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Mary Worth, 1/5/11

Look at panel two in isolation and you’d think that Mary views father-son bonding as a spectator sport. “Here we go!” she thinks, as she pops something tan and oblong into her mouth. “They’re gonna hella bond! This is going to be great!” But check her out in panel one, looking blissed out as she shoves something or other up between her gum and her upper lip. I’m assuming it’s something hallucinogenic. “Here we go!” she’s saying in panel two. “Oh, the colors!”

Gil Thorp, 1/5/11

Much as I’ve been trying to avoid bringing it up, I feel have to acknowledge that the Gil Thorp basketball season plot seems to have set its two new characters — a Jesus-happy basketball player and an almost-certainly-gay teen as imagined by someone who’s heard of gay people but never actually met one — on a collision course. This certainly won’t be awkward, at all!

Gasoline Alley, 1/5/11

Speaking of piety, Gasoline Alley has continued its attempt to ditch its goody-goody image by dabbling in blasphemy. Today it suggests that the Holy Bible is best used as a weight-loss aid.

Spider-Man, 1/5/11

Spider-Man has lost interest in the middle of his own comic strip and let his mind wander. And who can blame him, really? I only wish he weren’t wearing his spider-mask in panel two, because it would be great to see his slack jaw and the little bit of drool emerging from the side of his mouth.

Luann, 1/5/11

Dear Luann,

Never use “finger” as a verb ever again.

Sincerely,
The Comics Curmudgeon

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Luann, 12/7/10

Oh my gosh, long-despised villain Dirk is suddenly going to become a hero! Some might find this to be a shocking turn of events, but it’s the logical conclusion of the same process by which the strip’s ostensible protagonists have become completely unbearable.

Mary Worth, 12/7/10

You thought that Mary Worth couldn’t get any better. You thought wrong. Panel one is a delight: I love the fact that Mary has escalated from a single hand to the mouth to two, and I’m practically hypnotized by the droplet of ketchup-wine suspended in mid-air within Jill’s glass. And then she gets out of her chair and karate chops Scott in the face.

Apartment 3-G, 12/7/10

“Yes, architecture, the practice of designing the buildings we live in every day with a modicum of art and grace … I’m sure it bores a bohemian like yourself to tears, as it does me. Oh, I’ve tried to really express my innermost self through my hobby, clothing design, but it’s about time I admitted to myself that my combination scarf-cravat — or ‘scarfat,’ as I dreamed of hearing it called on the runways in Paris and Milan — is never going to catch on.”

Judge Parker, 12/7/10

Ha ha, that classic Sam Driver smugness is still in full effect. “Some poor crazed woman out there who pines for me but can never, ever have me? That’s more intoxicating than this extremely expensive wine!”

Mark Trail, 12/7/10

Faced by the sudden and terrifying prospect of a woman in his room, Mark covers his genitals the only way he can: by bellowing out the largest word balloon his lungs can muster.

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Luann, 12/2/10

When it comes to Brad/Toni slash fiction — oh, sorry, I mean, when it comes to the actual Brad/Toni comic strips that appear in newspapers across America — I’ve gone through some kind of abbreviated Kübler-Ross cycle of grief. First game the visceral disgust, of course. Then came the anger. So much anger! But now I’ve settled into just a sort of bafflement. Is there an audience out there who finds these characters compelling, and, more specifically, who finds their glacial trajectory towards physical intimacy arousing, or at least interesting? Is today’s strip blatantly pandering to America’s small but intense calf-massage-fetish community, possibly as a result of a bribe or a lost bet? Has anyone read Luann this week with a feeling more positive than mild distaste? I honestly want to know the answers to these questions, for real!

Mark Trail, 12/2/10

However, I feel confident that the comics-reading public is regarding this week’s Mark Trail with excitement and anticipation. Just as Kelly Welly is leaning back in that chair, gripping the armrests and waiting eagerly to see Mark naked, so too are we sitting back in our respective sitting-oriented-pieces of furniture, waiting eagerly to see Kelly see Mark naked.

Apartment 3-G, 12/2/10

Comics readers are also intrigued to see how this beret-wearing cab driver’s honest masculine advice will help Aunt Iris bed the bicyclist that she, in some way that I never properly understood, caused to be hit by a car. Under the cabbie’s tutelage, she’ll show up at the cyclist’s apartment with something that’s still alive, like a puppy or a stripper.

Gil Thorp, 12/2/10

Comics readers are somewhat uncomfortable with the notion of people being loaded onto buses and interned in camps far from their homes, but for the Milford football team, they’ll allow it.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/2/10

Ha ha, Jamaal, that chat room is full of other people trying to live out their fantasies! You’re just there to, uh, find out how to get away from there. Due to this strip’s trademark nonspecificity, we have no way of knowing exactly what perverse text-based lusts are being expressed in this online sin den. It’s probably a hot Brad/Toni calf-massage slash fiction site.