Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/20/07

Uh oh, it looks like June and Pete’s plan to take advantage of a man’s death and seize control of a multi-billion dollar corporation has hit a snag: Rex’s sense of right and wrong, by which we of course mean Rex’s petulant refusal to do what his wife tells him to. I note that June skips quickly from the “we need to help our dear friend in her hour of need” angle to the “insider stock price manipulation” angle.

Ziggy, 4/20/07

Yes, every day our once free nation becomes more and more of a police state by degrees, and who notices? Only Ziggy, apparently. If only more people cared about free speech and civil liberties. And about Ziggy.

The Lockhorns, 4/20/07

When I first saw this caption, I read “antidepressant” instead of “antiperspirant.” Frankly, I like my version much better.

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 4/18/07

I am desperate to know more about Margo’s assistant Sam, and not just because I can live out through him my longstanding fantasy of scrambling to carry out Margo’s imperious orders. Look at that wide-eyed wonder in panel two: “Ladies in New York get married? GAWRSH!” I think Margo just stood outside the Port Authority bus station one day, waiting for someone attractive and not-too-bright to step off a Greyhound with small town hopes and big city dreams, and hired him on the spot before he learned the details of typical New York pay scales. However, his cynical look of disbelief at the word “love” in panel three indicates that New York is already wearing down his soul.

For Better Or For Worse, 4/18/07

There’s always an ongoing struggle for the coveted title of “Unintentionally Creepiest FBOFW Character,” but Deanna is making a good bid for it today, with her near-orgasmic musings on replicating her in-laws’ family in photo-perfect detail. This of course is someone whose greatest act of initiative was to get pregnant “accidentally” by “forgetting” to take her birth control pills, which Elly probably bribed her to do somehow. Maybe the house itself is the promised reward.

On the other hand, as several commentors have pointed out, the ravine that she’s waxing about so rhapsodically is the same one where April notoriously almost drowned, with only noble Farley saving her from a watery death. Since the junior Pattersons don’t own any skilled rescue beasts, perhaps Deanna is hoping that a couple quick drownings, Mike’s subsequent suicide, and a sale at market rates of a house they bought at a steep family discount add up to her ticket to sweet, sweet freedom.

Gil Thorp, 4/18/07

Ah ha! See, “Mr. Rickey” is Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager who famously helped break baseball’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson (whose major league career started sixty years ago this week). I’m telling you, this amiable old black man is going to explain to these young white people how Jackie Robinson blazed a trail of opportunity for them.

Judge Parker, 4/18/07

We’ve all been assuming that this mysterious figure is Canadian Cedric the Super Butler, though he appears to not be wearing Cedric’s trademark glasses, so who knows. As a commentor or two pointed out, the shadowy stranger’s use of the word “scum” echoes Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative candidate in this coming weekend’s French presidential election, who famously and controversially used the term to describe rioting youths in Paris’ poor suburbs when he was Interior Minister in 2005. Perhaps Sarko is wearying of the hand shaking and baby kissing and has decided to embark on a little side campaign of his own … a campaign of vigilante justice. Since his intervention will deny Judge Parker readers the opportunity to see Neddy and Abbey sexily fight off their attackers with lead pipes and flamethrowers, this will just give Americans another reason to hate France once he’s elected.

Incidentally, the fact that Cedric/Sarkozy/whoever hears the punks speaking English indicates that the English we’ve been seeing in the word balloons isn’t just a translation of the execrable French for our benefits: they’re actually switching back and forth between English and execrable French. Hee.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/18/07

OK, Rex Morgan, we all know that it’s fun to look at June’s breasts, but there’s a little something called “subtlety.” I mean, Jesus.

By the way, if I were Heather, I wouldn’t be all that heartened by the magical thinking of a preschooler with a hideously misshapen head. Now, if Abbey the Wonderdog had barked her vote of confidence at me, I’d feel reassured.

The Lockhorns, 4/18/07

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here. Was Leroy attempting to hold out on Loretta by squirreling away a portion of his meager paycheck for his own use? Is Loretta upset that he would cut their already cramped budget down further? It’s hard to tell whose moment of triumph this is supposed to be because they look so damn depressed. Because in the Lockhorns, nobody ever wins.

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 4/14/07

Many commentors and I are now all pretty much obsessed with comics characters birth order. I think it’s actually been established that Margo is an only child, and her rampant narcissism only serves as confirmation. (Similarly, Lu Ann the easily influenced eternal eight-year-old is clearly a youngest child, and introverted, conflict-averse Tommie a middle.) Margo probably doesn’t have much of a handle on sibling dynamics as a result, so let me offer her a warning: Eric’s sister is someone you want to get on your side, not someone you should be sizing up to figure out the best time to punch her in the throat, which is what you seem to be doing in the third panel.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/14/07

June’s look of despair in the third panel tells us that she knows exactly how little Dr. Morgan can be counted on to help anyone do anything. She’s dreading telling this chauffeur-cum-corporate intriguer that Rex is likely to be distracted on the way to the airport by some debonaire gentleman with greying temples and an avuncular manner. Or something shiny.

Dick Tracy, 4/14/07

Say what you will about Dick Tracy, but you have to admit that doesn’t shy away from action sequences that are (a) hyperviolent and (b) as demented as everything else in the strip, as this strip in which Dick engages in some kind of karate fight with a catsuited woman with the face of a playing card illustrates. Also, it has some of the best sound effects in the business. Surely SQLUD will go down in the history of great onomatopoeia with QWINK and QLUNQ.