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Judge Parker, 10/17/13

Why it’s the Harrisons! Hello … Audrey! DUN DUN DUN DUN!!!!

Judge Parker, 6/21/13

Well, Audrey, the Parkers actually consider it their table, and you’ll be pretty *&^% lucky if they let you sit down at it, placecards or no.

But as the solitary drop of rain to have fallen on the Parkers’ parade in recent memory, dear Professor Harrison, won’t you please sit over here with us, and your husband too? May we freshen up those drinks for you? Now tell us, in careful, patient detail, leaving nothing out, all the ways that Alan Parker’s The Chambers Affair is a derivative, puerile, monotonous, steaming mass of gelatinous offal. We’ve got all night.

Back at the Parkers’ table, that is the purplest “California chablis” I’ve seen in my life. I’m beginning to think Sam and Abby aren’t very capable vintners.

Mark Trail, 10/17/13

Ah, the lunatic majesty of a Mark Trail plan. All he has to do is confront two heavily armed co-conspirators in the middle of a wilderness. What could possibly go wrong?

I do love the action pose in panel two — if that phone weren’t already dead, it would be in for one heck of a beating right now.

Crankshaft, 10/17/13

The joke is that Crankshaft thinks this is a joke. The shame is that he steps completely out of character to backstop a stupid golf gag. The tragedy is he’s even less appealing this way. The irony is that those charming panel-one leaves demonstrate a level of craft and imagination far beyond anything the text deserves.

Luann, 10/17/13

These little flickers of self-awareness never amount to anything.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Funky Winkerbean, 10/14/13

In exchange for his miserable wordplay, Jim Kablichnik gets a ticket to Becky’s miserable event — a capsule illustration of Westview economics.

In the standard microeconomic model, transactions equilibrate supply and demand. But the classical supply curve occupies only the upper-right of four quadrants, the one where supply and demand both have positive value. An entire economy can be built in the lower-left quadrant, if a group of people can be found who will ignore their own satisfaction and seek instead to maximize one another’s misery. Sound like anybody we know?

Here’s how it works – Kablichnik creates misery de novo, just as a miner might bury valuable metal or a cobbler ruin shoes. In panel 2, Jim demands that Becky “get”, or accept, his miserable utterance — but Becky is prepared! Her ticket-currency* stores the misery accumulated during hours of student band practice, and she quickly agrees to an exchange that she rightly calls ‘even.’ Jim also accepts, no doubt musing how he’s going to stick the ticket to Les Moore, whose industrial-scale misery production puts him at the pinnacle/nadir of Westview’s upper/under class.

Trade dynamics need to be worked out. A misery-based economy like Westview could be an appealing trading partner if we can overcome two problems: First, the town offers nothing of value to exchange for the misery that utility-based economies would heap on it. Second, the liquidity of the Westview Misery Market is limited by the number of tears those poor souls can cry.

It’s possible we could create leverage through mockery. After all, multiple voices can ridicule a single underlying misfortune, thus securitizing misery at one remove and dodging the liquidity problem. The misery that comes from being mocked is added value. I see a market-making role for the Comics Curmudgeon here. What could possibly go wrong?

* Denominated in “Montonis”, where 1 Montoni = the aggregate misery generated by consuming a medium plain pizza at the named establishment (no take-outs or deliveries). The “Free Pizza” coupon is the basic unit; a “Battle of the Bands” ticket is worth 5 Montonis and a “Lisa’s Legacy Run” credential 10.

Mark Trail, 10/14/13

“I pick up a piece of recognizably modern technology for the first time in half a century and this happens! That’s it — I’m going back to the steam semaphore for good!

Dick Tracy, 10/14/13

“Your horns are — fake. Power Rays — fake. Eyes, teeth, hair, family, biography, memories — fake, fake, fake! Are you sensing a theme here, sweetheart? ‘Cause I haven’t got all day for this.”

“[Crap, how hard do I have to pull on this thing to get some smoke out of it? I swear if Morrie’s slipping those damn Parodis in with my Cubans again I’ll put the Havana punch to his other pinky.]”

“You were engineered out of some kid and goo from the bottom of Moon Maid’s wreck. You’ve been brainwashed and there’s a GPS in your abdomen. Crooks did it to steal my 1970’s magnetism technology, which you can pick up at The Sharper Image these days for about eighty-nine bucks.”

“[Dammit, I want to smoke this thing, not drink it. That stupid magnetic humidor Jameson got me at Sharper Image must be on the fritz again.]”

“They picked you because nobody cared enough to keep an eye on you or report you missing. Kidnappers took a shortcut. That’s what crooks do – you blame ’em?”

“[That warranty’s got to be in here someplace and it damn well better be a full year or I’ll ruin their sorry asses. Again.]”

“Somebody bring me a damn toothpick!”

Gasoline Alley, 10/14/13

I don’t know whether this speaks worse of Clovia or Slim. The dog’s not entirely blameless either.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Mark Trail, 10/5/13

Whoa you guys, Mark is using high technology to defeat his enemies. And by “high technology” I mean “a cell phone that appears to have a seven- or eight-inch screen.” That counts, for this strip! Hiding an enormous tablet-slab might be slightly trickier than stashing away a smaller phone would’ve been, though.

The tragedy of today’s Mark Trail is the terrible coloring job. Mark appears to be wearing a charming western jacket with arrows embroidered on it. Do you expect me to believe that the whole thing is just a dull brown? For shame, King Features colorists! We want to see Mark’s jauntiest outfit ever in all its glory!

Beetle Bailey, 10/5/13

Normally, if a beloved long-running family comic strip that runs in thousands of newspapers had a character openly arranging an orgy, you might think that was kind of noteworthy, you know? But now my attitude is “Well, at least all of the women he’s planning on having sex with are biological life forms and not crudely anthropomorphic robots,” so well played, Beetle Bailey!

Shoe, 10/5/13

This bird-lady and her bird-husband went on a second honeymoon and, despite her husband’s advanced years, they were able to have all the intercourse they wanted, thanks to modern pharmaceutical science.