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Blondie, 5/13/07

The saddest thing is that the central joke of this strip — that Blondie has been utterly charmed into an aroused frenzy by her pampering, and is eager to discovery what other surprises her husband has prepared for her, while Dagwood has one foot out the door as he’s planning to head out for a “men’s foursome” — is so in keeping with the well-established dynamic of the Bumstead marriage that I barely noticed it. The thing that really disturbed me is the heart that’s drifted up into Blondie’s word balloon in the final panel. I have no idea what it’s supposed to represent semantically. I suppose it could be “love” as a noun and term of endearment, rather than “love” as a verb, which it usually stands for — but then it ought to have a comma after it. Really, the fact that it’s sitting after a comma just makes it all the more anomalous to me. Mostly I’m worried that Dag and Blondie have ingested some kind of potent hallucinogen and now believe themselves to be conversing using abstract symbols rather than normal human speech.

Family Circus, 5/13/07

This strip is a subtle but powerful reminder of the strict laws of patriarchy that govern the Family Circus. Note that Dolly wonders who their mother would be if her parents hadn’t met, not who their father would be. On Mother’s Day, she assumes that her mother is just an interchangeable womb who could have been replaced by any number of other females from other times and places and their family would have remained pretty much the same.

I really enjoy the fact that all the other comics moms in Billy’s thought balloon are just sort of idly looking off into the distance, except for one. FBOFW’s Elly is looking straight at the eldest Keane boy in goggle-eyed horror, as if contemplating how excruciating it would have been to pass that enormous melonhead through her birth canal.

Doodles by Mac & Sack, 5/13/07

Someone’s kind of fixated on the idea of being crushed to death by a boa constrictor, and it makes me uncomfortable. I’m also disturbed the puffed-out cheeks of “the Doughboy” in the Doodle Zoo: they clearly indicate that he’s dying horribly as the smart-ass little koala cracks wise. I am kind of amused that the Doughboy seems to have lost his “Pillsbury” moniker at the last minute due to trademark infringement concerns, though it does bring to mind the notion of an American infantryman, having survived the hell of combat in the trenches against the Hun’s forces on the Western Front, being felled by an unexpected snake attack.

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 5/13/07

I’m not showing you the rest of this strip, because these panels perfectly set up the Dennis the Menace strip we’d all like to see, the one where Mr. Wilson murders Dennis with a pair of garden shears.

Panel from Mary Worth, 5/13/07

Since Vera’s so angry at Von, it’s ironic that she’s remembering him at the height of his glory: all decked out in his yellow suit, shirt, and facepaint, standing in front of that blue door, and disco dancing like nobody’s business.

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Gil Thorp, 5/10/07

As part of my cantankerous mission to defend the indefensible, I’d like to speak up for the art in Gil Thorp. I won’t attempt to justify the baffling action sequences, or claim that a reasonable person can tell who the hell anybody is. But if there’s one thing that Gil Thorp does well, it’s smug. I draw your attention to the Central slugger in the first panel and invite you to imagine his internal narrative. “Ah ha! Another snail-slow meatball of a pitch from Jim Gross that I’ve just blasted over the far fences! I think I’ll stand here and follow its trajectory into the next county for a bit, then let the bat slowly and casually slip from my fingers before I begin my stately trot ‘round the bases! La di da!”

For a previous instance of Thorpian smuggery, I urge you to check out this post from two years ago, when I was still new to the ways of Milford athletics. This post prompted the following hilarious comment from faithful reader Incident, which still makes me chuckle:

What really makes this strip is Von Haney’s crazy diagonal smug leaning pose. I know in my heart he’s going to keep doing it throughout the entire game, ergonomics be damned, because he’s JUST THAT HARDCORE about being smug. Sally Forth is his bitch.

(Speaking of funny things other people are saying about Gil Thorp, I’m pretty sure I’ve already linked to This Week In Milford, but if you aren’t already reading it, you really should be.)

Blondie, 5/10/07

Speaking of smug, panel one of today’s Blondie screams “I’m white, middle-aged, and self-satisfied, how ya doin’?” so loudly that I sort of want to smack Dagwood, and I’m not even a particular fan of hip-hop. Fortunately, in the rest of the strip he makes a quick and gratifying descent into insanity.

Mark Trail, 5/10/07

Yes, sexy Sam the sexy biologist just couldn’t get rid of all the birds — not even with a constant series of controlled explosions (scroll down a bit) — so she just DESTROYED THE WETLANDS WHERE THEY LIVED! And, as a double bonus, they were able to build a mall on the former swamp! Win-win! It’s a good thing Mark Trail could never ever punch a woman, because otherwise Sam Hill would be in big trouble. In fact, I’m not convinced she is a woman, what with her disturbingly masculine first name. I think she’s a male Mark Trail villain, and her “breasts” are where she’s hiding her facial hair.

By the way, if you think “bird strikes” are only a problem in the funny pages, think again!

Mary Worth, 5/10/07

Yes, after a big blow-out over “some silly matter” (Vera won’t tell Mary anything more, so you just know it was something awful she did), Vera was flung bodily out of the vinyl-sided family mansion onto the lawn! In a driving drizzle! With nothing but her hideous periwinkle and purple outfit and tiny, tiny handbag! And from that day forward, she swore she’d express all her aggressive and negative impulses in thought balloon form! CURSES UPON YOU, VON!

Speaking of curses, I’m still mostly averting my eyes from the horror of Funky Winkerbean, but for those of you who think that the person on the other end the hilarious Lisa-really-does-have-terminal-cancer-after-all swapped-scans mix-up has had all of his or her problems solved, think again.

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Apartment 3-G, 5/6/07

Yesterday, we saw Lu Ann’s oxygen-starved brain conjuring up images of everyone who had singularly failed to rescue her from her sinister spectral captivity, leaving open the question: who will save her, since actually killing her off would be unthinkable? Today, we get the surprising answer: It’s Margo’s comical immigrant mother, Gabriella! There’s a certain justice to this; she’s the one who essentially told Lu Ann that ghosts were awesome in the first place, so now she’s going to have to knock down that door in her bathrobe, babbling in fake-o Spanish and wielding a fistful of protective charms from the Old Country to save our dim blonde heroine. Remember: do not rely on WASPs to fight against the forces of the Other World. Only ethnics can do so, and the Professor has become far too assimilated to help.

Slylock Fox, 5/6/07

Ah ha! Our oft-harassed beaver, previously seen being victimized by loose women in discos and harassed by humans in airports, at last has an alliterative name of his own: Brendan! He’s also upgraded his wardrobe, sporting a pimpalicious chartreuse suit with matching befeathered fedora. And of course, he’s as hilariously outraged and quick to tattle to Slylock as ever.

By the way, I know it’s almost impossible to read the solution in this graphic, but Count Weirdly is about to be hauled off for the entirely victimless crime of jamming Brendan’s TV so that it only receives the Chess Channel, and the only evidence of wrongdoing is that he’s eating his broth with a fork. Does a little eccentric behavior make you automatically guilty in Slylock Fox’s police state? The man’s name is “Weirdly,” for God’s sake; you can’t expect him to consume soup like a normal person.

I do like the vicious attack stork in the “How To Draw” feature at the bottom of the page. As for the six differences, the most prominent one that I could find is that the kid in the top panel will eventually go on to a successful career as an illustrator and graphic novelist, while the other boy will take “practical” courses in school and go on to a soul-sapping life of quiet desperation as he toils away in a job he despises.

Mary Worth, 5/6/07

If panel three demonstrates a typical battle in the war for the elder Sheilds’ love, I think Vera’s a bit to quick to blame sexism for her low state. Note that her brother is pouring the old man a tasty flute of the finest champagne, while Vera is thrusting a plate bearing two lumpy, shapeless brown things at him. Advantage: Von.

The grammatical set-up Vera uses in panel seven (“when my father’s death occurred”) is quite revealing. Usually people do that sort of thing when they’re trying to deny their own agency in the matter. She’s not explicitly lying, but she knows she won’t keep Mary on her side if she says “Years later, the situation changed when I bludgeoned my father to death.”

Funky Winkerbean, 5/6/07

Oh, Les, you cut-up! There’s nothing that helps your pedagogical strategies like a little public humiliation. We’ll all have a good laugh, at least until the inevitable HIPAA lawsuit.

Zits, 5/6/07

Desperate to extend a moment of happy camaraderie with his son but unfamiliar with the concept of the fist bump, in panel five Walt crosses a line that can never be uncrossed.