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The Wizard of Id, 10/13/11

B.C. creator and Wizard of Id collaborator Johnny Hart famously used his comics as a platform for his religious beliefs. Hart is no longer with us, but the tradition lives on, I guess, kinda? Here, the eponymous Wizard summons the Cacodaemon (κακος — “bad”, δαιμων — “demon”: way to go, creative team) for a little light housekeeping. Do you suppose he gets conflicted about clearing out the spider webs? Scrubs toilets as well as Knute? Works on Sundays? Theology is hard!

Funky Winkerbean, 10/13/11

Failed Book Guy gamely rings up his final sale, to the smug bore who drove away every last one of his other customers.

Judge Parker, 10/13/11

Ripped from the headlines: Fresh from a foiled attempt on his life, Saudi diplomat Bubu Chibale* tails Randy Parker. He must act soon — a few more of their “lucky breaks” and the infidel Parker-Driver-Spencer alliance will surpass his own Kingdom in wealth and power.

* Fun fact: “Bubu” and “Chibale” are in fact both Middle-Eastern male given names, but they’re Egyptian, not Arabic — and from the very first page of the baby-namer. Research, Judge Parker people!

Curtis, 10/13/11

Ha, Curtis sure looks annoyed about this flashback. Understandable, really — in his strip, “flashback” means yet another iron cycle of “embarrassed shopping for school clothes”, “resisting the first day of school”, “bullied by Derrick and ‘Onion'”, “Flyspeck Island hijinx”, “spurned by Michelle”, “stalked by Chutney”, on and on until at last Kwanzaa brings the sweet relief of madness, if only for a week.

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Mark Trail’s Greatest Hits – a Fall Fundraiser special, part 4

Mark Trail — 5/22, 11/14 – 15, 12/27/08, 3/30/09

That Mark Trail is one persuasive fellow.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Jumble, 7/6/11

Wow, this is an unexpectedly grim scenario for the Jumble. What could possibly be the subject of this epic debate between man and cow? I’m guessing it’s “Resolved: It is morally acceptable for humans to eat cows,” which explains why both parties are so angry: this is no mere academic enterprise. Unfortunately, the cows had no chance of winning the debate because everything they said was a series of moos and lowing noises. “You’ll have to speak English if you expect us to respect what you have to say!” jeered the farmers. Then, having declared themselves the winners, they led the cows off to the slaughterhouse.

Wizard of Id, 7/6/11

Since (despite what you might guess) I don’t own an extensive collection of mouldering Wizard of Id paperbacks from the ’60s and ’70s, I have no idea whether the recent trend in the strip for the Wizard to be more cruel and diabolical is a return to the character’s origin or just a what-the-hell-why-not impulse from the creative team, but I can’t say I entirely disapprove of it. Today he lives out every science geek’s fantasy of making those who find his hobby boring into unwilling experimental subjects.

Ziggy, 7/6/11

At last, the truth comes out: Ziggy is a damn dirty communist. I don’t approve of Joseph McCarthy’s methods, but if we could maybe arrange a Congressional hearing at the climax of which Ziggy would be blacklisted, that’d be great.

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Wizard of Id, 5/17/11

One wonders why today’s Wizard of Id, having annotated with blunt-force onomatopoeia actions in the first two panels that would have been easily parsed as drawn without explanation, then goes on in panel three to illustrate … something … with a series of mysterious radiating lines. Are these supposed to represent light — a glow from within the bathroom, along the lines of the nuclear whatsit in Kiss Me Deadly, or a more abstract representation of the gargoyle’s shocking ugliness? Do they indicate sound, perhaps the gargoyle’s inarticulate shrieking? Or, considering that the magical beast has been interrupted on the toilet, maybe they’re stink lines? They’re stink lines, aren’t they? Since that’s the grossest possible answer, I’m going to assume that’s the case.

Apartment 3-G, 5/17/11

My favorite part of this strip is not the fact that Paul caught the bouquet (although it does make one smile to imagine his bridesmaids’ dresses, just as hideous in design as the one Lu Ann has on now, only they’re the same hideous orange creamsicle color as his suit), but all the single ladies flailing wildly about in the background, a full ten yards from anywhere the bouquet could have possibly landed. It’s like they’ve all been turned off marriage forever by the horrorshow before them, but feel they need to participate in this antiquated patriarchal ritual, for appearance’s sake.

The Lockhorns, 5/17/11

Who says the Lockhorns is out of touch? It takes someone with a near anthropological understanding of the nuances of modern American life to grasp the distinction between a “dude” and a “bro.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/17/11

Gosh, it looks like the whole rest of the week is going to be dedicated to the funeral of poor cuzzin Travis. Today, the town preacher implies in front of Travis’s whole family that he’s being tortured forever, in hell!