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Gasoline Alley, Dennis the Menace, Blondie, and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/24/08

Hey, remember a while back when Blondie hit its 75th birthday party and the whole comics page was forced, apparently at gunpoint, to celebrate that achievement of inertia? Well, today is the 90th anniversary of the launch of Gasoline Alley, and its longevity is being celebrated by the entire industry these three insanely long-running legacy strip: Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (almost as old at 89, though Snuffy Smith himself did not appear until 1934), Blondie (now 78 years old, showing itself still classy with this reach-around), and Dennis the Menace (a relative baby at 57).

The Gasoline Alley strip itself rather nicely gives us a look at the first three men who worked on the feature; we shall know current artist Jim Scancarelli only as a enormous and terrifying disembodied hand, at least until the strip’s 120th anniversary in 2038. Of the tributes, Blondie wonders if it will be on top of its game, with side-splitting joke after side-splitting joke about giant sandwiches and workplace abuse, fifteen years from now; Barney Google transforms beloved Gasoline Alley patriarch Walt into some kind of pinheaded monster from the depths of your worst nightmares; and Dennis the Menace is too boring to merit further typing on my part, so I’ll stop right here.

Mark Trail, 11/24/08

Say, remember last year when Mark had some kind of extremely half-assed flirtation with Sam Hill, sexy biologist, that was entirely one-sided (and not on Mark’s side) and led to absolutely nothing? Well, apparently it elicited lots of angry letters to Mark Trail headquarters about the sanctity of marriage and whatnot, because now every time we get even a glimpse of what I guess is supposed to be the quarter-assed flirtation between Mark and Sue the Confused Industrialist, one or both of them reflexively start blathering on about his joyless, asexual marriage. Today Jack Elrod has decided to dedicate his artistic skill to one of those awesome crabs with one freakishly large claw, and who can blame him when his other option is to draw these two dopes totally not coming on to one another?

Aren’t those giant crab-claws the result of sexual selection? Perhaps this symbolizes something about this slow-motion love triangle — like, maybe Cherry is about to show up and bludgeon Sue to death with her enormous forearm.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/24/08

Well, our long-promised Morgan Family Cruise Boat Adventure is finally here, after a brief interlude for yachting hijinks (this being Rex Morgan, three and a half months really does count as “brief”). Anyway, we’ll soon find out what sort of nautical medical drama Rex will have to deal with on this dreadful voyage — Legionnaires’ disease? nausea? boredom? — but for the moment, I’d just like to point out that in the world Rex Morgan, M.D., the taxicab industry is dominated by Rastafarians, or at least by dudes in rasta hats.

Herb and Jamaal, 11/24/08

Ha ha! It’s funny because Mexican food makes defecating uncomfortable!

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Apartment 3-G, 11/19/08

So, that killjoy Lu Ann has finally left town, and we all know what that means — BOOZE PARTY IN APARTMENT 3-G, WOO-HOO! Even though it probably won’t end with drunken makeouts, it will still be the greatest: Margo will go on at length about all the men she’s ever slept with and all the men she’s ever killed (the two lists have significant overlap), Ruby will giggle girlishly and tell increasingly humiliating stories about how stupid Lu Ann was as a little girl, and Tommie will sit on the couch staring blankly ahead with her collar buttoned up to the very top button.

Mary Worth, 11/19/08

Oh my God, Mary and Lynn’s hands are about to touch in panel one. Hot … HOTT. Unfortunately, something happened in panel two that worried Mary. We know it must be something serious, because Mary’s far too unflappable to be startled by a little bold font, but I’m at a loss to say what it might be. Is Lynn spontaneously urinating with grief all over the bed? I guess I’ll be forced to tune in tomorrow to find out! And then back to the hand touching.

Mark Trail, 11/19/08

Oh, Rabbit! With each panel in today’s strip, your sneer gets more twisted with hate for everyone — hate for Mark Trail and his lucky punches, hate for your long-suffering wife who always complains about you spending all your time chaining raccoons to logs, hate for this fancy businessman who just thinks he can buy and sell you, which is all the more galling because he can — and yet you work your way further into my heart. I won’t be sorry when your blue baseball cap goes flying through the air again, three to six weeks from now, but I’ll still feel a little bad about your failed search for a place in a world you never made.

By the way, if Charlie gave me an offer like the one he’s giving Rabbit here, this is how I’d go about things:

1. Take the $2,500.
2. Give Mark $2,000 to leave town.
3. Get the other $2,500.
4. Use $3,000 to hire a production company to pitch “Dog vs. Raccoon” to the Discovery Channel, Versus, or ESPN 3.

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Crock, 11/18/08

You know, I’ve become accustomed to being unamused, irritated, or actively angered at the jokes in Crock; but I’m a little unsettled at being completely befuddled by the jokes in Crock, as I am today. Passing over the oddity of someone insulting an immobile desert plant for spending all day in the sun, what on earth are we to make of the cactus’s riposte? Is it meant to mock us for driving, as if the only way to get out of the sun is to drive to shade? Is “sitting all day at four bucks a gallon” a reference to all the time we sit in our cars, which is a choice we make, whereas a cactus must spend the day in the sun due to biological necessity? Is there a heretofore unexplored traffic problem around the Foreign Legion outposts in the Maghrebi desert?

Anyway, normally I’d see something like a giant orange cactus and think “Ha ha, another colorist screw-up!” But in this case, I think it might be an attempt to distract the reader from the nonsensical punchline.

Mark Trail, 11/18/08

Oh my God, if you work at a newspaper, and/or have access to newspaper layout software, and you can create a fake newspaper front page like the one in panel one — with FAMOUS CONSERVATIONIST RESCUES RACCOON screaming across six columns of type, and an enormous picture of Mark and Sneaky, and what appears to be some kind of sidebar story in the rightmost column (“Mysterious ‘Rabbit’ Unrepentant, Soggy”) — then you will be my personal hero. Well, one of my personal heroes, anyway, because right now my personal hero is Jack Elrod, for not letting this story end with a single punch but rather setting up further punching opportunities by having our two villains join forces. I’m particularly in love with the image of Charlie cruising around the rough part of town (or the local gas station, whatever) looking for a raccoonnapping yokel with a chip on his shoulder and a bruise on his jaw.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/18/08

The next two to four weeks of Funky Winkerbean, in a nutshell: HOLY CRAP GIRLS PLAY SPORTS NOW smirking, foreboding

Crankshaft, 11/18/08

The next two to four weeks of Crankshaft, in a nutshell: HOLY CRAP GIRLS DRIVE BUSES NOW smirking, terrible puns