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Sally Forth, 11/9/07

OK, so presumably this is just the usual non-English-speaking colorist stupidity, but wouldn’t it be great if Sally’s mom really is girlishly arranging her entirely grey hair while boasting of her blondness? It could be the first sign of her descent into dementia and madness — or at least Sally could sell it as such when she has her mother committed. As the men in white suits drag the straight-jacketed matriarch away while Ted jeers, she’d bellow “THEY HAVEN’T BUILT A CAGE THAT CAN HOLD ME!” Later, she becomes a deranged supervillain infinitely more terrifying than the Shocker.

Gil Thorp, 11/9/07

YES! YES! YES! Cully told this white-suited dude to “ease up”! We all know that the last person to utter this line in Gil Thorp, was Coach Kaz, and mere days later it gave rise to unspeakable violence. Presumably when Mr. Cranky Pants steadfastly refuses to ease up, Cully will apply fadeaway slam after fadeaway slam until his hapless victim “accidentally” dies.

Marvin, 11/9/07

Marvin is apparently heavily invested in having an excuse to pee on his dad’s face.

Pluggers, 11/9/07

Pluggers know that you don’t need anyplace fancy to have a good, old-fashioned meth binge.

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Gil Thorp, 11/8/07

“Gentlemen, I’ve just heard from the athletic director. It seems that in this so-called sport of ‘football’, you’re supposed to accumulate more points than the opposite team, and your quarterback isn’t supposed to wildly hurl the ball in the direction of the opposing players. We’ve been doing this all wrong, apparently. Who knew?”

I’m not sure where Cully and his thuggish friends are stopping for a snack. It appears to be a bookstore of some sort, albeit one with a sliding glass door. Perhaps they plan to show their hatred for learning and knowledge of all kinds by eating the books rather than reading them.

Also of note today are a pair of classic Gil Thorp back-of-the-head oh-my-God-I-don’t-think-those-people-have-any-faces shots of dudes with wildly inappropriate earrings.

Mark Trail, 11/8/07

Hey, Johnny, maybe if you had gone and helped your son rather than spending the afternoon carefully waxing your mustache out to Kaiser Wilhelm-esque proportions, he wouldn’t be in this mess. Presumably Malotte père plans to punish the boy by tying him to a set of railroad tracks.

Family Circus, 11/8/07

From: The Comics Curmudgeon
To: The Family Circus
Re: Today’s cartoon

Here is a (non-comprehensive) list of things I do not want to see or see discussed in any future installments of your feature:

• Spanking
• Ass-padding that mitigates the discomfort of spanking
• Edible ass-padding that mitigates the discomfort of spanking
• Little Jeffy attempting to eat an enormous marshmallow that is larger than his mouth

I thank you for your time.

Marvin, 11/8/07

So, we can make jokes in the newspaper about babies urinating on people’s faces now? For real? Mavin’s smug facial expression really pushes this one over the edge for me. It’s like he’s saying “Oh yeah, dad, I’m going to piss all over your face. Yeah. It’s gonna be awesome.”

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Dick Tracy, 10/25/07

I’m going to ignore the concept of an old haunted house with a bad reputation (as opposed to the many old haunted houses haunted by jovial, friendly ghosts who give back rubs and offer stock tips) as garden-variety Dick Tracy madness. But I am intrigued by the mortgage default angle here. Is Dick Tracy going to be the first comic (other than Hi and Lois, which was much more oblique about it) to cover the bursting housing bubble and subprime mortgage collapse? Will this storyline end with Detective Tracy pumping hot lead into some bank loan office while growling “That’s one loan you never should have underwritten”? Stay tuned!

Mark Trail, 10/25/07

OK NOW? NOW WILL THIS FREAKIN’ DUCK STORYLINE END? NOW? Anyway, word of advice to Homer: stay the hell away from those ducks. Their aberrant, freakish coloring indicates that they’re hideous mutants and thus almost certainly highly radioactive. Plus, they’re not really your “family.” They’re ducks. They’re barely aware of your existence. They’ll completely ignore you if someone shows up with a loaf of bread, and when they decide to fly off — which they will — no thoughts of your lumpy face and bandage-wrapped noggin will ever cross their tiny, pea-sized brains again. Sorry, that’s just the way it is. And frankly, that’s pretty much the way it’s going to be with your human children as well.

Marvin, 10/25/07

I kind of love the expression on Marvin’s friend’s face here. He looks like someone who’s just been acquainted with the messy details of human reproduction. “Wait, dad did WHAT to mom’s WHAT? And then he did WHAT? And now a baby’s going to come out of WHAT? Oh, hell no.”

Pluggers, 10/25/07

ALERT! ALERT! A PLUGGER IN SECTOR 7-G HAS IDENTIFIED HERSELF AS “FUN-LOVING”! PLEASE INCREASE THE PERVASIVE SOUL-CRUSHING SENSE OF AWFULNESS IN THAT SECTOR AT ONCE! NO PLUGGER IS PERMITTED TO EXPERIENCE SO-CALLED “FUN”!

(By the way, if you have no idea what the hell this is about, it’s about this, and, by extension, probably this. But it’s Pluggers, so really who the hell knows.)

They’ll Do It Every Time, 10/25/07

Comics Curmudgeon readers are either all cranks or really good at coming up with little real-life ironies that appeal to Al Scaduto — or both! Anyway, “Gaylord Fields” is really faithful reader HBGlord! His explanation of the circumstances behind this strip is much funnier than any commentary I could come up with:

Like literally everything that has ever run in TDIET, the inspiration was real life. Sitting in bed at 4 a.m. fuming after the now-recorded-for-posterity incident unfolded, I looked over at my lovely wife and saw her morph into none other than Migraina! At that moment a light-bulb appeared over my head (which also didn’t help me get back to sleep). I’m sure that’s exactly how great writers like Hemingway got their inspiration to, well, not so much create classic literary works as much as blow their brains out.

Finally, unrelated to anything but something you need to read: Shaenon Garrity has figured out the deal with Funky Winkerbean. (And if you like that essay, you’ll probably want to read her seminal “Why I Hate Anthony” if you haven’t already.)