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Gil Thorp, 5/30/06

“For the love of Christ,” you’ve probably been saying for weeks, “What in God’s name is going on in Gil Thorp?” Well, the sad answer is: not much. We’ve been treated to two or three boring storylines involving surly teenage athletes that have been getting in the way of what we all really want: more of Brent Raptor’s mom. But today’s strip promises big moves in that department. The lady rounding out this coachy foursome joined our cast of lovable misfits last summer, when she used her feminine wiles to get Milford grad/polka disc jockey Von to take care of her little stalker problem. Now she’s going to take on the She-Raptor, which heralds another wacky summer in Gil Thorpistan. Does the “horizon broadening” she has in mind involve getting avocado facials together at the local day spa, or forcible kidnapping at knifepoint? Tune in to find out! I find the whole prospect positively delicious.

Wizard of Id, 5/30/06

Can I admit something to you all? Since I started reading the Wizard of Id on a regular basis last month, I’ve found myself sort of enjoying it some of the time. Admittedly, my expectations coming into it were set very, very low, though this hasn’t enhanced my appreciation of Crock, which I took up again at the same time. The Wiz by my estimation is funny maybe a third of the time, which is a lot better than some strips I could mention but won’t because it would be deeply embarrassing for them.

Anyway, today I had the realization that the installments of this strip I like the best are the ones involving the stablehands, whose conversation inevitably revolves around horse feces and the shoveling thereof, and, in the larger sense, the level of degradation that this brings into their lives. Make of this what you will.

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Shoe, 5/16/06

Do you think that if you just drew all the characters in your comic as birds, day after day after day, you’d eventually forget that they were birds? Do you think that eventually you’d get so bird-blind that you’d think it was perfectly all right to go with a joke that conjures up the horrific image of birds gleefully pecking at the fried carcasses of other birds in a world where cannibalism isn’t just accepted, but celebrated by symbolics acts of the state legislature?

Because it’s not all right. Do you hear me? It’s just not.

Curtis, 5/16/06

Exactly how old are Curtis and his school buddies supposed to be? I always had them pegged as middle schoolers. I figure Curtis is 12, and Derek and “Onion” are maybe 13 or 14. Thus, my immediate reaction to this strip wasn’t “Derek and ‘Onion’ stole a car” but “Derek and ‘Onion’ can drive?” Maybe it’s just me.

I’m convinced that the quote marks around “Onion” are actually part of the gentleman’s legal name, so he doesn’t have to fear the wrath of Finger Quotin’ Margo. Others aren’t so lucky.

Wizard of Id, 5/16/06

Oh, Mrs. of Id, I wish you hadn’t gone and done that. Now she’ll … I mean, I try to stop her but she … oh dear …

She just feels very strongly about it, you see.

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Wizard of Id, 10/29/04

Welcome to a new feature here at IRTCSYDHT — IRTCSYDHT on the road! I’m comin’ at you live from New York City, the Big Apple, Gotham, the city that never sleeps! Let me tell you, New York’s good for trendy boutiques and twelve dollar martinis, but pretty crappy when it comes to comics. But by plunking down 25 cents for the New York Post (which, by the way, is the crappiest paper I’ve ever read — today they used a dollar sign as an S in a headline, as if it were the title of a bad rap song), I got reacquainted with an old friend named The Wizard of Id — or, as the Post apparently calls it, just The Wizard.

Like Kudzu, this strip has long since dispensed with its title character as its main source of yucks. It looks like its passed through the decade or so since I last read it without missing a beat: still making jokes about the short little king! Oh, he’s a hoot. I like how he always seems to be running for office — as if he weren’t a brutal monarch who was anointed by God and could crush his subjects with an iron fist! O King, why do you waste your time grovelling before your subjects for their approval when you should be taxing them blind and spending their hard-earned gold on wenches and ornaments for your palace! Your majesty, you are not worthy of your crown!

OK, so, to sum up: Wizard of Id is still stupid. Still, I have to credit it with teaching me the meaning of the word “fink.”