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Mary Worth, 12/5/06

“That’s right, I won’t stop there! I’m also going to break out into this elaborately choreographed dance routine! ‘Hey fella … don’t see Ella … that’s my advice to yoooouuuuu … She’s no psychic … you won’t like it … She’s crazy, she’s old … and something of a scold!'”

I can’t wait to see what sort of devastating rumors ol’ Tom Dewey’s going to be spreading about Charterstone’s resident psychic advisor. “Hey guys, you know that 92-year-old woman living in the condo complex who I went to for psychic advice on my complex business dealings? Well it turns out she’s crazy! No, she’s crazy! No … what are you laughing at?”

Pluggers, 12/5/06

I’m going to pass quickly over the sub-Foxworthyism that is the joke in today’s Pluggers (“If your working mailbox sits inside your non-working mailbox, you might be a plugger”) to snicker snidely at the name of the Muncy, PA, resident who sent this in. Please, somebody tell me that this is a cruel joke perpetrated by central PA hipsters, or some kind of down-home country cultural reference of which I as a city-dwelling elite snot am ignorant, rather than somebody’s actual name. What I’m trying to say is, if you name your son “Chubby Fry,” you might be a plugger, and you’re definitely determined to make sure that he’s a plugger.

Zits and Dick Tracy, 12/5/06

I offer these two strips to showcase how the comics treats delivery personnel stumbling into wacky comics-style situations. For reasons too boring for me to go into here, the Tracys have had their minds erased for Dr. Froid’s sinister purposes and Jeremy is naked. Now, I’m not an expert on automatic-rifle-handling techniques, but I’m kind of dubious about the way that the Brinks man on the left is holding his weapon in panel two of Dick Tracy. I’m pretty sure that the only time I’ve ever seen anyone wielding a gun like that was when he was standing in the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of other guys on their way to seize the city’s central marketplace from a rival clan’s militia.

As for the clotheslessness dilemma, I have to say that I don’t think the thought of my girlfriend “accidentally” finding me naked in high school would have traumatized me as much as it apparently does Jeremy. I’m not saying anything good or non-scarring would have come of that had it actually happened, but I think I would have been more open to it before the fact.

Apartment 3-G, 12/5/06

You know, both Mary Worth and Apartment 3-G are heavily into supernaturally-themed storylines right now — just in time for six weeks late for Halloween! Personally, I think Lu Ann’s found her perfect man: dedicated, distant, and invisible. Mostly, the Amazing Tale Of The Mysterious Haunted Studio is reminding me how damn boring the Lu Ann plots are. I think I speak for us all when I say: bring on Margo and Eric’s wacky antics, which should play out like a methed-up version of The Lady Eve. Even glum Tommie’s stories have a mopey grandeur compared to this goofy twaffle.

Spider-Man, 12/5/06

Trust me, you do not want to know what just happened in that van.

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When I logged on to my custom Houston Chronicle comics page this evening, I discovered that, alone among my chosen strips, Pluggers was refusing to load.

What could have caused such a thing to happen? Was it the Democrats? Was Pluggers’ down-home wisdom too true for Nancy Pelosi and her chardonnay-swilling crowd? Eagerly, I rushed over to the Pluggers Web site to find out precisely what truth it dared to speak to power.

Pluggers, 11/10/06

I was kind of dissapointed. Ha ha, it’s funny because he’s bald! I’m a little concerned about the stream of black dots emerging from the back of his head, however. They seem to be the same color as his eyebrows, more or less. Are those the last chunks of his hair, flying away in the breeze? Was that fancy sports car really worth the last shreds of your head-covering dignity, bald dog-man?

One Big Happy, 11/10/06

I usually leave the silent penultimate panel watching to the Silent Penultimate Panel Watch, but the instance in today’s One Big Happy was particularly interesting. Panel three captures that awkward moment in which you’ve told a joke and nobody gets it and so you have to stare or gesture or something to drive your point home. Of course, the advantage of being in a comic strip is that such awkward moments don’t have to exist; Joe’s joke would have worked without that silent third panel. With that panel in there, however, I almost think the strip is supposed to be less a vehicle for Joe’s slam on Ruthie and more an examination of how poorly he told it. His use of the phrase “real fast” in the final panel is undermined by the silent frame that preceded it, which, since comic time is ultimately determined by the reader, could last as long as you care to stare at it.

Grandpa, as usual, would rather be somewhere else.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 11/10/06

Having apparently completely exhausted the inventory of things that they will do every time, TDIET has now apparently decided to move on to things that even it admits they will never, ever do.

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Apartment 3-G, 10/23/06

Boy, Tommie sure is looking smug for someone who just yesterday was wandering the streets of New York aimless, confused, and unloved. Based on their unusual prominence in the third panel, I’d say those keys are the key to Tommie’s brand new attitude. Maybe they’re the keys that Alan left behind and she’s started going to Lu Ann’s creepy possessed studio, figuring that dream lovers are better than no lovers at all. Maybe she’s just returned from a swinging key party. Maybe she’s got Ted’s dismembered corpse locked up in a storage unit in Jersey City somewhere. Or maybe she’s decided that the hipster New York existence isn’t working for her and now she’s become a plugger.

Mary Worth, 10/23/06

Yes, Mary is making the universal “Call Me” gesture with her right hand. Yes, this is as angry as we’ve seen her since the capisce incident of this past August. Yes, Dr. Jeff had better call home soon … or not at all.

Pluggers, 10/23/06

Some pluggers need two labels to identify an object in a cartoon.