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It’s Thanksgiving in the United States, everybody! What are you thankful for?

Mary Worth, 11/25/10

Are you thankful that some terrible combination of painkillers and terror hasn’t led you to make an ill-advised proposal of marriage to Mary Worth?

Dick Tracy, 11/25/10

Are you thankful that Dick Tracy is finally going to take on the killer whose name everyone knows — the police? (“My God, 911 is a joke!” Dick muses.)

Dennis the Menace, 11/25/10

Are you thankful that you’re not forced to drink glasses of gravy, like Dennis and Joey? I’m not. I’m sad that I’m not allowed to do so. Enjoy your gravy, everybody!

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Mary Worth, 11/22/10

I love the way that Jeff’s cane looms monstrously in the foreground of the second panel here. In a carefully constructed work of visual narrative, this close-up would hold symbolic meaning, perhaps representing the way Jeff has come to rely on Mary to deal with crises in his own family; or the strange emphasis might indicate foreshadowing — perhaps setting the stage for the scene where a heavily armed Jill arrives at the wedding intent on gunning down everyone wearing clothes or carrying bouquets that don’t meet her aesthetic approval, and Jeff defeats her using only his cane as a weapon. But this is Mary Worth, so it’s probably there just because the artist likes drawing canes. And hey, let’s draw it leaning up against the wall at an impossible angle! Sure, why not?

I knew that the wonderful/horrible “Citizen Cane” gag had appeared in Mary Worth before, but I assumed that it had been Dr. Jeff’s joke all along, and that now it was a conversational crutch (ha!) that he used whenever it came up in conversation. “See, I’m not a decrepit, enfeebled old man! I’m wittily commenting on my own need for physical support when I walk! You kids today think you invented ironic distance, don’t you? Well, someday your knees will be in constant pain, and you won’t even be able to put your skinny jeans or your vintage-store corduroys on without popping a fistful of Advil first, and you’ll be proud if you come up with something as funny as ‘Citizen Cane.’ Hey! Get back here! I’m talking to you!”

But a little search through the archives shows me that the joke was actually used by Ella, who was briefly Mary’s rival for Charterstone meddling supremacy before she left for parts unknown. Which raises a host of worrying questions. Did Jeff kill Ella and steal her cane, believing it to be the source of her supernatural powers? Is “Jeff” secretly Ella, wearing a very clever disguise for terrifying and inscrutable reasons? Or is the cane itself the motive force here, possessing first Ella and then Jeff, forcing them to engage in unspeakably evil acts?

The Jumble, 11/22/10

I don’t know why, but I’m kind of impressed that this Jumble office scene includes one of those weird tripodal speakerphone things that are often used to set up phone conferences, or at least were often used 10 years ago, when I last regularly participated in group calls in office conference rooms. I guess I just expect any white-collar workplace scene in the comics to be 30 years out of date at the minimum. I’m so satisfied by it that I’m not even going to pursue the whole story of how to protagonist managed to horribly injure himself getting donuts.

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Funky Winkerbean, 11/11/10

So for no reason other than to drive the narrative, Rachel here has been pitching woo very hard at sad, damaged PTSD case Wally, and earlier this week Wally’s ex-wife slipped her a note on how Rachel could better “help” him. Naturally it was a list of his favorite pornographic films, and now Rachel is going to debase herself further by going and renting (or, God forbid, buying) these from the smut store when there is plenty of perfectly good free pornography on the Internet. This attempt to establish carnal relations will founder like all the others, though, as Wally is, perhaps understandably, less keen on watching dirty movies and screwing and more immediately interested in getting food into his house while avoiding the possibility of having a psychotic break and shooting up the supermarket. Presumably Rachel will find the whole scenario to be a libido-killing level of depressing, and the two of them will just spend the evening at opposite ends of the couch, silently watching Hot Army Lesbos 8 or whatever. Happy Veteran’s Day, everybody!

The Lockhorns, 11/11/10

Somehow, The Lockhorns manages to mine sexual incompatibility for laughs somewhat less depressingly. Who are these party guests in the background? Did Loretta really want her friends to see whatever stab at “sexy garment” a tasteless schlub like Leroy would come up with? I like the way the woman on the left has her gaze cast downward, avoiding eye contact with everyone as she tries to make herself invisible in the midst of all the awkwardness, while the woman on the right is staring directly at Leroy, quietly judging his inadequacies.

Mark Trail, 11/11/10

You know who’s not inadequate at all, though? Mark Trail! Can Mark scramble down a cliff to pull a guy out of a car that has burst hilariously into flames? You bet! Does it matter that Mark already punched this guy out earlier? Nope! Mark giveth (punches) and taketh (you) away (from burning cars)! Mark does it all!

Mary Worth, 11/11/10

If you need proof of how super-lame Adrian is, consider how the scene in panel one, in which her fiance smarmily and obnoxiously invades the personal space of her hateful, critical supposed friend, results in her look of near-religious ecstasy in panel two. “Yay, my man and my best girl friend are finally resolving this conflict that has torn me up inside!” she seems to be saying, when she should think “Jeez, I gotta meet some new people.”

Sadly, from Jill’s whisper-balloon in panel two, it appears that this is not going to be a battle of implacable archetypes who need no motivation other than their own inborn nature, but rather a dispute over, like, love or something. Presumably Jill’s hostility towards Scott and Adrian’s relationship is based in her secret love for the former, and her knowledge that her sharp, strong personality would be a better and more interesting fit for him than bland, boring Adrian. (Normally, it would also be possible that she would be in love with Adrian, but that would be interesting, so it won’t happen.)

Family Circus, 11/11/10

The funniest thing about this to me is the fact that Big Daddy Keane is wearing a completely different set of clothes than his wife and son. “I’ve decided to make dinner tonight!” he announces cheerily. “Does anyone know when ‘tonight’ is? Is it ‘tonight’ right now? I’ve done a lot of meth and I’ve been awake for days!” Billy and Mommy, meanwhile, have been doped up and lolling around the house in the same filthy pajamas, in and out of consciousness, for the better part of the week.