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Apartment 3-G, 10/14/10

Kudos to Lu Ann and Margo for not even pretending that this makeover thing is going to have any long-term impact on them. They’re back to their boring clothes, and back to their iconic hairstyles, with Lu Ann getting there through the magic of extensions, which I’m pretty sure don’t actually work that way. Was poor Lu Ann just given a cheap wig and told that it was “extensions”? Is she hallucinating in an insane asylum right now, having been driven mad by the absence of her lovely blonde tresses?

Ziggy, 10/14/10

“…underneath the headline ‘If this individual is spotted in your neighborhood, keep your children indoors.'”

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Mark Trail, 9/29/10

Not for the first time, I’m completely flummoxed by the moral and legal universe that Mark Trail inhabits. We’ve had plenty of wholly understandable righteous indignation about Future Governor Frank’s semi-caged hunting of semi-wild animals scheme, but no mention of any actual laws that it might break. What, then, does Mark hope to achieve with his telescopic-lens photos? Career-wrecking shame? But Frank seems to believe that this hunt will improve his popularity, not harm it. But maybe we’re meant to believe that honest ordinary voters would be repulsed by caged hunts, and only the twisted, effete elites would take joy in this vile pastime. Perhaps Mark wants to reveal Frank in the midst of clubby scenes like panel one, with its “gentlemen, let’s toast to evil!” vibe, and destroy the common-man cred that we haven’t seen him doing any kind of work to build up. Today, however, we become privy to immorality within immorality, with the already farcical hunt’s outcome being fixed in advance to curry favor with some influential lawmaker. Where does the rabbit hole of depravity end?

I’m pretty numb to bizarre Elrod-ball placement at this point, but I do find panel two particularly charming. Ol’ Joe isn’t too bright, apparently, as he needs to be reminded that he is in fact Frank’s ranch foreman. Frank carefully outlines the details of his scheme, but Joe can only look on numbly and mutter “Jack Elrod” in response. Perhaps simple Joe will be this story’s moral center, refusing to fulfill his odious duties and instead revealing the sins of his employer to the world. “Jack Elrod!” he’ll shout, in triumph.

Ziggy, 9/29/10

Ha ha, Ziggy, don’t worry! Nobody actually wants to buy your body parts. In fact, most people, upon discovering that your liver or one of your kidneys was inside them, would probably try to remove the offending organ with whatever sharp implement was at hand.

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Ziggy, 9/15/10

Ziggy staring forlornly at the viewer and admitting that nobody likes or respects him, using language that was vaguely funny when deployed by Rodney Dangerfield 25 years ago, is nothing out of the ordinary. But I admit that my interest is piqued by the sour-looking man in the hat strolling behind our hapless misery-gnome. Was it an encounter with this sneering Babbitt that left Ziggy so forlorn? Did the bourgeois conformist glare at our hero and sneer “Put some pants on, freak,” before stalking off? Perhaps Ziggy’s sense of persecution has some basis in external reality after all.

Shoe, 9/15/10

Shoe seems to have abandoned his attempt to woo an uptight lady bird with Farah Fawcett hair and moved on to someone more his style: a busty, heavy-lidded fellow drunkard wearing something low-cut who likes to complain about things. “Dogs, am I right? Seriously, who do we have to blow to get some God-damned booze around here?”

Gil Thorp, 9/15/10

Oh, man, a whole year’s worth of boring and incomprehensible Gil Thorps is worth it if they’re necessary to frame the strip’s annual descent into fiery madness. This year’s ritual of cleansing flame features the newly elected co-captains placating the crazed torch-wielding mob by pledging to beat to death any Milford player who fails to adequately entertain the townsfolk.

Mary Worth, 9/15/10

“After all, the most important thing about my father is how he affected me, and since I cared about him less as a human being and more in terms of his failures to live up to some abstract ideal, once we made peace his continued presence in my life was frankly superfluous. His death was really more convenient than anything else. Am I right in assuming that this sensitive talk about my feelings is finishing the job of preparing you for sex with me that was started by the russet-colored meal I purchased for you and my orange suit/black shirt/wispy chest hair combo? I’ll bet I’m right! I’m a trained mental health practitioner!”