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Family Circus, 8/19/06

As the Family Circus family’s rerun trip to Chicago wears on, I was struck by just how damn excited Billy looks here. Not only is he radiating lines of pure joy, but he’s actually drooling. Either he’s had a sudden epiphany and now realizes how global megacorporations control every aspects of our lives — from the names of our great sports stadiums to the manufacture and marketing of the cheapest of grocery items — or he really, really likes gum. Honestly, I’m betting on the latter. Dolly looks pretty thrilled by the prospect of chewing on some Doublemint too, but mom and dad just sport numb, stuporous looks. Presumably they’ve realized that all the money they’ve just spent on baseball tickets and overpriced hats and t-shirts — to say nothing of hotel and airfare — has gone to waste, because they could have entertained their kids just as much by giving them a dollar and sending them to 7-11 to get some Bubblicious.

Six Chix, 8/19/06

Oh my God, Paul needs a sex ed refresher, stat! DUDE, IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT.

Spider-Man, 8/19/06

Oh, wow. I for one have longed to refer to Spidey as a “costumed cretin” for some time. And to do it in an effete, slightly English accent. And to bash in the back of his head with a lead pipe. This has got to be the most satisfying Spider-Man ever.

In fact, this installment so pleased me that for a minute I failed to grasp its import. Spider-Man has singularly failed to battle a real live supervillain since April of 2005, and now we see why: he’s been easily neutralized by Narna’s totally non-super manservant. Why didn’t your spider-sense start tingling while Hugo was sneaking up on you with a bludgeon, Parker? Does it somehow magically not work on butlers? Christ.

Mary Worth, 8/19/06

Aldo’s fingers in panel two provide a good counterpoint to his dialog. I think he’s got a pretty accurate sense of the size of Mary’s black, shriveled heart.

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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.