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Ziggy, 12/18/09

Wow! Like a lot of people, I assumed that Ziggy would make a token response to Pearls Before Swine’s put-pants-on-Ziggy crusade before getting back to the bizarrely optimistic despair that is its stock in trade. But today brings us back to pants, and puts a whole new spin on things! Ziggy is visiting his wizened dry cleaner, who offers to give back the gnomish alopeciac’s trousers — along with his Nehru jacket, a garment that went out of style many years ago. Thus, this panel turns our scorn back upon us. Pants are so out of date, it seems to be saying. Maybe you narrow-minded losers are walking around, your thighs unfairly constricted by fabric tubes; but Ziggy is the new model man, his legs exposed to the open air, as is the style here in the future. You squares with the pants can do what you want. Ziggy won’t be having any of it.

Wizard of Id, 12/18/09

Hurl all the epithets you want at the Wizard of Id — “unfunny,” “irrelevant,” “badly drawn,” “minimizes torture” — but one thing you have to give it credit for is its unflinching attitude towards alcohol. While Hi and Lois, for instance, has gone along to get along, with “Thirsty” Thurston’s gin blossom-scarred nose of old having long ago vanished, the Wizard of Id’s Bung remains on the funny pages as an unrepentant alcoholic, and not the fun, charming kind. Today, for instance, we learn that, in the brief period of time after he awakes from his booze-numbed slumber but before he can stumble down to the bar to start drinking again, his hands are shaking so badly due to the lack of alcohol that he injures himself while attempting to attend to basic grooming. This may shock and horrify you, but anything that leads to awkward conversations along the lines of “Daddy, what’s the DTs?” is OK in my book.

Six Chix, 12/18/09

Speaking of horror, there’s something quite touching about this scene, in which ephemeral snow-lovers trade a last few endearments even as their bodies droop and melt.

Mark Trail, 12/18/09

Sheriff Stogie Q. Doublechin is right! That is a good one! What kind of monster leaves a little boy trapped under a car on the beach? How the hell does a car even get onto a beach on the first place? And would anyone leave a child in the care of this obvious lunatic? No, the sheriff doesn’t think he’ll be following that lead, than you very much. He’ll just stay here with his thumbs hooked into his belt and glare at you there in your cage, mister! Haw haw!

Note just what a state Mark is in, with no less than five hairs somewhat out of place. This is really the most desperate we’ve ever seen him.

Crock, 12/18/09

So, uh, the Lost Patrol, after years of all-male company, has been saved by water and masturbatory fodder? Eh, why not, it’d hardly be the most distasteful Crock ever produced.

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Dennis the Menace, 12/17/09

I hereby request demand that Dennis the Menace be renamed Henry Mitchell the Lascivious, Menacing Pervert, as today he appears to be insisting that Dennis ensure that sexily emaciated 15-year-old baby-sitter Chloe remain in the Mitchell family employ. I’d say that Henry was merely planning to teach Dennis about sexual objectification early, or perhaps that he had found a new star for his masturbatory reveries, but yesterday we saw him making time at the mall with some non-wife person, so clearly he plans some unseemly, legally actionable advance. This panel is by far the most distasteful thing on today’s comics page.

Mary Worth, 12/17/09

By comparison, today’s Mary Worth is positively innocent, though I do require that Wilbur keep both hands where we can see them. This is literally the twelfth consecutive day Wilbur has spent parked in front of his computer, and many of us were beginning to despair that we’d ever seem a flashback, so today’s sexy thought balloon about Wilbur’s lost love is something of a breath of fresh air, even if it is juxtaposed with a facial expression of Spock-like seriousness. C’mon Wilbur, who could have resisted that pearl necklace, that frilly collar, that fringy jacket? It was the sort of outfit that drove men wild, on whatever alternate-universe 1970s Earth where someone might have actually worn it!

Dick Tracy, 12/17/09

I would like to point out that that the alienating, inhumanely scaled architecture on display in the second panel of today’s Dick Tracy nicely parallels the alienation between long-haired father and long-haired son. I’d also like to point out that, if you want your rage-frenzied classical orchestra conductor dad to stop hitting you, you probably shouldn’t refer to violins as “fiddles.”

Ziggy, 12/17/09

In case you’re wondering what this is about: this is what this is about! I’d like to add that I dearly hope that comics editors really do go work wearing a suit and tie, and that they sit behind a large, imposing desk, and that, when they ask hairless, half-naked weirdos to maybe put on some pants, they do so with an expression that shows that they speak more from sorrow than from anger.

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Mary Worth, 12/12/09

As predicted, Mary Worth has made what should by all rights be a spectacular storyline boring in near-record time, mostly by showing us endless shots of Wilbur typing instead of treating us to mid-70s college flashbacks. Still, there are some moments of visual interest in today’s strip, mostly centering around Wilbur’s crimes against ergonomics. In panel one, he’s somehow managed to get his chest all the way up the keyboard, forcing his elbows behind his back as he types the phrase every young man wants to hear — “I’m probably not your dad, but your mom was an amazing lay back in college.” In panel two, the desk seems to have miraculously dropped by two or three inches, which explains why Wilbur’s fingers are just flailing about in the air two inches above the keyboard.

Ziggy, 12/12/09

Last year around this time, I pointed out how creepy it was for a man with no pants to wait in line to see Santa. Today we learn what’s even creepier: a man with no pants standing off to the side and silently watching kids sit on Santa’s lap. Just the thought of it is apparently making Santa weep in disgust.

Mark Trail, 12/12/09

While I suppose it’s swell that Mark is going to great lengths to save Rusty’s life and all, don’t you think he’s a little too excited about all this breaking and entering and smashing windows and what not? I mean, look at that face in the second panel: drenched with sweat, eyes wide and crazed — Mark hasn’t had this much fun in his life! In fact, it was wholly unnecessary for him to dramatically throw that old barrel though the store’s front window, as Mark is more than capable of kicking any door down. One begins to wonder if the whole “jacking the car up on sand as a playful dog scampers about” scenario was a set-up to allow Mark to go on this vandalistic rampage.

Pluggers, 12/12/09

Pluggers are so scandalized by extremely mild swear words that they bowdlerize classic movie quotes, even in their own minds.