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Family Circus, 3/8/07

Man, does the total and constant humiliation of Jeffy ever get old? I’m going to go ahead and say “no.” In a normal human family, Grandma would have probably sent clothes a few sizes too big in the expectation that her grandson would soon grow into them; however, since Jeffy’s been the same height for decades and shows no sign of getting any taller, we have to assume that her aim was to drive him ever deeper into self-loathing.

The Phantom, 3/8/07

So the Phantom is in the midst of an incredibly dull storyline involving the kidnapping of Old Man Mozz and some bank robbers who want the seer to [Note: Rest of recap cut because of extreme dullness. –Eds.] Anyway, I’d just like to point out that Kono slipping and falling on the steps of the bank he’s attempting to rob, followed by him cracking his dreadlocked skull open as his eyes roll back in his head, is a pretty gruesome image for the funny pages.

And where is our purple-clad, stripy-butt hero in all of this? Last we saw him, he was lounging in a jungle clearing while his cone-headed midget sidekick was napping on top of an elephant. No, really.

Pluggers, 3/8/07

You heard it here first, people: The only choice available for the radio-listening plugger is “AM” or “FM.” What, you also want to be able to change channels within each band? What are you, some kind of chardonnay-swilling East Coast liberal elitist? In this sense, plugger radios are like the one available in Nazi Germany, which were also pre-set to a single station. Although my guess is that pluggers listen to a lot fewer hateful rants about how the Jews are undermining the purity of the master race and a lot more hateful rants about how the Cowboys really need to get more free agent help for their offensive line.

I also note that today’s featured plugger has been banished out of the house entirely, presumably so that his radio listening doesn’t distract his she-plugger mate from her “stories.” Either that, or all his furniture has been repossessed and a tree stump is a “plugger easy chair.”

They’ll Do It Every Time, 3/8/07

The looks of pure joy on the faces of Loopina’s parents in the first panel at the prospect of a Loopina-free evening are only matched by the wave of obscenity-tinged bile we get in the second. It seems that her parents don’t really like her very much, though that should have been obvious from the mere fact that they named her “Loopina.”

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Beetle Bailey, 2/6/07

Those of you who read Beetle Bailey in black in white in the newspaper, as God intended us to do, were spared from the horrifying and baffling sight of an entirely blue Lt. Fuzz. I mean, forget changing races; our blond-haired junior officer seems to have changed species. The only even vaguely reasonable explanation I can come up with is that this is some kind of comics coloring sweatshop version of day-for-night filming. Some movies that don’t have the budget to properly light night scenes shoot during the day, then run the film through a blue filter to look more like nighttime. (Fans of MST3K will remember Attack Of The The Eye Creatures, a film in which this technique was implemented particularly ineptly.) Apparently someone down at King Features coloring thought that giving Lt. Fuzz a shiny white face would be all wrong for this ill-lit situation, and the only color in the limited palate available that vaguely conveyed a sense of shadowing was this weird blue.

Those of you who read Beetle Bailey in black in white in the newspaper were not distracted by this puzzle from the “punchline,” which doesn’t make a damn bit of sense no matter how much you look at it, so we online types got let off pretty easy.

Curtis, 2/6/07

Some have claimed that my Curtis geography lesson yesterday was misplaced, and that the idea of “Compton Kaheem” being from Philly is actually part of the joke. I’m still dubious, but I am sharp enough to realize that this strip is setting us up for a punchline tomorrow. Still, almost everything about it is stunningly loathsome. The elder Wilkins’ creepy mechanical laugh (not the first time it’s appeared in this strip), his little sing-songy invitation to his 11-year-old son to watch a little soft-core human degradation, said 11-year-old’s clench-fistedly eager anticipation of same with his dad sitting there behind him, the very idea of a “syrup chapter” of the venerable Girls Gone Wild franchise … I’m frankly having a hard time thinking of anything that might happen tomorrow that could redeem this, except perhaps the entire human race being wiped out by an asteroid.

Mark Trail, 2/6/07

Ah, Mark! For a man so in touch with the natural world, you sure do talk like an android. I’d love to hear Mark talk about some fishing stories. “There was this one fishing story, I used to tell it to Cherry when we were first dating. Rusty loves that story! His little face just lights up and he says, ‘Tell it again, Mark, tell it again!’ Excitable little kid. Yup, that sure is a great story. Then there’s this other fishing story I like to tell…”

The Phantom, 2/6/07

For those of you not in the know, “Bandar medicine” is the Phantom and Guran’s little code phrase for roofies. I have no idea how they think that’s going to help, unless “ill” is code for something I don’t even want to know about.

Gil Thorp, 2/6/07

Speaking of people going, having gone, or being about to go wild, those boys don’t look like they’re going anywhere near wild in panel two. There are entirely too many clothes, for one thing. And not nearly enough syrup.

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Most soap strips run recaps on Sunday, so Sunday-only readers can keep up without weekday readers missing any developments. Other story strips show little vignettes outside their current narratives, like Foob’s pet antics, band practice, and walks in the woods. Sweet stuff, sometimes, and a nice break.

The Phantom takes a different approach:

The Phantom, 1/27/07

The Phantom runs separate, unrelated stories on Sunday and throughout the week. In the current Sunday series, the Phantom is investigating strange lights in a kind of jungle Forbidden Zone. The lights are from four “dangerous men” in what look like a couple of Duesenbergs, chasing spunky aviatrix Beryl Markham. The twist is, Beryl Markham flew in the 1930’s and died an old woman 20 years ago. We don’t know whether the guys in the cars are equally time-warped, but since their search patterns followed exactly the same schedule and path every night, we’ve got our suspicions. And, well, because they’re driving Duesenbergs.

The Phantom has strong female characters – Beryl here, that village grandma in the daily strip, President Luaga’s fightin’ secretary, and the Phantom’s own daughter Heloise, who’s been bruited as the next Phantom. And the art, by Rex Morgan, M.D.‘s Graham Nolan, suits the material well.

And if you like strong women and good art in adventure strips:

Steve Canyon 1/27/07

Alert reader Mr. O’Malley caught the announcement that this classic is being republished, apparently in order from the beginning, on the 60th anniversary of its original appearance. This is a real coup for the Humorous Maximus site, whose other offerings you may find, er, less distinguished. Steve Canyon author Milton Caniff was already a big deal when this strip appeared in 1947, from his work on Terry and the Pirates. This introductory Sunday installment already has some of the Caniff trademarks that would last through the 1980’s – exotic women, ineffectual supporting men, and tough-guy banter. Airplanes, the Cold War, and Poteet to follow. I highly recommend adding Steve Canyon to your daily reading.

No snark today – it’s Sunday! Enjoy!