wake of the recent earthquake and tsunami on her blog. Very interesting and moving reading on a place that is in all of our thoughts right now!

And now, on to lighter fare:

Gil Thorp, 3/23/11

So the Gil Thorp gay cyber-bullying story is wrapping up (short version: the cyber-bully was Parker, Kayla’s ex-boyfriend, who was mad because Lini told Kayla to break up with him, but then the pious Christian basketball player who actually really likes Lini threatened Parker with physical violence during basketball practice if he didn’t stop) without ever having explicitly said that Lini is gay! Which means that we can have fun imagining what he was really being bullied for. Might I suggest that it was due to his actually quite atrocious taste in clothing? Take today, for instance, where he appears to have come to school dressed in an actual tuxedo! And not the cool kind of tuxedo that modern movie stars might wear to the Oscars, but rather one that might have been worn to a high-school prom, circa 1992, complete with boutonniere. Could the never-revealed hate Website have consisted of pictures of Lini’s latest crimes against sartorial aesthetics, coupled with cruel, Mr. Blackwell-esque commentary? “Hey, everybody, looks like Lini got an after-school job at the blackjack table!”

Still, Lini deserves our sympathy, as he’s managing to stay chipper despite the fact that, as you can see in panel one, his right arm has been lopped off above the elbow. I’m a little curious about whose fingers those are creeping into the frame at the lower left. Maybe they’re Lini’s! “Oh, Lini, we found your arm! If you pack it in ice, it’ll probably keep for a bit, so the school nurse could reattach it during your study hall this afternoon.”

Beetle Bailey, 3/23/11

I know that trying to figure out what’s going on in any given half-assed Beetle Bailey gag is waste of everybody’s time, but God damn it, I just want it to make sense, you know? General Halftrack’s caveman outfit dramatizes budget cutbacks … how, exactly? Is he saying that cost-cutting reduces the Army to primitive weaponry? Is this stone-age toga meant to be the equivalent of the barrel of poverty, and the club just came with the costume? Who even knows? At least I can enjoy the General’s sheepish, plaintive expression — it’s as if he’s realized how stupid and pointless this stunt is, but it’s too late to back out of it now. I dearly hope the strip artist wore the same expression as he put the finishing touches on this.

Luann, 3/23/11

Aw, isn’t that cute! Mrs. Horner thinks Luann has a soul!