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You know, unlike some people, I was actually able to relax on my vacation.

Unlike Peter Parker, who is physically unable to resist the siren song of television, I was able to go eight whole days without reading any of the comics that weren’t featured on this site in my absence. So naturally I had to spend the better part of this morning reading everything I missed. Curse you, Houston Chronicle, for making it all so darn easy!

I was unable to decide on my favorite panel from the days I missed. Was it this one, where Gil Thorp openly boasts that he’ll call in his mob ties to silence journalists who dare question his insane coaching decisions?

Or this one, where Eric Mills imagines the sick thrill he’ll get from roasting Margo alive?

Silly Eric! Margo’s carapace is deceptively beautiful, but it will take more heat than an ordinary household grill can put out to damage it.

Anyway, no more living in the past! We must return to the present … where we find that things haven’t really changed much in the past week or so.

Blondie, 9/10/07

Blondie and Dagwood, for instance, are still caught in a hateful game of marital oneupsmanship that is played out via conspicuous consumption. There is, of course, only one way this can end: with the Bumstead house going up in flames in some kind of mutual potlatch gone horribly awry — both of them still inside, sadly.

Mark Trail, 9/10/07

Mark Trail has stepped away from the brink of a potentially interesting exploration of out-of-control tabloid media and out-of-control development hell-bent on getting its way to slip into a familiar groove. You can’t see it because of the dramatic shadows, but that dude in panel two has sideburns. Sideburns. Sideburns and a club. It’s fisticuffs time, people!

Marmaduke, 9/10/07

And, as ever, Marmaduke’s insatiable hunger for the flesh of human children rages unabated. It’s good to be back in the comics!

(Confidential to Tucson-area readers: Some Comics Curmudgeon fans are gathering at the Macayo’s at Ina and Oracle at 1 p.m. this coming Saturday if you’d care to join them!)

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Gasoline Alley, 8/25/07

Wow, so who would have guessed that Slim’s descent into madness would have concluded with, you know, an actual descent into actual, clinically diagnosed madness? I have to say that while the recent Slim vs. the Basketball Playing Youth Of Today has been totally demented, it’s at least been kind of interesting, unlike the previous year or so of Gasoline Alley, so I sort of hope that they keep up with the wackiness. If nothing else, every year or so the gentle, good-humored domestic drama and hillbilly-dialect chuckles should be punctuated by Slim’s escape from the asylum, with hundreds of comically inept cops crawling everywhere in a failed attempt to keep him from killing again.

Dick Tracy, 8/25/07

I haven’t attempted to grapple with plot of Dick Tracy on this blog for about eight weeks; just take my word for it when I say that for about seven of those weeks, the same thing barely happened over and over again, then all of the sudden this week all sorts of things started happening, none of which made any sense if you thought about them for more than about thirty seconds. However, I feel that the dialog in today’s first panel — “Tracy! They know we know! They’re ramming us!” — stands on its own as a wonderful little dollop of poetic nonsense. I hope tomorrow one of the bad guys says “Gretchen! They know we know they know! We’re ramming them!” And then it could just go on like that pretty much indefinitely.

Also, in panel three, this is the second time that the Baron has arrived at the Pentagon via cab, and I have no reason to believe that it’s going to be the last.

Spider-Man, 8/25/07

Spider-Man continues to indulge its obsession with crumbling masonry. Perhaps the creators have decided that a renewed focus on our woefully neglected infrastructure is more important than providing the “thrills” and “excitement” that the masses expect from their superhero fare.

Also, I have to say that there’s something poignant about the modesty of the Shocker’s ambitions in panel one. He knows that there’s no chance of breaking into the big supervillain scene in New York or DC; he’d just be happy if people in San Francisco and LA, and maybe even Portland and Seattle, hear “the Shocker” and think not “obscene hand gesture” but “that mattress-wearing weirdo who robbed a bank.”

B.C., 8/25/07

Also, Clumsy, you’re not … bald? I mean, you’re not, right? As near as I can tell? I know we’re just plugging new jokes into old art, but couldn’t we at least have the same person picking out the jokes and the art?

Wizard of Id, 8/25/07

Ho ho ho! Id is an Orwellian police state, so dominated by the Panopticon-style omnipresence of its security apparatus that it resembles nothing so much as a vast gulag! Ah, whimsy!

Garfield, 8/25/07

This is pretty much the funniest Garfield that’s appeared in weeks. It’s about vomiting.

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Ziggy, 8/23/07

Ziggy always looks depressed, but he’s got a particularly traumatized expression on his weird, mushy face today. He’s sitting in that chair with a death grip on his little hat and a thousand-mile stare like he’s just received some terrible, terrible news. I’m not exactly sure what product or service brings one to the “Family Tree Genealogy” store/office/otherwise featureless room where a guy sits behind a desk; presumably you pay them money and they look up the same stuff on the Internet that you could have found for free in ten minutes if you weren’t a moron. Anyway, getting back to the mysterious little drama here, obviously Ziggy’s just been given some terrible news about his family, though I’d be hard-pressed to come up with what exactly a genealogist could say that would get you as worked up as our lovable loser is here. “Hmm, now where did I put your file … ah, here it is, Ziggy Hitler! Well, I have some interesting news about those European relatives…”

Apropos of nothing except that it’s simultaneously funny and horrifying, faithful reader Dub Not Dubya sent me this picture of a blobfish, which really more accurately should be called a Ziggyfish.

Spider-Man, 8/23/07

So, after robbing a bank, the Shocker is literally just standing around patiently surrounded by piles of money, waiting for the press to arrive, putting his fists on his hips so as to look as confidently villainous as he can once the cameras capture him. Of course, the press consists of erstwhile lovers J. Jonah Jameson and whatshername, the Romulan chick who now has a crush on Spider-Man; any supervillany is sure to be outshone by their squabbling. The only way Spider-Man can find out about all this is if he does the one thing most ingrained in his nature, but which he has sworn not to do: turn on the television. I think it’s safe to say that Spider-Man has finally given up and embraced camp.

Luann, 8/23/07

Oh, I do not like the look on TJ’s face in panel three. It’s one of discomfort, just starting to edge into outright pain. Is there a sharp, broken spring burrowing into someplace tender? Has Brad not actually sat in the chair? Did he make TJ his first test subject in an act of passive-aggressive revenge for the years the Teej has spent undermining his life?

Actually, now that I look at it again, it could just be flat-out rage. If there’s one thing TJ hates, it’s uncomfortable chairs. Don’t you dare offer him anything less than cushy … if you know what’s good for you.

For Better Or For Worse, 8/23/07

Desperate to make Elizabeth stop talking about Anthony — as any decent, normal person would be — Candace finally just changes the subject to herself in panel four.

The whole “Thérèse is an awful bitch” storyline is somewhat undermined by the fact that Anthony does, in fact, look like a fool in panel two. Nice jams, dude! Was 2003 the equivalent of 1988 in metric Canadian years?