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Panel from One Big Happy, 4/9/08

While the joke in today’s One Big Happy isn’t really worthy of note, there’s something very disturbing going on in the background of the first panel. Can you see it? Here, let me blow it up for you:

My God, is that … some ponytailed individual running through the park? Carrying a knife in ready-to-stab position? Is he or she fleeing from the scene of a vicious murder? Or running towards a hapless victim with the intention of committing one? Or are we seeing the midst of a multi-corpse stab frenzy? This panel will go down in history as the Zapruder Film of the modern comics.

Gil Thorp, 4/9/08

Stepping back from the total insanity for a moment … ha ha, just kidding, this is Gil Thorp, and under the new regime the total insanity is back, baby. To get a sense of this, look no further than panel three, where the pitcher is apparently making that ball hang in mid-air with just his mind. I think Milford has found its new pitching phenom … in outer space.

Meanwhile, it appears that the Very Special Spring Storyline is going to involve Gil throwing himself wholeheartedly (and disastrously) into his student-athletes’ lives to make up for years of disinterested coaching. It’s only now that it’s occurring to him that letting a deranged old man spouting obvious lies basically coach his baseball team may not have been the best idea last spring. Anyway, this year’s first victim of Gil’s new over-involvement is apparently going to be “problem child” Tyler Jay. Here’s a hint, Gil: If you want Tyler to keep on the straight and narrow, don’t let him play on the baseball team, where he’ll have ready access to many club-like objects.

Hi and Lois, 4/9/08

The innocence of youth is apparently a myth, as baby Trixie seems to imagine a future where people are forced to desperately stitch up the bleeding, mangled bodies of their loved ones as a matter of routine.

Dennis the Menace, 4/9/08

Usually, the Mitchells roll their eyes or loosen their collars in awkward humiliation when Dennis says something inappropriate, but here they’re positively gleeful at his suggestion that his aged grandfather is old and feeble-lunged. I’m not sure whose father he’s supposed to be, but Henry and Alice are obviously both lacking in filial piety and deserve to have Dennis foisted on them by the universe in karmic retribution.

Pluggers, 4/9/08

don’t think about a plugger’s prostate don’t think about a plugger’s prostate DON’T THINK ABOUT A PLUGGER’S PROSTATE

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Hi and Lois, 4/4/08

Hi and Lois is the last strip you’d expect to see bucking any sort of comic convention or cliche. But usually when a comic strip mom discusses the withering of the last few social institutions that keep high school from becoming a nonstop orgy, they usually look worried or upset, not like they’ve just taken a large hit of Ecstasy, as Lois does in the first two panels of this strip. Maybe in that way that moms “just want you to be happy,” she’s pleased to know that Chip is experiencing as much sexual pleasure as possible without any of that buzkilling emotional attachment, just like she does with half the neighborhood. Of course, no matter how enthusiastic she is about her son’s slutting it up, she still shows the appropriate amount of outrage over the terrible, terrible “punchline” of the strip.

(Unrelated, but: in panel two, Lois appears to have freckles. Did she always have freckles? Or are they a sign of the new, freaky Lois?)

Luann, 4/4/08

Say what you will about TJ, but the boy never stops thinking strategically. While most guys would have been satisfied to let their roommate rest on his laurels and share some tales of triumph (“A definite, meaningful kiss.” “And that definitely means…?” “Tongue, dude!”), TJ is already plotting to make sure his friend gets to the next level. Brad will touch a boob by 2009 if TJ has anything to say about it!

Marmaduke, 4/4/08

I’m not sure why Marmaduke’s owner is so desperate to believe that he didn’t just come from the museum. If that were the case, at least the original owner of that enormous bone would have already been dead by the time Marmaduke found it. The other possibility is that there’s a freshly killed and dismembered rhino somewhere nearby, probably on her front lawn.

Ballard Street, 4/4/08

Striker may be a whore, but by God he’s not a cheap whore.

Pluggers, 4/4/08

Pluggers know that you have to be ever-vigilant if you want to make sure that nobody leaves the compound.

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I know, I’m almost late for the comments of the week! But you have to hold out for another moment, ’cause I have a few other points of interest for you:

• Faithful reader yellowjkt has unveiled his annual comics competition, this year called the National Corniest Cliché Comic Character Countdown. Voting is still open in the first category, Alarming Alcoholics.
• I have for about ever been meaning to link to faithful reader One-Eyed Wolfdog’s take on the eternal “what is a plugger?” question: Some People.
• Faithful reader Jon sent me this link to an essay called Mary Worth: Erotica in plain sight. It’s every bit as disturbing as the title would suggest.
• And, finally, the Scots appear to have help for Rex Morgan’s MRSA problem. Perhaps the Heather and Milton could give him the inside track?

And now, the comment of the week you’ve been waiting for!

“I’m pretty sure, in the Funkiverse, when you move out of your parents’ house, you move directly into hospice.” –Islamorada Girl

And the hilarious runners up!

“‘Haha, no ring for you, Margo! I’m even studying with Caine’s old teacher, learning amazing, kung fu Zen powers to avoid marriage!’ You’ll need ’em, Eric. You’ll need ’em.” –Buck Ripsnort

“If Mary Worth is about to find God in the mashed potatoes, and then claim that her self-righteous, narrow-minded nosey-parkering has all been done in the name of Jesus, I’m going to introduce a class-action libel suit. As a Christian, I’ll share the blame for the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. But not by-God MARY WORTH.” –boojum

“I predict emotional blackmail ahead as Elly tries to guilt Liz into breaking down and wearing the family dress instead of something new that doesn’t reek of mouse urine and repressed emotions.” –Duckman30

“What is Dennis’s teacher so worried about? That he might make some puns or, god forbid, wisecracks? If Dennis is a menace he is still a poor man’s Jeffy.” –Foobar

“Who would ever have guessed that Deanna would show Lizardbreath Grannie’s moldy old dress? And it even fits perfectly! I’m so lost in all these unexpected plot twists, I just don’t know what to say. It’s like — if a tree falls in the forest and everyone already knows it will fall, does anyone actually care anymore when it happens?” –Hugin

“Using her typical selective hearing, Margo has misheard Eric’s ‘tell me all about Lu Ann’s show’ as ‘Margo, how did you get to be so amazing?’ She’s predictably excited that she gets to break out her laminated list of bullet points.” –Tats

“Gasoline Alley: Man. Non-stop ‘Hawhaw, look at th’ caw-widge boy, ain’t he funny’ humor that’ll have you rolling in the aisles, assuming you live in the 1930s and are reading the panels via some sort of century-spanning scrying techniques.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“I think ‘taking it slow’ is a Lynn Johnston euphemism for ‘oops, I’m pregnant.'” –commodorejohn

“I thought my mother got rid of my bar mitzvah suit early in 1962, when she gave it to Goodwill, but I see that Mark Trail is wearing it.” –LITTLE A. OF THE GRAND CONCOURSE JUNGLE PATROL

“Her friend’s parents said a prayer, announced that Mary was always welcome at their table, and fed her. Conflating these events, Mary now believes she is Moloch the Devourer.” –Uncle Lumpy

“The only thing that can save the MW flashback at this point is if young Mary’s life is changed by witnessing a fight between a bear and a velociraptor. And maybe the bear has a laser cannon.” –Smokehouse

“Francis looks far more satisfied with himself than a man who’s going to a bar with his mom has any right to be. He does however look exactly as satisfied as a man who can humiliate his mother by carrying her like a ball should be.” –Corkey

“On the whole RMMD MRSA thing: I thought the CDC handled stuff like that. It does seem awfully amateur. ‘Hey! My dad has a morgue! Let’s put on an investigation of a disease outbreak!'” –indrifan

“And once again, the Persuader fails to persuade someone to do something. He’s failure wrapped in a green suit and orange-striped tie.” –Inspector Dim

“Spider-Man: Panels 4-7 look like a scene from Fantastic Voyage: The Colonoscopy.” –Dean Booth of the Affect Ad Patrol

“I seriously doubt that anything interesting has ever happened to Toby. I mean, look at who she married and who her best friend is. Xanax would be redundant for her.” –Brick Bradford

“June and her nurse pal are just a little bit too smug about how well-prepared they are to fight disease. But I suppose when the MD in the strip is as blitheringly incompetent at medicine as Rex seems to be, having a gallon jug of sanitizer would feel like something to boast about.” –Trilobite

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