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Shoe, 8/13/10

This diner patron has suddenly realized that the ambiguities of the verb “serve” could be deadly in a world of talking animals. We already know that the birds in the strip eat other birds, so why wouldn’t Roz just kill her bird-man customer and feed him to a fish-man? No reason. No reason at all why she wouldn’t. Better tip big, bird-man!

Family Circus, 8/13/10

The whole “Keanes go to the beach” storyline we’ve been enjoying (for certain limited definitions of “enjoying”) over the past couple of weeks is, as several readers have pointed out, a repeat from the ’70s or ’80s. Certainly that was a more innocent time, when Jeffy’s brazen nudity was merely implied and not rubbed in our faces.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/13/10

“No, yore paw is passed out, from th’ likker.”

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Apartment 3-G, 8/12/10

Well, it looks like I Dressed In The Dark has a little-known sister show, called I Allowed My Hair To Grow In Its Natural Color In The Dark, And Also During When It Was Light Out. I’m not sure where this little scene is supposed to be playing out — I suppose it’s on the IDITD set, and the Monocolored Creepy Staring Background Guy, of the sort well known in this strip, is one of the grips or something. Still, it’s weird that the cameras aren’t rolling, as this sort of moment — Kat’s eyebrow arched cruelly, Lu Ann goggle-eyed with terror — is pretty much what reality TV is for.

Mary Worth, 8/12/10

Oh, look, Mike’s dad exists after all! I was beginning to suspect that perhaps he had died years ago, and Fred was keeping his mouldering corpse in his bedroom and cashing his Social Security checks. Actually, based on today’s strip, that might still be the case: the expressionless face, the shuffling walk, the tattered, colorless clothes, and Mike’s expression of sheer terror all point to Lonnie here actually being a zombie reanimated through dark magic.

Blondie, 8/12/10

The weirdest thing about Alexander’s outfit is that, with its bow tie and giant buttons, it’s sort of a less dignified version of Dagwood’s usual work outfit. But, as this strip demonstrates, dignity has never been particularly high on Dagwood’s priority list.

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There are days in the comics blogging business when I really know that I’ve made it. Today, for instance, I was one of surely only a few hundred people on the Universal Press Syndicate’s email distribution list chosen to receive a very important email with the following subject line:

AACK! After 34 Years, Cathy Comic Strip Bids Farewell

Read all about it here, assuming you enjoy reading interviews with Cathy Guisewite in PDF format, and who doesn’t, really.

Obviously, a long-running strip like Cathy can’t just go away without a big to-do. But with the strip’s formerly chronically single title character now married off, and the October 3 end date too close for her to finally poop out a baby, we have to ask ourselves what the bang of an ending will be. Since Cathy was a pioneer depiction of a working woman, we suggest that she get with the times: heartless layoff, followed by workplace spree killing, concluding with suicide by cop.