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She’s hoarding self-regard

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Slylock Fox, 5/3/10

Good lord, what sort of grim PSA is this? “Forest animals who would have normally gone off to their sweet reward in Death’s friendly bosom must now live on for decades inside their broken, shattered mortal shells, thanks to the tyrannical Forest Government and its so-called public safety legislation!” Of particular note are the expressions on the faces of our paramedics; the haunted eyes and spontaneous perspiration are presumably a horrified reaction not to the bear’s mild head injury, but to the condition of whatever poor beast is still trapped in that car. (Sorry, colorists: you can’t convince me that the fluid pooling around the overturned vehicle is motor oil.) Once the the jaws of life extract the mangled form of the gorilla or crane or what have you, the poor soul will have years in a hospital ward getting nutrition through a straw to look forward to, rather than Heaven. Thanks a lot, seat belts!

While the dull-eyed pink bunny is clearly just a run-of-the-mill accident gawker, I’m betting that dog in the suit is a lawyer with a pain and suffering case on his mind.

Mary Worth, 5/3/10

I hate to actually agree with Mary for once, but … has Bonnie actually heard from Ernie that he’s staying away from her neatly stacked clutter? I mean, she’s just narcissistically assuming that his decision-making is all about her. Maybe he just met some other woman during his business trip and has fallen in love and run off! Or, maybe he wasn’t wearing his seat belt and was killed in a terrible car accident, and right now his corpse is waiting unclaimed in some far-off morgue, just because Bonnie was too full of self-loathing to make some phone calls! Won’t she feel bad then, hmmm?

Say, you know what could really soothe those bad feelings? A little retail therapy, if you know what I mean!

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Sad Sunday

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Beetle Bailey, 5/2/10

Beetle Bailey’s recent flirtation with self-referential absurdism has in fact led logically to this. All the references to the misty origins of the strip — you may not have known that upon launch Beetle Bailey was a college-humor strip, until the title character abruptly quit school and joined the army a year into its run — are here systematically dismantled. His long-forgotten girlfriend has found love with another, his ancient jalopy has been sold to a classic car collector, and his room at his parents’ has had all traces of his presence eliminated. With all ties to his former life finally cut after sixty years of basic training, Beetle is finally ready to ship out to one of the various war zones, where he will presumably die in a hail of bullets almost immediately, due to his incompetence.

Mark Trail, 5/2/10

Way to bring everyone down, Mark. “Look at this adorable little mouse, washing its face with its hands, OMG SO CUTE! Later, it was ground to bits in a mechanical thresher.”

Panels from Mary Worth, 5/2/10

LIES LIES OH MY GOODNESS SO MANY LIES

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Margo could not stop for Death, and Death was OK with that

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Gil Thorp, 5/1/10

So I guess the Gil Thorp baseball-season A plot (getting started a little late, isn’t it?) will revolve around how groovy musician Derek Chance is just on a, like, different wavelength, man, and how all the dumb jocks on the baseball team don’t “get” him, leading to Conflict. Never mind that even alt-country, Derek’s chosen musical genre, is fairly closely associated with a persona that’s more ordinary Joe than space cadet. Anyway, hopefully we’ll get a “no-hitter on acid” plotline out of this, which will force Gil to choose between Honor and Victory. (In cases like this he always chooses, “Honor,” the sucker.)

Apartment 3-G, 5/1/10

The hilarious point of this strip is that Grief Cannot Touch Margo’s Icy Heart, but it got me wondering: who actually did die and make Lu Ann curator? I’m ashamed to admit that I can’t keep track. It wasn’t Eric; Eric died and made Margo gallery owner. Was it Alan? Wasn’t Alan curator when he was gunned down by a crazed bald dope fiend? And what’s Jack’s job? Is he just some nebulous “business consultant” or was he actually hired as curator? If so, perhaps he died and made Lu Ann curator when Margo killed him for approving the damn note cards.

Funky Winkerbean, 5/1/10

Even when it isn’t gruesomely punishing its characters, Funky Winkerbean is depressing, as the prospect of two reasonably nice and attractive women vying for Les’s smirky charms and pear-shaped body ought to sadden all readers everywhere. At least we have the sure knowledge that this will inevitably end badly for everyone to console us.