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Mary Worth, 7/29/10

I’m not going to lie to you: the deeper Dr. Mike sinks into misery, the happier I get. Thus I’m nearly ecstatic at the first-panel flashback, in which he mopes sullenly in the rain, having been stood up by his deadbeat dad once again, with only an albino pigeon for company. In panel two we see the present-day man tormented by these visions, and attempting to punch them out of his mind, or at least knock himself out and fall into blessed unconsciousness. Mary, watching over tented fingers, seemed stunned at just how quickly her latest meddle has gotten so awesome.

Momma, 7/29/10

But I don’t want you to think that I wish ill to all inhabitants of the comics pages! For instance, poor Tina is one of the minor characters whose plight I feel most keenly. She’s been exposed to this sort of Oedipal horror for the entire duration of her marriage, but from her crumpled mouth and thousand-mile stare in panel three, I’m thinking that today may be the day when she finally snaps.

Beetle Bailey, 7/29/10

Camp Swampy’s base doctor was a good choice to conduct the terrible medical experiments that the government is secretly carrying out on unwitting human subjects, since he appears to be literally incapable of empathy.

EXCITING CONTEST OPPORTUNITY: You have all probably been wondering “Why is Gil Thorp wasting its time this summer on golf, the most boring sport in existence, without even the fun of Marty Moon being humiliated?” Well, it might have something to do with a little contest being run by the Detroit News, which employs Gil Thorp writer Neal Rubin to write about sports as his day job. Readers vote for a News writer; whoever gets the most votes will get $500 bucks for his or her favorite charity, and one person who voted for the winner will be selected at random to spend some Quality Time with that writer. So obviously you should all vote for Neal, get some cash to Gleaners Community Food Bank, and get in the running to win “a lavish lunch for two with Neal Rubin at one of the area’s best restaurants, or lunch and a round of golf for two with Neal at Plum Hollow Country Club in Southfield.” If you play golf with him, you must dress up as Ben Franklin and keep trying to get him to bet on the game. DO IT! VOTE NOW! (Thanks to faithful reader jvwalt for the tip!)

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Blondie, 7/27/10

I can’t tell you how tickled I am by the phrase “Whoa! Slow down, Edison!” It seems very anachronistic, somehow. When exactly did Edison stop being a typical metonym for “genius”? Probably right around the time that his electric light and phonograph started looking pretty feeble next to the awesome majesty of the atomic bomb, and he was forever displaced in most people’s minds by Albert Einstein. Considering the strip’s legacy status, it’s quite appropriate that Dagwood is talking to an IT staffer using a pre-World War II vocabulary.

Luann, 7/27/10

So, uh, Brad is hoping that Toni will absorb his no doubt formidable B.O., just by being a girl in his immediate proximity? Or is this supposed to imply something sexuNNNGGGHG DON’T THINK IT DON’T THINK IT

Panel from Mary Worth, 7/27/10

Ha ha, I honestly believe that this is one of the best Mary Worth moments of the past year. Look at how angry and confused Dr. Mike is. “Grr! So angry and confused! I want to punch something or someone, but I don’t know who or what!”

Crankshaft, 7/27/10

Crankshaft forgot to feed his cat, so it ran away.

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Archie, 7/23/10

You know, I actually feel kind of bad for Archie, here; his facial expression in the third panel, though partly masked by terrifying clown makeup, really is sort of heartbreaking. Archie’s a nice guy! He only wants the best for Veronica, at least when he doesn’t want the best for Betty! Why won’t Mr. Lodge love him, or at least treat him with grudging affection? With all the mean things Mr. Lodge has said to Archie’s face, you’d think there wouldn’t be anything he could say behind his back that would make Archie so upset, but there he is, looking like the saddest clown in Riverdale.

Archie, you don’t want this heartless plutocrat’s love! Look, he’s currently smugly reading his own autobiography, Me! Not that he wrote it himself, mind you; he passed that duty off to one of his minions, which is why the author photo is actually of the money he used to pay the ghostwriter.

Shoe, 7/23/10

The Inappropriate Goggle Eyes of Horror are one of my most favorite visual tics in Shoe; these occur when a Shoe character encounters a typical lame Shoe punchline and reacts with a facial expression more appropriate for someone who just heard news about a fresh round of genocide. It’s common enough that it’s actually sort of remarkable when you don’t see it, as you don’t here. What is the distinction between punchlines that elicit goggle-eyed horror and those that do not? They all seem equally tepid. Is Shoe’s desperate alcoholism just such a well-known part of his personality that nobody bothers to react to it? Or is the Perfesser even more numb to life’s horror than usual today?

Crock, 7/23/10

Well, I guess this week’s evidence is that Crock is just going to hurl headfirst into horror and nightmare. If they’re going to go that route, I wish they’d do a little fact-checking. For instance, generally speaking germs are used in germ warfare rather than chemical warfare.

Mary Worth, 7/23/10

Oh, God, please let the Oedipal Complex be one of the Freudian theories Mary disputes. “Tell me about your mother. She and I are probably about the same age. Do I resemble her … physically?”

To avoid having this conversation, Dr. Mike has clearly chosen suicide. In panel one, his face twists in pain as he plunges that pencil he was playing with into his gut; in panel two, his expression goes slack as he finally finds peace.