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Archive: Wizard of Id

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This is the logical conclusion to any feeling other than icy indifference towards anybody

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Wizard of Id, 2/11/14

Valentine’s Day is coming up, everybody! The Wizard of Id has long ago made its position on this beloved, long-standing holiday clear: that it leads directly to grotesque and perverse sexual practices. This year’s cautionary tale includes normal human love, the use of a broomstick as a potentially dangerous sexual aid, tree-fucking, and of course your garden-variety bestiality. The most harrowing aspect is that this full-panel horrorshow is being published three days before February 14th, which means that the rest of the week will be dedicated to increasingly grim sex-nightmares and will conclude with the strip’s entire readership taking vows of chastity and/or suicide.

B.C., 2/11/14

Ha ha, yes, it’s funny because “1982” is a year in the distant past when we all used pay phones and made collect calls? Except it’s in the distant future for the cavemen of B.C.? Or the even more distant past, according to the persistent theory that B.C. takes place in our post-apocalyptic future? Anyway, good joke, B.C., it’s not going to make most readers confused and irritated at having to think about your timeline situation at all. Also, probably the phone should’ve rung at some point.

Spider-Man, 2/11/14

J. Jonah Jameson has gone mad with power and is determined to destroy our hero! Looks like it’s time for Spidey to use his greatest power: running away! THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN!!!!!

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Keep in mind that manure-shoveling is a significant part of Id’s economy

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Crankshaft, 12/14/12

Hey, all, have you been curious about why exactly Crankshaft has introduced a new character, who is cheerful and competent and thus hated by Crankshaft but also sad and lonely and abandoned by her family, into the strip? Well, now you know: she’s Crankshaft’s new love interest. that’s right, they’re going to make sex to each other, probably still wearing their Santa outfits. Happy holidays! (I took the Christ out of Christmas there because the whole scenario would make Baby Jesus cry.)

Apartment 3-G, 12/14/13

I haven’t really been able to figure out what the deal is with Cole’s doctor in Apartment 3-G, beyond the fact that he’s a creep with inconsistent character design. (Ha ha, it’s kind of funny that when I see two wildly different people presented as doctors in this strip, my assumption is not “there are multiple physicians working on the same case” but rather “jeez, Apartment 3-G artist and colorists, get it together.”) Anyway, Doctor “Doc” Whoever continues to be vaguely off-putting today, and also continues to deal with Lu Ann as if she has some relationship to his patient beyond “former art teacher of daughter.” What could this mysterious Christmas gift be? “Surprise! It’s a new brain for Cole, your not-boyfriend! A brain is what he needs, right? I sure hope so, it’s been out of the fridge for a while and it’s gonna go bad soon.”

Wizard of Id, 12/14/13

There’s obviously a lot to object to in this cartoon, but the one thing I can’t get past is the idea that Id is somehow one of the 20 most economically powerful nations in the faux-medieval hell dimension where it exists.

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Jughead will be getting all the rich-people food he has coming to him, thank you very much

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Archie, 11/19/13

I know this isn’t news to anyone who’s spent any time reading the adventures of the Riverdale gang, but Archie, the ostensible protagonist of the long-running Archie comics franchise, is kind of unbearable. Normally this is most obvious in the shabby way he treats the multiple young women who for reasons unknowable are in love with him, but his attitude towards his male pals is frankly not much better. Today’s strip is particularly poignant: Archie’s class-based anxieties are on full display as he attempts to worm his way into Veronica’s high society world, and he apparently thinks that loudly mocking his best friend’s poor-person habits is his key to gaining the one percent’s acceptance. Fortunately, Jughead once again proves that the most radical form of resistance to the economic elite is a complete lack of shame over the so-called “manners” they deem so important.

Wizard of Id, 11/19/13

I don’t know what’s more slapdash about this: that all three quotes are from J.R.R. Tolkien (who, for the record, is not the only author in history who has written about wizards), or that the strip freely admits to not bothering to figure out what the second quote even means.

Mark Trail and Mary Worth, 11/19/13

Meanwhile in Mark Trail and Mary Worth, true terror is in progress: old people are falling down! Say what you will about the soap opera strips, but they seem well aware of the main anxieties of their primary audience.