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Judge Parker, 1/24/07

Sometimes I like to imagine what would happen if you came from another planet or something and were given a cursory education in the usual sort of comics, with jokes and whatnot, and then you encountered a gem like today’s Judge Parker. Would you stare in horror at the third panel for hours, trying to figure how “You see, I have cancer … and the doctors are not optimistic!” might qualify as one of these “jokes” or “punchlines” you’ve heard about? Would you connect your Interstellar Space Radio to Central Command on Planet Zyvex and say, “Call off our invasion fleet! These Earth humans … they laugh at suffering and death! They find the painful passing of their old ones a source of amusement! Surely they would throw all thoughts of their own safety aside and fearlessly engage even our most deadly trained Sau’dukar Warriors in bloody combat! For Melkar’s sake, turn those ships around!”

It’s not likely, I know, but I’m just saying. Judge Parker may have just saved us all from being forced to dance for the Galactic Emperor Chennux’s amusement until we dropped dead from exhaustion.

Alien invasions aside, the phrase “I’m an old woman and I’m going to die” may be the most depressing ever uttered in a comic strip, and I’m including Funky Winkerbean in that assessment. At least Funky gives you some sort of pun to cut the gloom. In fact, based on that first panel, I’m not convinced that Rachel is still alive at the moment; she looks an awful lot like Norman Bates’ taxidermied mother. Which doesn’t speak well for Abbey’s sanity. Not that anyone with that haircut could truly be called “sane.”

Beetle Bailey, 1/24/07

This Beetle Bailey storyline of barely closeted homosexuality has been winding along like a third-rate Tennessee Williams knockoff for weeks now. First Beetle finally realizes that his attempts at physical intimacy with women are a sham, then starts to subtly acknowledge his abusive relationship with an older man. Today, having finished with his beard, he’s decided to pawn her off on the village idiot.

Miss Buxley, of course, isn’t consulted about her own sex life, because she’s a pretty girl and this is Beetle Bailey, duh.

Luann, 1/24/07

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, the only way this storyline is going to make any sense is if it involves a faulty contraceptive and a time machine.

In case you haven’t been following Luann, our flat-topped adoptee is supposed to be in Iraq. Now, never having been either adopted or in a war, I may not know what I’m talking about, but I think I’d have other things on my mind if I were him.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/24/07

What’s it going to take to revive this painfully tedious storyline? A horribly burned, foul-mouthed, halfwit-criminal-dating meth cook? I for one am ready to take that chance.

Archie, 1/24/07

Yeah, so Jughead wants to eat Archie’s eyes. The look of stunned horror on Veronica’s face in panel two is actually pretty much justified.

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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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Beetle Bailey, 12/20/06

And Beetle Bailey’s queasy, uncomfortable treatment of sexuality continues apace. (See here, here, and here for more of it, if you dare.) There’s an increasingly disturbing undercurrent of sexual mismatch in the strip, as various desperate plays for intimacy are parried by hostility, apathy, or restrictive military regulations against sexual harassment and/or gayness. Since they’re denied by their cruel overlords the Walkers either the right to get it on with one another or to experience the catharsis of combat, it’s no wonder the denizens of Camp Swampy are such emotional wrecks.

Apartment 3-G, 12/20/06

Worry not, friends: we are only privy to these uncharacteristically humble meanderings through the cartoon magic of thought balloons; no other A3G character will ever learn of them, since Margo shuns human intimacy and all other forms of weakness. I’m just charmed to find out that she refers to herself by her last name in her negative self-talk.

Gil Thorp, 12/20/06

With Stormy Hicks and Stumpy Ritter bundled safely off to the Naval Academy Prep School and the Paralympics, respectively, it’s time for a new storyline in Gil Thorp. This of course inevitably involves confusion and chaos, since it can take days or weeks before anyone can tell what the hell is going on. At first I thought that our Syracuse-branded sweatshirt fan was ex-hobo Ted Pearse, but it’s actually the noted “Lisa Wyche.” Perhaps we’ll get an intriguing plot involving same-sex loving on the girl’s basketball team, or at least parental disapproval of tomboyishness. No matter what, though, I need to see as much of Lisa’s terrifying space alien mother as humanly possible.

Luann, 12/20/06

Allow me to translate, Puddles: you aren’t getting jack for Christmas. It’s a good thing you have some biped friends, or else you’d be in a burlap sack at the bottom of a river. Capisce? Now leave Santa the hell alone.