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The Comics Curmudgeon Spring 2010 Fundraiser

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Mark Trail, 3/24/10

Narrow escapes a-plenty in today’s comics! Let’s take a look —

Here ends speculation about how Mark would escape his awful “weapon-wielding woman” dilemma (“Must punch!” / “Can’t punch!”). Yesterday’s baffling snapshot turns out to have been no mere appeal to feminine vanity (a concept unknown to Mark anyway), but a crafty ruse to bring a lady-safe weapon to hand with which to disarm an unpunchable adversary. Well played, Mark — say, are those wiles you’re using? Where did you get those? Does Cherry know?

Gil Thorp, 3/24/10

Personality theorist Gordon Allport held that drives (“elope!”) originating in motives (“get married!”, “avoid parents!”) could grow independent of them, or functionally autonomous. And there’s no better example than surly dimwits Ray and Cassie here. But listen to master psychologist and negotiator Steve Luhm unravel the fabric of their self-deception: “Go to Vegas? Why? You can get legally married right here! And Cassie’s parents can’t do anything about it, so why not wait ’til they get back and stick it all up in their faces, yo! Nobody expects you to behave like adults, anyway!”

After the wedding, Cassie’s new husband and her dad join in a savage mutual beat-down of Steve, their only shared interest. The annual beatings, like their friendship, far outlast the marriage and their memories of the day.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/24/10

I had a disturbing thought today. We all know that Rex and June Morgan haven’t really been themselves for some time, what with Rex’s sexual-identity issues, June’s out-of-control obsessions with housekeeping and other people’s children, and the disengaged silence of their lives even as everyone and everything around them crashes into sick burning hell. Despite their recent carefree what — three-day? eight-month? — Caribbean cruise, they seem depressed. And when these two loser twentysomethings showed up, Rex and June couldn’t even summon the energy for more than a stern chat.

Are Rex and June leaving the strip? Are Toots and Brook their replacements?

It could be a desperate marketing gimmick to attract younger readers, or just a salary dispute — after all, who can afford an M.D.’s salary and an R.N.’s just to fill up that tiny patch of newsprint every day. It could be a charitable effort by their syndicate to give these two comic stalwarts the rest of their lives back after all those years of faithful service. In the end, it’s not ours to judge: thank you, Rex and June, and farewell!

So many questions for our new First Couple! What about Abbey (stay!) and Sarah (go!)? Brook, we assume you’ll want to cut back those bangs — folks around here are used to a little more eyebrow, you know what I’m saying? We can talk about wardrobe once you’re settled in, but let me say for now that a certain double-breasted zebra-print belly-sweater is not part of the long-term picture. Also, would a little lipstick kill you, girl?

Oh hi Toots — you still here?

Yeah, they’ll fit in just fine.

Apartment 3-G, 3/24/10

Ha ha panel-two Margo sure is steamed to be listening to her Dad’s treacle while the scent of blood hangs in the air.

Crankshaft, 3/24/10

“Heh, heh — we can’t reward your cheerful attention and hard work in the culturally-accepted way, because it would trivially complicate our petty, exaggerated displays of fairness to one another — people who actually matter! We’re either sure you understand, or unconcerned that you don’t! Hey, my coffee’s cold — get a move on, willya — you’re not gettin’ paid to stand around talking!”

Hey, it’s the Spring 2010 Fundraiser — please join your fellow Comics Curmudgeon readers and me in financial support for Josh Fruhlinger and his fine work on this blog — thank you!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Apartment 3-G, 3/18/10

I’m sure your first cynical reaction upon seeing a mugger on modern planet Earth refer to someone as a “witch” was that this is a comics-page-friendly stand-in for a more common contemporary unpleasantry identical except for the first letter. Consider, though, the ruffian’s oddly anachronistic cowl. Isn’t it at least possible that he is in fact a medieval peasant, rudely thrust, via some natural or man-made temporal anomaly, into present-day Manhattan? To a man who’s grown up in a rigidly patriarchal society, a woman such as Bobbie — brash, forward, apparently unattached, laughing in the face of death — might seem like a terrifying sorceress. Also, our man probably knows no trade other than subsistence agriculture, and his lack of any skills that would be economically useful in the 21st century explains his turn to crime. In short, Bobbie is probably actually just being threatened with a crudely made dagger, or, at worst, an early flintlock pistol more likely to blow up in our misplaced serf’s hand than to do real damage to his target.

Family Circus, 3/18/10

As if the dialogue in this panel weren’t already creeptastic, we also have Jeffy’s exhausted-looking face, which reads not so much as “adorable little kid just waking up” but more as “child exhausted and terrified from trying so hard to dream about YOU MOMMY, ONLY YOU, BUT IT’S SO HARD.” Sorry, Jeffy, if you can’t do it yourself, you’re going to have to wear the Night Terror Jacket again!

Mark Trail, 3/18/10

One of the more baffling undercurrents in this Mark Trail storyline has been a simmering political debate about whether or not “big motors” should be allowed to operate on the lake that has been the focus of the action thus far. I’m not particularly clear on how any of the characters stand on this crucial issue, but the Parker Brothers’ two-smallish-motor-powered boat appears unlikely to satisfy either side. Surely the anti-big-motor activists will point out that this arrangement produces as much noise and pollution as a truly big motor, while big motor aficionados will sneer at the half-assed measure.

Meanwhile, Mark still seems to believe that anyone anywhere still keeps “supplies” in an “icehouse.” Current smart betting on what’s behind that thick door is clustered around “growhouse” and “grisly collection of corpses on hooks.”

Wizard of Id, 3/18/10

Actually, providing adequate sanitation for mobile armies is a problem that has been a crucial part of military planning since the ancient world. It’s one that’s particularly important for armies in the countryside attempting to besiege a city or castle, as Id’s catapult-armed forces appear to be doing here; it wasn’t uncommon for sieges to be lifted not because of the defenders’ military triumph, but because diseases like cholera or dysentery, spread by sewage that hadn’t been dealt with properly, had devastated the besieging army. In fact, in the Crimea in the 1300s, the Mongols … oh, wait, this is the Wizard of Id? Uh, never mind. Ha ha, pooping is funny!

Programming note! Your faithful blogger is now finished with his SXSW adventure … but is just turning around and leaving for a real actual vacation! Said vacation will entail handing over the reins to the inimitable Uncle Lumpy, starting tomorrow and going for a bit longer than a week. Play nice while I’m away!

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Apartment 3-G, 3/12/10

Well, it’s been ten whole weeks — which is what, 48 hours of strip time? 72? — since Margo cleansed away the memory of her dead fiance in holy fire. Now it is time for her to find a new mate! This may bruise your bourgeois sense of sentimentality, but Margo has needs — needs for balding, slightly jowly dudes who are well-connected in the art world. Oh, there will be pleasure, Jack, at least for someone.

Spider-Man, 3/12/10

Ha ha, the only way Peter Parker could be a worse negotiator would be if his eyes popped out of his head and made an AH-WOO-GA noise. I look forward to the next two to four weeks of edge-of-your-seat action, in which our hero tries to cash this check without paying excessive fees, despite the fact that he doesn’t have a local bank account.

Mark Trail, 3/12/10

“That Senator Wallace, he’s a real politician! Remember that time when he campaigned for office, got elected, and then served in the Senate? Man, that’s just the sort of thing a politician would do!”

Marmaduke, 3/12/10

Marmaduke will of course serve as his own defense attorney, at the Hague.