Post Content

Dennis the Menace, 12/15/06

I’m not sure why Dennis’ persistent and willfully non-menacing behavior makes me so mad, but it does, it does. Dennis, you had damn well be heading right for the aforementioned closet with the intention of sorting through all the presents, determining that most of them are “lame,” taking them back to the store where Mom bought them and exchanging them for cash, using that cash to buy the most powerful BB gun they’ll sell to a child, and then heading down to the overpass to shoot out the windshields of innocent motorists. That’s being a menace, by God.

By the way, if it’s December, any child with even the most basic concept of how numbers work knows exactly how many days there are left until Christmas. In America, that’s how most of us learn to subtract.

Mark Trail, 12/15/06

So is this it? Is Mark Trail just going to be all lonely, confused animals in the woods all the time now? Is it going to turn into Mutts? Is that it? No punching, just Mutts with a slightly broader species range of adorable creatures?

Rusty is looking more and more hideously deformed every day, and his front teeth are looking buckier and buckier. I’m beginning to think he’s caught beaver.

The Phantom, 12/15/06

Right, so, um, yesterday? When I said it would be awesome to see the president personally beat somebody up? Well, I was pretty much just joking. Turns out it actually makes me kind of uncomfortable. In President Luaga’s defense, though, Denton did take his glasses off in panel two, which totally means that he’s asking for it.

Family Circus, 12/15/06

“And Easter came before Halloween so that Zombie Jesus had a chance to get good and hungry for brains by October 31.”

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 12/14/06

You know, I’m not the sort of person who just applies DSM-IV diagnoses to people in the comics … oh, no, wait, that’s exactly the sort of person I am. Anyway, I think it’s pretty obvious that Margo is bipolar. I’m sure Eric is enjoying happy manic Margo right now, but he’d better hang on, because as Tommie and Lu Ann know all too well, he’s in for the ride of his life, and not in the fun, sexy way. The cocaine, of course, does not help.

(Could it be that I’m overdoing the “Margo loves nose candy” jokes? Is such a thing even possible? I’m going to say “no.”)

There’s something very unsettling about the perspective in the first panel. Either that tree really is huge, and it’s about ten feet away, which means Margo couldn’t be gently fondling its branches, or it’s about three feet tall and the bottom of its trunk is floating mysteriously somewhere around Margo’s sternum, or we’re just seeing the very tip of it, pointing downwards, and, in a fit of superhuman strength, Margo’s trying to stuff it into her shopping bag.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/14/06

Note to cartoonists: if you need to have a character in your cartoon explain your joke, your joke has not been deployed successfully.

Mark Trail, 12/14/06

You know, I’m pretty sure that the only reason that Mark adopted Rusty (other than to avoid having ICKY SEX with an ICKY GIRL) was to have a victim for his twisted head games. “Hey Rusty, let’s rescue this wounded beaver! Hey Rusty, what do you want to name your new friend, the beaver? RUSTY! WHY DID YOU TAKE THIS BEAVER OUT OF ITS NATURAL HABITAT? IT’S MISERABLE HERE AND IT HATES YOU!” No wonder the poor kid is so depressed. He looks like the subject of a Margaret Keane painting in that last panel.

The Phantom, 12/14/06

Bangallan President Lamanda Luaga is my second favorite cartoon president (after Teenage Girl President, of course). He already gets mad style points for wearing morning dress at all times; now it appears that that he’s taking off his morning coat in order to beat the crap out of this guy, and I love it. If wanting to see the president personally physically assault a civil servant makes me a Republican, then so be it.

I’m curious about which two laws the president is about to suspend. I’m guessing one pertains to not beating up a government official without a trial of some sort, and the other forbids the president from appearing in public without his morning coat on.

By the way, I know I said I wouldn’t touch the whole Bruce Tinsley thing again, but I would be very much remiss if I didn’t draw your attention to this.

Post Content

The Phantom, 12/4/06

Today the Phantom gives you what in the business world they call the “value add”. See, any two-bit superhero can give you explosions and fisticuffs and gunplay and what-not; but with the Big Purple Guy, we stick around to see what happens after the climax. Thrill as the Ghost-Who-Hopefully-Isn’t-Getting-A-Paper-Cut idly rifles through the Doorman’s files! Marvel as he and the freed slaves stand around making idle, awkward small talk waiting for the cops to show up! Look on in wonder as the Phantom gives his cell number and e-mail address to the assembled servants so that they can use him as a reference on their resumes! You’ll pay for the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge!

Beetle Bailey, 12/4/06

You may think that keeping the soldiers at Camp Swampy pumped full of Wellbutrin isn’t the best way to run a military, but if they can’t ever feel any negative emotions, they’ll presumably obey any order, no matter how atrocious, and cheerfully roll forward as an army of smiling, glassy-eyed, remorseless and conscienceless killing machines. One hopes that General Halftrack got personal approval from the Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey before engaging in his sinister psychopharmaceutical experiments on his hapless subordinates.

Judge Parker, 12/4/06

So, Eduardo Barreto’s been handling the Judge Parker art for several months now, and I’m still a fan, but he does seem to shift styles every once in a while, which can be a little unsettling. I guess if the history of soap opera comics is any guide, he’s going to be drawing this for the next seventy years, so he’s entitled to do a little experimenting in the beginning of his reign. Things did suddenly get a lot less shady and more stylized this week. Panel two illustrates the major artistic dilemma for anyone drawing Judge Parker — can you make Sam Driver and Randy Parker look like different people? Today, it’s all about the part in Sam’s hair.

The Family Circus, 12/4/06

Oh please oh please oh please.