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Family Circus, 10/9/10

Thanks to the many faithful readers who took time out of their busy weekends to email me the great news that millions of dollars are going to be spent creating a Family Circus movie. (The comments on that story I linked to are actually pretty great, my favorites being “Hell yeah! This means The Lockhorns can’t be far behind! Team Loretta!” and “Who asked for this? Ida Know. Who wants to see it? Not me.”) Apparently the strip is already moving into the edgier subject matter that Hollywood demands, with Dolly coming to the conclusion that her only way out of the Keane Kompound is as a child bride.

Crankshaft, 10/9/10

If the endless “Pam and Jeff reminisce about the violence Crankshaft has done to the English language” strips had to end — and, really, they could have kept at it for as long as comic strips continue to exist as a medium, as far as I’m concerned — then this is a pretty good way to wrap it up. Our two protagonists, having briefly rediscovered the emotion that normal humans call “happiness,” cringe in terror as they realize that Crankshaft’s soul, having been rejected by both God and Satan, has returned to his mortal form.

Beetle Bailey, 10/9/10

Honestly, there really ought to be someone employed at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC whose sole job is to pose this question before the day’s Beetle Bailey is sent to papers. “Is this somebody’s idea of a joke? I mean, would any of our readers recognize this is a joke, or something resembling a joke? We are still doing strips with jokes in them, right?”

Mary Worth, 10/9/10

“Some people at the hospital use another word for her! Or, wait, ‘war criminal’ is really two words, isn’t it?”

Adrian sure is setting Mary up to hate and fear this “outspoken” “type A” lady. One can only imagine what sort of terrible description of Mary she’s been giving to Jill. I’m starting to guess that she’s doing the meddling biddy equivalent of putting a couple of bugs in a jar and shaking it up.

Spider-Man, 10/9/10

“Oh, right, because I’m a terrible actress. God, this play is going to flop! The boos will be deafening!”

Apartment 3-G, 10/9/10

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: Six to eight weeks worth of plotlines in which Tommie is not deemed interesting enough to appear.

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Marmaduke, 10/8/10

Local authorities and various torch-wielding vigilante mobs have, when faced with the horror that is Marmaduke, often demanded that KILL IT OH MY GOD KILL IT’S A MONSTER KILL IT IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY. But the governor’s team of top scientific advisors have determined that attempting to “kill” Marmaduke will only cut his tenuous connection to a mortal, physical form, transforming him into a malevolent, destructive force of pure energy that can not be stopped or contained. Thus the executive orders to maintain the admittedly terrifying status quo.

Dick Tracy, 10/8/10

Oh my God, Dick Tracy has stumbled onto a cadre of Communist hobos! This makes the hobo-eradication program he conducts in his off hours totally justified, retroactively!

Funky Winkerbrean, 10/8/10

“What I’m trying to say is, if you manage to suppress your wholly baffling attraction to him, you won’t be turning your back on the troops and God and America and freedom. He’s just a drunk with really bad luck! Wanna see my stump? The stump that WALLY MADE?”

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Crankshaft, 10/7/10

Every day this week, as I scroll my way through my Houston Chronicle custom comics page and get close to the Cs, I’ve thought to myself, “Surely — surely — today’s Crankshaft will not once again feature Jeff and Pam sitting in a hospital room, fondly repeating Crankshaft’s terrible pun-like utterances, while the ’Shaft himself lies nearby in an opiate-induced stupor.” Yet day after day, that is exactly what I find. You know how sometimes sitcoms have clip shows, where they save money by filming a few minutes of new material as a framing device around flashbacks to previous episodes? Well, at least those shows have the decency to show you the clips. This is the equivalent of a sitcom where the characters just sit around a room and say, “Hey, remember that time when something hilarious happened?” and then describe it. Oh, and also, it isn’t hilarious.

Since it’s rare to see Crankshaft wholly silent and motionless for four days in a row, I began to wonder if maybe he had died, of shame, after hearing all his terrible malapropisms repeated back to him. But then I remembered that he has no shame. He still might have died of an intestinal blockage, though.

Spider-Man, 10/7/10

Oh, sassy Spider-Man narration box, you never disappoint! So, in what ironic way will Aunt May be treated like a queen? Will she be beheaded in front of a jeering mob for her crimes agains the poor? Will she be forced to marry a perfect stranger in order cement an alliance between her land and a neighboring kingdom? Will her theater experience be ruined by peasants begging her to lay hands on them and cure their scrofula?

Pluggers, 10/7/10

Pluggers know that there’s no better revenge on your never-calling, never-visiting, never-thank-you-note-writing, rap-music-blaring grandchildren than a loving and detailed description of your sex life.