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Blondie, 5/22/12

We here at the Comics Curmudgeon spend a lot of time ragging on long-running legacy strips, which decades ago ceased to be the work of an artist/visionary and are instead staffed by hired guns in the employ of the intellectual property owners. But we don’t say enough about the advantages of this kind of working environment! Let’s say that, back in the summer of 2006, you come up with a funny joke — ha ha, did you know that the youth of today will pay good money for pants that are already torn up? mercy! — only to discover that lots and lots and lots and lots of your fellow cartoonists had the same idea! So you’d probably chuck it and try to come up with something else, if you were just working on your own. But if you were a cog in some legacy comic’s great machine, you’d have an advantage over your lone wolf competitors because you’d have access to what sociologists call “institutional memory.” You’d just file the joke idea away in the company Outlook calendar, and set an alarm for when everyone’s long forgotten about haha-torn-jeans jokes. Five years should do it, right? Let’s call it a shade short of six, just to be safe. Come 2012, whoever’s got your job (lord knows it won’t be you) will see the alert pop up and have the day’s strip already half written.

Six Chix, 5/22/12

Huh, against all expectations the puzzling tale of the two young birds that had sex and then had baby birds is continuing, and continuing to be puzzling! “I like the cute young guys, but this time I went to far, in that I had sex with a cute young guy and then had children, ugh.”

Dennis the Menace, 5/22/12

“Mostly I’ve just been in here watching TV, so I guess there really aren’t that many details to fill in. Hey, since you’re up, would mind wiping up the drool-puddle I’m leaving on the ottoman?”

Spider-Man, 5/22/12

Don’t worry, comic-book action fans, the current Spider-Man plot isn’t just going to be about how Peter Parker feels sexually threatened when his wife talks to handsome men! It’s also about how he feels inadequate when he talks to other superheroes.

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Gil Thorp and Funky Winkerbean, 5/21/12

So it looks like the cross shape on Tasha’s neck that I dismissed as a shadow a few weeks back is … an elaborate cross neck tattoo after all? Which I find just a touch unrealistic, as it seems to me that any parent who thinks that “teen mother bringing her child to important events in her life” is the moral equivalent to “whore-monster seducing innocents to sluttery” wouldn’t be particularly high on her own daughter getting a large, highly visible tattoo, even if it celebrates the Lord. From this strip it looks like it might be just a big chunky earring, but take a look at the strip from a few weeks ago and explain to me how it’s supposed to be attached to anything but her neck.

Still, as ham-handed as Tasha’s mother’s disapproval is, at least the student at the center of this teen-morality plot has a name and personality and is in fact at the center of this teen-morality plot, unlike the poor gay teens of Funky Winkerbean, who exist solely to help Becky’s dad finally stand up to his wife and life companion of many years, who is awful and everyone hates her. Congrats, nameless gay teens! You may have briefly been the target of unjustified opprobrium, but you suffered that criticism to help prompt the straight father of a straight main character find his voice, and use that voice to yell at his wife in front of everyone. Savor this victory, none will be sweeter!

Mary Worth, 5/21/12

Oh, man, Mary’s world tour of self-congratulation is in full effect! Here’s Howie and Carm, whose problem wasn’t even interesting enough to merit a Mary Worth plot (and let that sink in for a second) but who have apparently popped up to make it clear that, even though we readers aren’t necessarily privy to all of Mary’s comings and goings, we should rest assured that she’s selflessly helping others at all times, even if we can’t see her.

If this were an ancient Greek tragedy (and given that most ancient Greek tragedies ended in horrific carnage, I dearly wish it were), all this Mary-congratulation would only be serving to reinforce her hubris. This would be followed by atë, the action taken by the hero that leads to her downfall. In this case, Mary, drunk with power and believing her meddling to be infallible, will run eagerly into the immovable object that is Dawn Weston’s love life.

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Blondie, 5/20/12

Since you are all comics scholars, probably you are well aware of the Blondie origin story: Blondie was a carefree flapper girl who fell in love with Dagwood, the aimless son of a wealthy industrialist, and when the two decided to get hitched, Dagwood’s snooty family disinherited him for marrying a commoner, forcing him to get a job and become the suburban drone we know and love feel occasional twinges of mild affection for today.

Anyway, I have this theory that one of the secrets of the strip is that Mr. Dithers is in fact Dagwood’s father, the son having defiantly changed his last name to “Bumstead,” signifying his expulsion from the Dithers family’s monied Eden. This explains a number of the strip’s anomalies: Why Mr. Dithers employs Dagwood despite the Dagwood’s obvious incompetence and Mr. Dithers’s just as obvious contempt for him; why the families occasionally socialize, awkwardly; and why Dagwood, despite his bluster and hostility, is so nakedly desperate for Dithers’s approval. There have been few scenes in the comics more heart-rending and pathetic than the last two panels of this strip, in which Dagwood collapses into his chair in exhausted happiness after receiving such a minor display of affection from his boss.

Judge Parker, 5/20/12

Ooh, we’re the opening stages of this Judge Parker storyline, so let’s use the little details we’re being given to predict how it’s all going to go down! My guess: Sam gets invited on an impromptu fishing trip, Sam turns out to be surprisingly deft at fly-casting, Sam so impresses Avery Blackstone that Avery Blackstone hands over millions of dollars of his studio’s money for the film rights to Judge Parker Emeritus’s unreadable books, because rich guys who are good at awesome hobbies need to look out for each other. It’s slightly less certain, though still decently likely, that Peaches, being a sexy lady of dusky complexion who has a difficult relationship with her boss, will turn out to be a terrorist and/or spy.

Mark Trail, 5/20/12

It’s hard to tell from Mark’s exposition whether the horrifying vision in the final panel here depicts two slugs having sex or attempting to devour one another, but either way it’s easily one of the most scarring thing I’ve seen this week. Once again, fun facts about nature reinforce my long-held philosophy of avoiding nature in all its slimy, horny and/or carnivorous glory.