Post Content

Archie, 10/25/10

The lame ostensible joke in today’s Archie is hardly worthy of mention, though I do like the all-purpose “ARCHIE DID IT” frame-up note Coach Whoever is holding in panel one. But I’m intrigued by the scene in panel two, in which we see that the Riverdale team mascot is so committed to his mascotting duties that he stays in his sweaty, claustrophobic fursuit even when there’s no game on and he’s trying to woo the ladies. Perhaps he’s been told that his eyes are his best feature, and he believes that their sexiness will be enhanced if his face is obscured by a fake dog-neck and only his eyes are visible, staring eerily out of an otherwise black slit. He is mistaken.

I suspect that he in fact is the one who framed Archie, since the strip protagonist’s well-known if incomprehensible sex appeal was probably ruining the chances of all the other male-types in the room. This strip also makes this episode from last year even less comprehensible, since the squirrel-man in the background there doesn’t even have the excuse of “Oh, I’m the team mascot” to exist. Perhaps at some point the school board decided that the “Dogs Of Indeterminate Breed” made a more menacing team avatar than the “Insanely Grinning Tree-Rodents.”

Apartment 3-G, 10/25/10

Clearly Tommie’s slightly different haircut is not enough to radically alter her personality, because Aunt Iris is here to loosen her up! This will be fun until we find out that Iris is actually in New York because her home’s been foreclosed and she’s one step ahead of her creditors.

Mark Trail, 10/25/10

While there is literally no way within the laws of physics as we know them to defend against Mark Trail’s fists, it’s actually quite easy to win a battle of wits against him, as he’s a semi-autistic with little understanding of how and why humans behave in the way they do. “What’s that, man who I punched in the face and publicly humiliated just days ago? You want to help me with something? That’s great! How helpful of you! Yes, I will meet you in the ambush-location of your choosing!”

Post Content

Dennis the Menace, 10/22/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because Mr. Wilson’s life has been an endless series of disappointments, which is why he’s so angry all the time!

Mark Trail, 10/22/10

Oh, come on, Mark, you get a chance to punch an animal-hating baddie in the face two or three times a year. Don’t expect us to play along like this isn’t a thing that you do, constantly. (“Dear Punching Magazine: I never thought this would happen to me…”)

Pluggers, 10/22/10

I don’t see any DTV converter box anywhere in this panel, so I’m guessing that our poor plugger has been fiddling with the various knobs on that ol’ TV for about 14 months now. Not constantly, obviously; but every once in a while, when he’s feeling particularly bored and lonely, he turns on the old set, sees there’s still nothing but snow on the screen, and jiggers the buttons, thinking this time, maybe this time he’ll get his stories back. And the game. I just want to watch the game in peace, lord, is that so much to ask? Maybe it’s the horizontal. Did I try playing with the horizontal last time? Maybe I didn’t, and this time it’ll work.

Post Content

Mark Trail, 10/21/10

Some of my readers rushed to declare Friday’s Mark Trail, in which our hero leaps over a barbed-wire-topped fence to knock a rifle out of a senator’s hands, to be the greatest Mark Trail ever. Well, I hope you all feel a little sheepish now that you’ve seen today’s strip, a glorious single-panel tableau in which Future Governor Frank kicks a fawn in the butt while his stepdaughter, Mark, and the man whose political patronage he’s been so desperately seeking all look on in horror. We of course can’t declare this strip the best of all time — for, in a world that has brought forth such wondrousness, how can we put limits on the potential joys of the future? — but it sure is pretty great.

Shoe, 10/21/10

Something doesn’t seem right here: I thought that, in the Shoe world, Roz serves coffee and comfort food from a diner counter on a tree branch, whereas booze is dished out in smoky bars that do not appear to be tree-based structures. But this is mere nitpickery, I know! I should just enjoy the hilarious joke here, about how the strip’s main characters use their crippling alcoholism as an excuse for being cheapskates.

Luann, 10/21/10

So, yeah, I haven’t really been able to bring myself to comment on the “Brad and the gang deal with the serious problems of stalking and domestic violence with Three’s Company-worthy hijinks” plotline over the past few weeks. But then I got to today and saw Brad and TJ talking about ladies underwear, and I thought to myself, “No way in hell am I suffering through this alone.” SO HERE IT IS! LOOK AT IT! LOOK AT THEM TALKING ABOUT PANTIES!

Judge Parker, 10/21/10

Ha ha, it wouldn’t be a Judge Parker story if one of the already wealthy principals didn’t become even richer at the end of it. Sam plays golf with a guy for 10 minutes and sees him get killed? Boom! A $100,000 advance check for Judge Parker! Sam violates legal ethics willy-nilly to sort of half-assedly solve a mystery? Wham! A cool hundred large for him too! Now the hour or so he spent helping Jules set up an Excel spreadsheet will net him a third of what will no doubt turn out to be an insanely lucrative business. It’s a good thing his house is so big, because he’s going to need someplace to put his huge piles of stupid money.