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Cathy, 8/24/09

For most of mid-August, Cathy revolved around Irving’s Facebook-inspired loathing of his current haircut, followed by his intense anxiety about switching hairdressers, so his studied nonchalance upon actually getting a new ’do is deeply irritating, matched in that regard only by everything else that’s happened in Cathy ever. Fortunately, in the final panel, it appears that our put-upon stylist is planning to behead her annoying customer with her clippers.

Dick Tracy, 8/24/09

I’m pretty curious about the conversation that led up to today’s first panel of Dick Tracy, in which the creepy Mr. Pops attempts to explain to Dick the rudiments of his job description. “So, Mr. Pops, I noticed that when you and your similarly dressed cohorts were performing, the audience members’ mouths were pulled up at the corners, and they were expelling air from their lungs in a series of short, staccato bursts that sounded like ‘ha, ha’. More troubling still, in those moments they appeared to not be consumed by thoughts of torture and death. What sort of diabolical scheme is this?”

Slylock Fox, 8/24/09

This may be the first Slylock Fox mystery strip I’ve seen in which two humans interact with each other, and I’ve got to say that I find it very disturbing that Slylock is there to protect the property rights of a man who sells animals for a living. Despite all of his nosey police work, Slylock appears to be nothing more than an vulpine Uncle Tom, happy to buttress the institutions that enslave his fellow beasts! For shame, sir!

Also, seeing as Slick Smitty must be freakishly strong to be able to hold up a bag of water more than three feet in diameter, I certainly hope that Slylock’s human overlords trust him enough to arm him, or else this could get ugly.

Mary Worth, 8/24/09

“…but then Ian said something pompous that irritated some drunken hooligans, so, long story short, he got stabbed to death. Hey, is Charley Smith still single?”

Sigh. Sorry, Scotland, I don’t mean to make cruel jokes about your reputation as Britain’s knifecrime capital. It’s just that, while a Charterstone pool party is usually a happy occasion to me, the one getting underway here can only be a source of sadness, as it marks the definitive and anticlimactic end of the Charley-Delilah-Lawrence storyline, which was once so promising. Sure, we’ll always have that deliriously wonderful week in Charley’s love pad, but I can’t help but think that the strip could have reached even greater heights of entertaining insanity. Would Ian’s cruel, violent death at the hands of junk-sick thugs alleviate my ennui? Well, maybe a little.

Hi and Lois, 8/24/09

Speaking of Scotland, today’s Hi and Lois offers a particularly pathetic look into Hi’s inner life. Sure, it’s only natural that a guy would want to ditch out on his wife and family to go play golf among the stab-happy Scots — I mean, how can wives and families ever match up with golf, right? However, it appears that Hi’s reverie consists not of him actually taking a golf vacation, but rather of him telling his layabout neighbor that he wishes he could take a golf vacation. It’s a sad day when your fantasy life consists of turning down opportunities that really aren’t even that exciting in the first place.

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Mary Worth, 8/18/09

See, this is what keeps drawing me back to Mary Worth year after year — the brief moments of terror amid the long stretches of boredom. Panel two seems to lurch at us directly out of some Escherian nightmare, with Delilah’s head and Lawrence’s hand looming impossibly large for the relative distances established in the first panel. And artistic trauma aside, I’m unsettled by Lawrence’s instinct to muffle whatever mildly simpering response Delilah’s about to come up with. “When we have kids, I’ll want to spend time raising them. It’s a more important job.” “I feel the same! But what about the loss of incMMMMFFFF!” “Hush, my beauty. I SAID I’LL BE SPENDING MY TIME RAISING THEM WHILE YOU LOOK ON IN ADORING SILENCE!”

Mark Trail, 8/18/09

Oh, bitter irony! Having trained for so long to merely wound and scare with his gun, our rifleman finds himself unable to finish off Mark, and instead sets loose an avalanche of toxic waster barrels that will crush him to pulp. Of course, if my many years of reading comics have taught me anything, it’s that the noxious chemicals will preserve his mangled body and grant him terrifying superpowers. Mark will return to his cabin with his usual smug grin, unaware that Lost Forest is being stalked by a monstrous orange supervillain: The Near Misser!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/18/09

If Becka’s look of mounting anxiety in the third panel is any indication, this half-assed flirting is going even worse than I had feared. “Oh, God, fly fishing? Really? This is awful. I gotta find one of those depressing demented people to chat with.”

Apartment 3-G, 8/18/09

Actually, Lu Ann, I think it’s more accurate to say that Tommie is socially awkward.

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Mary Worth, 8/14/09

OK, folks, as much as we keep making jokes about Lawrence’s extracurricular sex activities, I think we’re just sort of whistling in the dark to stave off our acknowledgement of the inevitable denouement of this tale: namely, that Delilah is going to drag Lawrence bodily into his hotel room, throw him down onto the overstarched sheets, and perpetrate scandalous acts of marital intimacy that she learned about from the backs of the DVD cases on Charley’s porn shelf, singing Rogers and Hammerstein all the while. “But Josh!” you’re probably saying, “this is the comics page, and Mary Worth to boot! Can they imply that a sex act might happen, even off-stage?” Well, if said characters are joined in holy and legal matrimony, I’m afraid so, if this steamy honeymoon scene from a few years ago is any indication, so we’re just going to have to brace ourselves for the red hot Lawrence-on-Delilah action. It’s fitting that Lawrence is checked into room 2012, the year of the Mayan apocalypse, as these unlikeable characters’ coupling will make us all long for the end times.

Gil Thorp, 8/14/09

As an already angry and hate-filled Marty DeJong peppers Ted Pearse’s team of hobo children with baseballs, the Scott McCloud lookalike urges him to “ease up.” Longtime Gil Thorp readers know that this seemingly innocent two-word combination is actually a trigger phrase, which will inevitably lead to someone getting punched in the tonsils. All I can say is that it’s about time.

Archie, 8/14/09

You know, Archie, maybe you ought to worry less about Dilton’s whimsical sports mix-ups and more about the fact that time and space are bending improbably all around you. Note that Moose’s torso is in front of the volleyball net, but his feet are behind the sand dune’s rise, and the net’s pole is well in front of it. This dimensional anomaly can’t be good for your health, and Archie is right in its path.