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Wizard of Id, 5/15/10

I must give reluctant kudos to the Wizard of Id for not only acknowledging its medieval setting, but using it as a springboard for an anachronistic play on words. The modern expression “fell off a truck,” a euphemism for stolen goods, would of course be meaningless to the inhabitants of Id, who are wholly ignorant the internal combustion engine, so “fell off a wagon” is the closest equivalent; but this in turn is itself a modern expression, denoting an addict whose attempts at reformation have failed. The combination of the archaic and the modern results in a commendably multilayered gag that ought by rights to be the stock in trade of these period strips.

The Wizard of Id also holds true to its milieu by depicting human beings being bought and sold like chattel.

Mary Worth, 5/15/10

Ho ho, we’ve spent all this time focusing on Bonnie’s piddling little compulsive shopping problem, and only now does she confess that she has “many bad habits”? I can’t wait to see how Mary reacts when she realizes that she’s spent all her meddling energy on a red herring. Does she have the strength left to deal with the cross-country bank robbery spree? The ketamine distribution ring? The dismembered drifters neatly packaged in Charterstone’s communal storage space?

Family Circus, 5/15/10

Soon Jeffy’s possessed demon-hand will lead to a string of gruesome stranglings. “Now, Jeffy, tell us why you did what you did,” the court-appointed social worker will ask. “I’m sorry!” he says. “It was my fingers! My fingers got away from me! My bloody, murderous fingers!” [GENTLE LAUGHTER FROM ELDERLY NEWSPAPER SUBSCRIBERS ACROSS AMERICA]

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Mark Trail, 5/4/10

Oh ho ho, women, am I right, everybody? First they’re all like “Oh, we’re married, we should maybe spend more than six days a year together,” then when you agree to stick around, they’re scooting off to have themselves professionally groomed, because they just hang around the house looking like a slob when you’re not there! Who can understand ’em?

The best part of this strip is how happy Cherry’s dad looks in the second panel to get a little Mark time in. “Say, Mark, we don’t really get much opportunity to chat, so while she’s off at the beauty parlor, why don’t we…” “No, Cherry! Don’t leave me alone with him!”

Hi and Lois, 5/4/10

Is Hi’s face covered with bruises? I guess that’s just to show you that when men gossip, they do it in a manly way — at a bar, after drunkenly punching each other in the face.

Spider-Man, 5/4/10

Super-heroics update! While the sinister Sabretooth disarmed a police officer and fled, our hero nestled his face into his wife’s ample bosom and muttered semi-coherent nonsense. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, EVERYBODY!

The Wizard of Id, 5/4/10

Wow, this strip sure is on the cutting edge of social commentary! Yes, sir, the times sure are changing, if by “the times” we mean “the times forty years ago!” But, whatever, women, am I right?

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Apartment 3-G, 3/18/10

I’m sure your first cynical reaction upon seeing a mugger on modern planet Earth refer to someone as a “witch” was that this is a comics-page-friendly stand-in for a more common contemporary unpleasantry identical except for the first letter. Consider, though, the ruffian’s oddly anachronistic cowl. Isn’t it at least possible that he is in fact a medieval peasant, rudely thrust, via some natural or man-made temporal anomaly, into present-day Manhattan? To a man who’s grown up in a rigidly patriarchal society, a woman such as Bobbie — brash, forward, apparently unattached, laughing in the face of death — might seem like a terrifying sorceress. Also, our man probably knows no trade other than subsistence agriculture, and his lack of any skills that would be economically useful in the 21st century explains his turn to crime. In short, Bobbie is probably actually just being threatened with a crudely made dagger, or, at worst, an early flintlock pistol more likely to blow up in our misplaced serf’s hand than to do real damage to his target.

Family Circus, 3/18/10

As if the dialogue in this panel weren’t already creeptastic, we also have Jeffy’s exhausted-looking face, which reads not so much as “adorable little kid just waking up” but more as “child exhausted and terrified from trying so hard to dream about YOU MOMMY, ONLY YOU, BUT IT’S SO HARD.” Sorry, Jeffy, if you can’t do it yourself, you’re going to have to wear the Night Terror Jacket again!

Mark Trail, 3/18/10

One of the more baffling undercurrents in this Mark Trail storyline has been a simmering political debate about whether or not “big motors” should be allowed to operate on the lake that has been the focus of the action thus far. I’m not particularly clear on how any of the characters stand on this crucial issue, but the Parker Brothers’ two-smallish-motor-powered boat appears unlikely to satisfy either side. Surely the anti-big-motor activists will point out that this arrangement produces as much noise and pollution as a truly big motor, while big motor aficionados will sneer at the half-assed measure.

Meanwhile, Mark still seems to believe that anyone anywhere still keeps “supplies” in an “icehouse.” Current smart betting on what’s behind that thick door is clustered around “growhouse” and “grisly collection of corpses on hooks.”

Wizard of Id, 3/18/10

Actually, providing adequate sanitation for mobile armies is a problem that has been a crucial part of military planning since the ancient world. It’s one that’s particularly important for armies in the countryside attempting to besiege a city or castle, as Id’s catapult-armed forces appear to be doing here; it wasn’t uncommon for sieges to be lifted not because of the defenders’ military triumph, but because diseases like cholera or dysentery, spread by sewage that hadn’t been dealt with properly, had devastated the besieging army. In fact, in the Crimea in the 1300s, the Mongols … oh, wait, this is the Wizard of Id? Uh, never mind. Ha ha, pooping is funny!

Programming note! Your faithful blogger is now finished with his SXSW adventure … but is just turning around and leaving for a real actual vacation! Said vacation will entail handing over the reins to the inimitable Uncle Lumpy, starting tomorrow and going for a bit longer than a week. Play nice while I’m away!