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Judge Parker, 10/1/10

I realize that I haven’t been keeping you abreast (Ha! See what I did there?) of developments in Judge Parker, so: Neddy and her breasts have dumped Jules, but the three of them will still be accompanying him to his big shoe show in Milan. Because she adores him! And the best thing you can do when you adore someone is to hang out with him immediately after you break up with him, torturing him with the failure of your relationship together, in the midst of a stressful professional engagement that could make or break his career. That’s just what best friends do!

Family Circus, 10/1/10

Man, I have never seen the Family Circus kids looking more wracked with ennui than they do here. “You’ll start makin’ it when you start losin’ teeth,” Dolly says, with the dead-eyed expression of someone who now just sits around the house all day, feeling her teeth with her tongue and waiting for the next one to fall out so she can add to her pile. PJ, meanwhile, is utterly unimpressed with her hoard of cash. “What’s the point?” he thinks to himself. “All this money hasn’t made Dolly happy. No amount of money could make any of us happy. Why go on? Why do anything at all?”

Apartment 3-G, 10/1/10

Hey, remember when a newly made-over and re-energized Tommie was going to take the world by storm and have interesting adventures? Yeah, me neither. Oh, look, it’s a plotline involving two ancillary Apartment 3-G characters! Let’s watch Lu Ann and Margo deal with this for the next six to nine weeks.

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Hey all, just a head’s up: I’ve updated the posting and discussion policies for the site, mostly to reflect and explain how I already run things around here anyway. If you’ve never read this, read it, and even if you have, check out the updates, particularly the new FAQ/Socratic dialogue I’ve added that will hopefully be illuminating about how not to get banned/yelled at!

And now, on to comics.

Dick Tracy, 9/30/10

Is it possible to construct a more delightful phrase than “Dick Tracy, undercover hobo”? I believe the answer to that question to be a firm “no,” but only because no English word-sequence can truly convey the awesomeness of panel one, where Dick’s eyes glow hypnotically out of his shadowy, bearded face. Dick’s gone undercover among the scruffy unhoused set to track down a bum who’s handing out thousand-dollar bills. As a homeless man handing out thousand-dollar bills would in all likelihood be almost immediately robbed and murdered, but just in case that isn’t in process, Dick makes sure to shout out his location as loudly as possible, for no good reason.

Mary Worth, 9/30/10

Desperate for some way to enliven this offensively smug scene, the Mary Worth artist distracts us with wacky perspective shifts. Panel two, for instance, caters to every reader’s fantasy by showing what it would look like to be a master assassin lurking in the bushes across the street, watching Mary and Jeff through the scope of a high-powered rifle, and waiting for the perfect moment to pull the trigger.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/30/10

Oh, Elviney (if that is your name — I’m pretty sure it is but I don’t feel like looking it up), why do you sigh so? Is it a sigh like “Oh, that tired old chestnut?” A sigh like, “Darn, I was hoping for some effective weight-loss tips from my portly friend?” Or a sigh like, “Good lord, all of us in this blighted hamlet are so very poor and hungry?”

Wizard of Id, 9/30/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because Floyd died terribly, for no good reason!

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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.