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Gil Thorp, 3/18/08

OK, ever since the Gil Thorp artist change, I’ve been able to accept that the vaguely flat-topped Robert Mitchum lookalike in the COACH sweatshirt is supposed to be Gil. But you will never, never convince me that the skinny, brush-cut dude in the COACH sweatshirt in panel two is Assistant Coach Kaz. Never, you hear me? Where’s the classic Heat Miser ‘do? The pearl earrings? The hairy forearms and brutish fists? This is a travesty beyond imagining.

Oh, also, Andrew and his little siblings are about to be put into foster care because “the man” says that it’s not OK for children to raise themselves. Presumably the Gil and Kaz stand-ins will cook up some web of lies that will prevent the sinister social services fascists from caring for the kids’ well-being; perhaps it will involve convincing them that Andrew’s “teenage” friends in panel three are actually his 35-year-old aunts, which from the looks of it shouldn’t be hard.

Apartment 3-G, 3/18/08

Margo is no doubt backstage chewing her single glove in rage and frustration as Lu Ann wastes her coveted Girl Talk slot by blathering on all moon-eyed about how swell her talentless junkie boyfriend is. Still, it’s really Margo’s own fault for trusting her air-headed roommate to go on TV without careful coaching. And for using Lu Ann’s embarrassing carbon monoxide poisoning as the selling point for her bland art in the first place. When things go spectacularly wrong, it’s usually a safe bet to blame it on Margo’s desperate scheming, is what I’m trying to say.

Mary Worth, 3/18/08

“For the moment, the mutant super-breath power we shared was a secret between the two of us. But we knew that someday, it would be the instrument of our revenge against a world that had been cruel to us for too long.”

Pluggers, 3/18/08

Pluggers are subject from birth to relentless propaganda and conditioning, so that by the time they’re eight, they suffer from crippling nostalgia for a world they never knew.

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Mary Worth, 3/12/08

Why do I forget that Mary Worth only exists to shatter my hopes and dreams? All my fantasies of a bizarre flashback sequence are looking less and less likely by the day; instead, we’re just going to see Mary and Tobey standing around while Mary natters on in frustratingly vague terms. FLASH BACK! FLASH BACK, DAMN YOU!

Tobey is looking even more numb and Stepford-like than usual in the second panel. It’s possible that like us, she’s become so monumentally bored as to be on the brink of passing out.

Pluggers, 3/12/08

Wait a minute, pluggers don’t actually go hunting? Ha ha, they’re total blue-collar posers! Perhaps pluggers just know that having other people kill and butcher animals for you makes it easier to get the maximum amount of meat down your gullet as quickly as humanly possible.

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Pluggers, 2/21/08

But … pluggers … are … dogs and cats … [head explodes]

OK, let’s pass over for the moment the obvious fact that the Pluggers staff have been “plugging” away at this hell-comic for so long that they’re completely blind to the fact that their characters are animal-headed beast-men and tackle the meat of the issue. The core assertion of today’s panel, stripped of its cutesy word-play, is that plugger neighborhoods are safe and idyllic and no crime ever happens there so the only wanted posters you’re likely to see are really “lost pet” flyers. Do people who live in peaceful, crime-free paradises like, um, Dallas believe that we decadent city dwellers festoon our our lightposts and mailboxes with wanted posters of actual criminals? Because I live in Baltimore, a town with
a bit of a crime problem, and I can tell you that the lightposts in our neighborhoods mostly sport … lost pet notices. And, admittedly, ads for yoga studios.

I may be completely misreading this, though. It’s possible that wanted posters in plugger neighborhoods have pictures of dogs and cats on them because pluggers are, in fact, dogs and cats.

Mary Worth, 2/21/08

Like most of Mary Worth, panel one of today’s strip is more enjoyable if you spend time thinking about the passive-aggressive subtext. “Yeah, dad, after, what, fifteen minutes spent actually helping people in country, you’ve spent a lot of weeks sitting on your ass in your minty green sweater trying to raise money — how’s that been going, huh? Oh, you found one generous sponsor? I’m sure those little kids with the deformed limbs are soooo happy about that.”

Like most of Mary Worth, panel two of today’s strip is more enjoyable if you spend time thinking about the perverse sexual subtext. “I’m most proud of the hand’s-on work I did there last year” [wink wink] … “I need to feel that” [wink wink; slip of paper with the addresses of several Hanoi brothels is exchanged].

Crankshaft, 2/21/08

“Yeah, I’ve got some problems keeping certain things sealed properly … when I’ve got some hot young plumber bent over in front of me … certain things like … my pants …” [funky bass-driven groove begins]

Just for the record, I’d be totally in favor of Crankshaft switching over to an all gay porn, all the time format. At least some of the characters would look happy once in a while.