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Crankshaft, 8/17/06

All right, Crankshaft. Do you want to be hardcore? I mean, the way the Lockhorns is hardcore, with an unrelenting focus on the unlikability of your title character? I sometimes get the feeling that you do, but you so often chicken out, with humanizing anecdotes about Crankshaft’s childhood or glimpses into his supposed soft side or mild jokes told by scantily clad girls. You’ve got to jettison all of that. Instead, every day should be like today. Panel one: Crankshaft is presented with an opportunity, at virtually no cost to himself, to perform some small act of human kindness. Panel two: Crankshaft declines to take said opportunity. Boom, boom. Hardcore.

Six Chix, 8/17/06

OK, Six Chix using the same joke as They’ll Do It Every Time was probably a coincidence. But here they’re using the patented TDIET format. Should Al Scaduto sit idly by and let them rip him off? No way! He needs to respond in the harshest way possible! No, not a lawsuit — with an angry cartoon!

Howzzat again? “Libby” and five of her friends say they’re going to create a new kind of comic strip … real “fresh,” yuh see…

…but when they run out of ideas … well, uh … guess whose playbook they’re poaching from?

Oh yeah!

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Six Chix, 7/6/06

I’m betting that somewhere in Six Chix’s marketing material, the phrase “fresh new voices” or a close variation thereupon appears. Thus, it’s all the more distressing to see the strip do a joke that appeared three weeks ago in They’ll Do It Every Time.

Of course, TDIET can’t let itself get shown up by a bunch of broads. No, it’s gotta up the ante!

They’ll Do It Every Time, 7/6/06

My love for TDIET grows ever deeper by the day, in large part because the idioms and phrases it uses seem to exist in a world all its own, a world that hasn’t changed since Ike won his second term. I’m not sure when the phrase “kitty” was last used for a tip jar, nor have I ever heard anyone refer to tipping as “Feeding the kitty.” But I’m going to start using both phrases as often as I can, to try to bring TDIET to life. I do like the fact that Titus (’cause he’s tight-fisted, get it?) is watching his car being washed from another room. Maybe it’s a two-way mirror down at the station house and the “boys” are interrogating it.

Judge Parker, 7/6/06

It’s kind of unnecessary for Katherine to point out that she’s not Randy’s birth mother, since they appear to be roughly the same age. In fact, with those knowing glances they’re giving each other in the last two panels, I’m thinking that there’s gonna be lots of long hours on the campaign trail where they’ll be … learning how to use chopsticks, if you get my drift.

OK, that was pretty gross. But faithful reader “rich” already stole my Katherine Harris election fraud joke in a comment on yesterday’s post. Damn you, clever commentors!

Katherine clearly will be able to use her psychokinetic powers to help Randy get elected — her fingers are glowing like E.T.’s! Speaking of which…

Mary Worth, 7/6/06

I’m sure I’m going to have many, many weeks to goggle in awe at Mary’s Captain Kangaroo-esque stalker, so I’m going to focus my remarks here on her electric finger of power. Specifically, it’s pretty cool. Back off, stalker man! She can taser you with her mind!

Gil Thorp, 7/6/06

Gil Thorp’s floral-print-tight-clad, junior-high-age daughter getting into catty fights at gymnastics camp? Oh, yeah, summer’s gonna be awesome.

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Dennis the Menace, 6/26/06

Here’s one for the Crappy Coloring Chronicles: does poor Ruff have mold growing in his fluffy white coat? One of the fraternities at my college had a St. Bernard that they used as a mascot but otherwise left to wander the campus unattended, and he often had something greenish and inappropriate growing in the folds of his fur, so it can happen, but Ruff is the cared for by an Eisenhower-era nuclear family unit, not twenty or so perpetually drunk and irresponsible 19-year-old layabouts. This actually reinforces my belief that the coloring of the daily comics is done in some steamy tropical locale where the wages are shockingly low and mildew grows in everything. Either that, or it’s done by robots who are wholly unfamiliar with carbon-based forms of life.

Mary Worth, 6/26/06

I know it’s really just the crappy quality of this graphic, but I’d like to believe that Mary’s eyes are rolling back in her head as she struggles to comprehend the fact that Dr. Jeff has finally managed to extract himself from her clutches. The bold-italics of that last phrase in Jeff’s word balloon implies a certain note of triumph, and the way he holds up his wine glass for a toast shows that he’s going to do this dump job in style. Mary is enjoying a glass of human blood, as is her wont.

Gasoline Alley, 6/26/06

Meanwhile, in Gasoline Alley, a small child is about to be eaten by a bear.

Six Chix, 6/26/06

In Six Chix, a proud young person punches an old woman in the face.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 6/26/06

And in TDIET, a German family is baffled by the idea that non-Germans might be of interest to anybody.