Post Content

Mary Worth, 9/20/07

Well, the slapping seems to be over (for now), but Dawn continues to give Dr. Drew the tongue-lashing of his life (and not in a good way). While Dawn may be the younger of the two ladies vying for Dr. Drew’s affections, this co-ed definitely has an edge over her competitor when it comes to brains: she’s keeping up a blistering stream of accusatory rage while spoiled rich girl Vera is still scratching her chin in total befuddlement. (“Wait … does this girl … know Drew somehow? There’s something fishy going on here … but what?”)

Dawn’s invective is so powerful that she doesn’t even need to waggle her fingers to add quote marks around the key terms. The significance of the quotes around “working” is obvious enough, but I’m a little puzzled about “new girlfriend.” I mean, Vera is Drew’s new girlfriend, right? If only there were some kind of quote-mark expert we could consult to parse the meaning…

Well … now … you don’t have any proof of that, Margo! Jeez, that girl’s totally out of hand.

Mark Trail, 9/20/07

I don’t pretend to understand what exactly this trio of boneheaded duck-lovers is doing in the third panel — building an elaborate system of dikes around Shirley’s nest? Trying to bail out the entire swamp? Nor do I know exactly how we went from “Shirley must be protected from sinister, heartless developers” to “Shirley must be protected from an entirely natural flood that would have washed away her nest whether the mall was under construction or not.” But I do know who’s pulling the strings here. It’s not Shirley herself, as I had guessed earlier, as she’s proven herself to be about as smart as you’d expect an animal with a walnut-sized brain to be. No, take a good look at Mark’s smug bastard of an editor in panel one. He’s realized that the mouth-breathing reading public is eating this duck drama up, and as long as he can drag out the drama, his magazine for outdoorsmen will be flying off of the supermarket racks faster than all the celebrity gossip rags combined. Look for him to give Mark a series of increasingly bizarre and improbable orders to keep the story going. (“OK, I think you should carry the eggs over to the food court. No, not inside the Ruby Tuesdays! Are you insane?”)

Beetle Bailey, 9/20/07

I, uh…

I thought today’s Beetle Bailey was pretty funny.

Ha! They all had to go to the bathroom!

What?

Post Content

Mary Worth, 9/18/07

OH SNAP DR. DREW GOT SERVED! That slap is no mere blind lashing out on Dawn’s part; her right fist is cocked in panel one, but she’s clearly chosen to go for the open hand to maximize the humiliation factor. She neutralized Vera in panel one with a quick pinch to the jugular, so clearly she’s a woman who’s in total control of her hands in a situation like this.

This is clearly the most exciting Mary Worth since Aldo plummeted to his death, and keep in mind that it’s only Tuesday. Things in Santa Royale always escalate over the course of the week, so by Saturday we’ll have achieved near-stratospheric heights of either wanton violence or emotional despair.

Apartment 3-G, 9/18/07

I have the uneasy feeling that this new A3G subplot is taking place in a weird parallel universe, where there’s been some effort put into establishing Ruby’s character and showing that Professor Smooth Operator has been eyeing her from afar for some time. Maybe all those deleted scenes will be on the unrated special edition DVD. As it is, all we can really hope for is an outraged Gina spotting Aristotle two-timing her and making with the slap attack.

Gil Thorp, 9/18/07

Wow, Marty Moon appears to be about ready to fall asleep in mid-sentence in panel three. He can’t stay awake for even a single quarter of Mudlark gridiron action! In his defense, Gil Thorp football is really confusing and boring, and he’s probably pretty drunk.

Mark Trail, 9/18/07

“Yes, maybe we’re in luck! Of course, it will also come out that we spent millions in bribes to get permits to allow us to build an enormous mall so close to a flood-prone lake that even a few inches of rain will put the Banana Republic under a foot of water. The press will also probably get wind of the fact that the development company’s CEO and chief counsel are chalk-white undead zombies. But at least this damn duck situation will be taken care of!”

Pluggers, 9/18/07

I don’t have the spiritual strength to go hunting through the archives, but I’m pretty sure that this Plugger panel, in which a polka-dotted boxer-short-clad Rhino-Man clutches his massive gut and peeks at the scale with trepidation, has been used before. Of course, given how many Pluggers jokes boil down to “Pluggers are fat”, they could probably run it once a week or so.

Dennis the Menace, 9/18/07

Wait, did Dennis dress up in a quasi-Hawaiian garb just so he could deliver this fun fact about the word “aloha” to Mr. Wilson in style? Here’s a hint, kid: Themed costume + fascinating trivia item = levels of menace so low as to be undetectable by even the most powerful scientific instruments.

Post Content

Beetle Bailey, 9/17/07

There’s been much speculation as the real nature of the relationship between Beetle and Sarge. In the absence of any leadership from Camp Swampy’s officer corps, has Sarge’s near-limitless authority over his subordinates simply allowed his inner brute to emerge in full, sadistic force? Or is Beetle no mere subject, but rather a participant in a complex and largely unspoken sadomasochistic relationship? Today’s strip offers another, even darker take: Sgt. Snorkel is an artist — an artist whose medium is human flesh and bone and blood, and Pvt. Bailey is and will forever be his greatest masterpiece. In this view, the opinion of Beetle on his role in this transaction is really no more important than a dab of paint’s views on being part of van Gogh’s Sunflowers. The chaplain, naturally, is horrified by the human price of art, but the angry beauty of Beetle’s mangled still-living body cannot be denied.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/17/07

Hey, remember a while back when gym teacher Bull implied that he wanted Les to knock up his ever-smirking wife? And now here they are, black-helmet-haired tot in tow? I’m sure that it was really adopted from Romania or something, but let me just for a moment revel in the idea that Les is at long last seeing the result of a fairly lucrative 20 minutes he spent “running errands” while Lisa was in chemo.

Marvin, 9/17/07

Marvin’s look of numb, wide-eyed horror tells us all we need to know about mom’s sadistic will to power through infinite punishment. Presumably he realizes that he’ll spend the rest of his life in that playpen. When he gets tall enough to climb out, his mother will simply put a lid over the top of the pen, leaving him to become a tiny, bonsai-sized adult with stunted limbs, a gruesome example to any toddlers thinking of doing whatever I’m-too-lazy-to-come-up-with-something-specific act of mischief the cowed dog is referring to in panel one.

Mary Worth, 9/17/07

I’ve played a fair amount of Wii Boxing in the past few weeks, and I’ve even seen filmed evidence (with audio) of what I look like while playing Wii Boxing, so I have a pretty good idea of what Dawn’s fists in that position portend. Drew and Vera, get ready to have those little knuckle sandwiches come flailing at you while she lets out little high-pitched grunts of rage! You won’t be able to fend off her head-vibrating assault without giggling.

Dawn’s “And I thought you were the ‘one’!” is actually a pretty effective comeback, in the sense that it riffs off of Drew’s “I thought you were studying” excuse, which is so lame that she could never have anticipated it in advance. I hope she uses her razor wit to further humiliate Drew and Vera as she pummels them. I suggest she start with their bizarre decision to wear matching brown pants.

Pluggers, 9/17/07

A plugger’s body is a battleground where the marketing departments of major pharmaceutical companies fight to the death.