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Spider-Man, 5/30/09

There are so many Spider-Man newspaper strip tropes that irritate me — “Peter Parker whines because Mary Jane makes more money than he does,” “Peter Parker yells at the TV,” “Peter Parker forgets to bring his Spidey costume somewhere he needs it,” “Peter Parker forgets that he has his costume under his clothes and then needs to take his clothes off, for some reason” — but perhaps the most irritating is “Some ancillary character about whom you don’t care suspects that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.” The latest version of this has taken up much of the last week, as Peter was subject to some desultory hallway questioning about his late-night habits from an old lady in his apartment building; rather than making up some plausible explanation (which, I’d like to emphasize, would be remarkably easy to do for anyone with two brain cells to rub together), instead he panicked and refused to enter an elevator with his elderly neighbor, knowing that he’d break and confess everything under the harsh glow of the florescent lights, and fled down the stairs instead.

Normally I’d have passed over this entire episode in disgusted silence, but I note with some amusement that, according to the reliably entertaining Spider-Man narration box, we were supposed to have regarded this sad farce as “fun time.” Now, however, we’re getting to the deadly serious meat of the story, in which a sinister gang of chinbearded druids prepares for their next daring tractor-trailer heist.

Beetle Bailey, 5/30/09

I’m not sure why, exactly, but I find this Beetle Bailey particularly insulting. Look, General Halftrack is hunched over with rage and he’s pouring booze down his throat, OK? And his wife is falling all over herself apologizing for planning some sort of basic interaction with other humans. The General doesn’t want to go. We get it. You don’t have to name them “the Borrings” to emphasize that General Halftrack will, in fact, be bored (borred?) when he has dinner with them. I never thought I’d hold up Blondie as some sort of paragon of efficient, naturalistic narrative in sequential art storytelling, but, well, Blondie managed to pull this off without giving the off-screen hateful family a name that telegraphed their function. (They ended up with a delightfully insane name, the Glamrockers, but that’s another story.)

Oh, also: General Halftrack is a desperate alcoholic who needs to be drunk in order to function socially, ha ha!

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Family Circus, 5/25/09

As several faithful readers have pointed out, this epic two-week “The Family Circus family sells off their household belongings in order to feed their litter of children” plot is a rerun from decades past, though I hadn’t seen it before. I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered it if I had, because I’m pretty sure this is the first time that I’ve seen some sexy interloper put the Keane’s rock-solid and extremely fecund marriage in jeopardy. I’d make some crack about “pole dancing,” but this blonde bombshell looks less like a stripper and more like some kind of pretty princess doll magically brought to life, which to my mind is much, much creepier.

Dick Tracy, 5/25/09

You know what separates Dick Tracy from your run-of-the-mill out-of-control cop who operates above the law and kills perps, suspected perps, and those standing in close proximity to suspected perps with impunity? It’s his philosophical turn of mind. For instance, if someone had asked me what did in the Queen of Diamonds, I’d have said that it was some combination of suffocation and massive third-degree burns all over her body after she fell into a smokestack. But Tracy is never satisfied with proximate causes, and is always looking for the deeper origins of events. I suppose that’s what makes him such a great detective — that and his propensity for violence and lack of a shred of human empathy.

By the way, I offer half-hearted kudos for linking that Queen of Diamonds plot to the current One-Eyed Jack storyline. I’m relieved to learn that, though the tendency for criminals to run around dressed as playing cards is rampant in the Dick Tracy universe, it appears to be limited to a single family.

Spider-Man, 5/25/09

I knew that the recent Wolverine flick didn’t perform at the box office as well as had been hoped, but does he really merit banishment to the Spider-Man newspaper strip? That seems like an extreme punishment.

Apartment 3-G, 5/25/09

“Wait, you want me to help you make a decision? Gary, don’t you know who I am? I’m Tommie Thompson! I don’t decide things; I just let events happen to me, then I whine about it. Here, I’m going to close my eyes until you’ve decided whether to move to Denver or not. Then I’m going to sigh endlessly.”

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Spider-Man, 5/24/09

So, what’s the most insultingly improbable thing that happens in today’s Spider-Man? Is it that Peter would have forgotten his epic battle with an electrically powered super-villain, which concluded only hours before? Is it that beautiful young movie star Mary Jane would just smile after accidentally being called by the name of her husband’s wizened old aunt? (At least it wasn’t during sex … this time.) No, more laughable than both of those is the idea that anyone, anywhere was moved by anything that happened in the Spider-Man newspaper strip to go through the trouble of writing a letter to anybody. Really, narration box, give us a little credit.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/24/09

Hootin’ Holler’s sole religious authority sure does a good job of opiating the inbred masses with his God talk. I suppose that makes them more likely to cough up the cash when he needs a new TV.

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/24/09

June in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen. There’s nothing like terrible food poisoning to cut down on the crowds poolside, you know what I’m saying?