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Ziggy, 2/11/08

Every once in a while, something deeply strange and more than a little bit wonderful peeks out at you from the cracks in the tired old surface of a long-running comic strip. Today, Ziggy, having long failed in his quest to make human friends, and routinely mocked and derided by his own pets, is searching for companionship from a machine, which, he sadly believes, will be able to soothe his loneliness. But he’s not satisfied with the run-of-the-mill answering machines that merely record phone messages and play them back at the touch of a button; instead, he’s searching for an advanced model with basic decision-making abilities. In so doing, he touches on a philosophical dilemma that has troubled great thinkers for centuries: can truly rewarding affection come from an entity lacking free will? If Ziggy’s answering machine is forced by its programming to love him, can what it feels truly be said to be “love” at all, rather than mere slavish devotion? But, on the other hand, if the answering machine is allowed to decide on its own what to feel about Ziggy, won’t it respond with the same mixture of pity and disgust universally held by the service employees, animals, and newspaper readers who encounter him daily?

Dick Tracy, 2/11/08

I was going to laugh mightily at Dick Tracy’s decision to make up, and then explain in a footnote, a completely nonexistent slang term for being nefariously rendered unconscious by a baddie with a roofie and/or a dart gun, but then I consulted Urban Dictionary and found that “smacked” can mean getting high from smoking marijuana or taking Ecstasy. While this doesn’t necessarily conflict with the narrator-supplied definition of “foreign substance in system,” it obviously puts an entirely different spin on the scenario: the problem is not so much a stealthy, sinister baddie willing to do anything to kidnap the Chief, but rather an out-of-control drug problem that’s affected even the police force’s most elite officers. Fortunately, once Chief Liz has been recovered, Dick Tracy will deal with the hippie slacker responsible, probably with the butt of his pistol.

Gil Thorp, 2/11/08

OH SWEET SWEET SWEET lunging out of the mental hospital and into the third panel at a bizarre, inexplicable angle: it’s self-bashing Tyler! Who, uh, looks actually pretty much exactly like Andrew Gregory. Really, is there a Valley Conference rule that says that one spit-curled player must be on the court at all times?

Spider-Man, 2/11/08

Oh, man, no matter how often Spider-Man is felled by getting hit in the back of a head with a lead pipe with absolutely no warning from his spider-sense, it never gets old. Never.

Mary Worth, 2/11/08

do it Drew do it just turn the wheel a little to the left LIFE’S NOT WORTH LIVING do it do it do it

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Archie, 2/1/08

Uh-oh, looks like the Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000 has found a way to connect its cybernetic consciousness to broadcast TV! How else can we explain the grotesquely overwrought mugging for the “camera” in panels one and three? The AJGLU 3000 must think we organic consciousnesses live our lives out in some sort of awful state of constant performance, always exaggerating our reactions to everyday events to amuse an unseen chorus of canned laughter that chortles at our hoary jokes and slow burns. No wonder it holds us in such obvious contempt.

Dennis the Menace, 2/1/08

I know that it makes me both a crude and a bad person, but I find something distinctly but nonspecifically dirty (in the “dirty joke” sense) about today’s Dennis the Menace caption. Joey appears to be trying to wrap his tiny little brain about just what exactly it might mean.

Apartment 3-G, 2/1/08

Hey, Alan, that’s just the sort of thing that some of us are into, OK?

Speaking of things that some of us are into, Blaze has been looking resplendent in his dusty rose/baby blue westernwear combination for the past few days. It’s as if the artist sent a note to the coloring crew saying, “I know we already named him ‘Blaze’ and have him walking around New York dressed as a cowboy for no good reason, but could you make it a little more … obvious?”

Mary Worth, 2/1/08

This is one of the most vile, disgusting, and repugnant things I’ve ever seen in all my years of reading Mary Worth. Honestly, the nerve of these people, putting this in the newspaper where children can see it. Don’t they know that Ryan is Vera’s boss, thus making their relationship intradepartmental dating, not interdepartmental dating? I mean, good gracious!

The implication that days at the Affect Advertising Agency are little more than nonstop orgies, on the other hand, is all good fun. We really should have expected it, anyway, what with Vera’s first day consisting mostly of grab-ass.

Spider-Man, 2/1/08

So, Spider-Man is using an jailed criminal associate of Simon Krandis as bait to attract the Persuader’s attention, making appear as if he (the criminal associate) was being shuttled to the governor for a pardon. Naturally, the Persuader pulled a sixteen-wheeler in front of the van in which said prisoner was being transported and then sucked the van into the trailer using powerful magnets. And now Spidey claims that this is “just what [he] expected.” Uh huh.

I don’t mean to doubt the word of superheroes or anything, but nothing I’ve seen out of Peter Parker has indicated particular cunning or intelligence. This is a guy who forgets that he has his costume on under his clothes when he goes to the doctor, who forgets that his costume is in his luggage when traveling through airport security, and who thinks that his wife making lots of money as a movie star is a bad thing. Thus, I’m going to guess that he did not in fact predict the magnetized kidnapping of this van, which is quite honestly the most surprising thing to happen in this strip in the past year and a half. His bizarre stab at punnery in panel two — “Let the good times roll! … just like, um, we were, rolled into this truck? Get it?” — is a mask for his total state of flabbergasted surprise. Those wavy lines aren’t his raging spider-sense; they’re ordinary human panic.

Mark Trail, 2/1/08

Speaking of stupid people, Mark sure watched that plane (whose passengers just shot at him mere moments ago, let me remind you) get all North By Northwesty for quite a while before deciding to jump for it. Andy looks to be a bit farther out of the capsizing canoe than Mark; I’d like to believe that he leapt out before his master’s beyond obvious command, and will now run for the forest without a care for how his dim bulb owner made out.

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Luann, 1/30/08

Advancing character development in a comic strip is actually a fairly tricky thing to do, and so I give props to Luann for getting Brad out of the house and the fast food industry and into the Fire Department a few years ago. And real-life firefighters face seriously traumatic situations, which, combined with a no-doubt prevailing tough-guy ethic, means that seminars like “Your Mental Health” are important. But could we please see Brad and/or Tony attending fewer seminars and elementary school safety presentations and instead, you know, putting out fires now and then? Chopping through doors with axes, pulling screaming children from burning rooms, leaping out of second-story windows as the smoke billows — and then, when they get back to the firehouse with adrenaline still singing through their veins, letting nature take its course? Even Herb and Jamaal has featured firefighting scenes this month, for Pete’s sake. It would sure be a hell of a lot more interesting than this “saving Toni a seat at the mental health seminar” crap.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/30/08

Hey, let’s check in with our friends in the whimsical Winkerworld! Now-near-deaf former band leader Harry Dinkle and his wife have decided to check out the bright lights of Las Vegas and see what all the fuss is about! But Harry doesn’t gamble, and for some reason he can’t really enjoy himself as he wanders the casino floor, seeing the dead-eyed elderly pouring the last of their savings into bleeping electronic devices designed by teams of experts to fleece them. Then Harry makes a pun! And his wife smirks, or she may just be suffering a stroke.

Gasoline Alley, 1/30/08

Speaking of whimsy, in Gasoline Alley our postal protagonist imagines that if he were murdered by his wife in an argument over money, that would be for the best. This sort of logic is why so many post offices have bullet-proof glass in front of the counters.

Mary Worth, 1/30/08

Ha ha, I like Drew’s pissy little face in panel one, but I love his “Groan!” thought balloon in panel two. It of course puts him in fine company with tweaker Tommie, one of the greatest Mary Worth characters in recent memory. Let’s hope we’re witnessing stage one of his slide into drug addiction!

As for our ad agent lovebirds, is there any dumber romantic scenario than a whirlwind public romance with your boss, particularly if your boss is a possessive weirdo who “accidentally” shows up two hours early for your date? No, nothing good can come of this for anybody involved except for Mary, who is almost certainly at home lining up the platitudes she’s going to unleash once this whole thing goes south.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 1/30/08

Al Scaduto held back his most politically charged work, asking that it only be published after his death.

Also: Thanks to a faithful inside tipster for this story detailing the shocking truth about Gil Thorp’s Andrew Gregory!