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Beetle Bailey, 4/1/10

It’s frankly time to confront the crucial question that I’ve been avoiding for the entire history of this blog, namely: What kind of terrifying man-beast is Beetle Bailey’s Cookie? At first glance, his character design may appear to be nothing more than “Sarge in a chef’s outfit”; thus, it would seem advisable to keep the two characters from sharing panel space so as to not call attention to this fact, but remorseless narrative logic impels Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC to create scenarios in which notorious binger Sarge heads down to Cookie’s mess hall, for food. Anyway, seeing the two of them together leads one to contemplate the differences between them, the primary one being the hair. Specifically, the … shoulder hair? I’m a pretty hairy dude, I’m not going to lie to you, but last I checked I didn’t have two big tufts of, ugh, flesh-colored hair concentrated on my shoulders, up there at the top of my otherwise smooth, hairless arms. Nobody does, in fact, because that’s not generally how hair grows on humans, which brings us back to our initial question about Cookie, who is some kind of horrible abomination, gross, and thanks, Walker-Browne AHI LLC, for writing a gag that literally forces us to contemplate this freak’s body hair, and the places where it does and does not grow.

And what about his ears? His bizarrely plump ears? Eaaaaauuurrghhh.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/1/10

Naturally, there is only so much room for happiness in the soul-crushing Funkyverse, which means that anyone’s even modest triumph must displace the proud achievements of others in a terrible zero-sum game. The supply of misery, of course, is infinite.

Dennis the Menace, 4/1/10

In a particularly non-menacing display, Dennis plays on April Fools’ Days joke on Mr. Wilson that involves not vandalizing his car. Those brake lines better be cut, kid.

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Gil Thorp, 3/31/10

Oh, look, it’s another Milford team failing to win a title! Yes, there’s been a championship basketball game going on while the red-hot fisticuffs happen elsewhere. The Mudlarks losing again is of course utterly unremarkable at this point — presumably the whole loss exists just to set up the drama of faithless Cassie being shunned by her teammates for abandoning them — but today’s strip manages to offer an intriguing counterpoint to the concept of the uncanny valley — the slopes of the uncanny mountain, perhaps? Panel one disturbs and unsettles with the absence of details on the crowd in the background, as it appears that a tribe of identically black-garbed faceless, hairless automata have shown up to cheer on either Milford or Tilden; but panel three shows us that more detail isn’t necessarily any better, as we are confronted with more of Marty Moon than we ever wanted — the shine of his greasy goatee, the hollowness of his cheekbones, his glassy eyes, each and every one of his molars. We can practically smell his breath (Mr. Boston gin mingled with coffee from the AM/PM, not quite masked by the cloud of Axe Body Spray that hovers around him at all times).

Family Circus, 3/31/10

Ha ha, yes, this is a cartoon about how having four kids and a husband who doesn’t know how to iron would lead any woman to murder, but the thing I find most interesting is the fact that Billy is apparently dressed in a nice shirt and tie, for some reason. Perhaps Mommy can fashion Big Daddy Keane’s mushy, vaguely bunny-fur-like shirt into a makeshift rabbit costume and send him to school in it, and neatly dressed Billy can go into the office. Both problems solved, and we can move on to the question of why Dolly is attempting to brush her hair into the soup.

Herb and Jamaal, 3/31/10

It appears that Jamaal hasn’t quite gotten this “cruising for anonymous gay sex” thing down yet.

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Mary Worth, 3/30/10

Longtime readers know that, while I may dabble with your Luanns and your Blondies, my heart belongs to Mary Worth above all. Thus, the beginning of any new storyline in this strip is a moment of great giddy excitement for me, even though “Wilbur meets his bastard not-son” will be hard to follow up. So far, we’ve gotten Mary foisting her friendship onto a pair of standoffish neighbors with her patented brand of hospitality. (I’m referring specifically to Patent No. 3087330, “System and method for establishing interpersonal relationships via taupe, oblong food-like products.”)

Bonnie and Ernie seem happy enough in panel one, contemplating the “nice spread,” the hilarity of the constituent shapes and colors of which I cannot emphasize enough. Who wouldn’t be all smiles when confronted with a big bowl of whipped potatoes, a tray of whipped sweet potatoes, a bowl of steaming whole unpeeled potatoes, another square tray of unpeeled potatoes, a tiny square tray of something white (eggs?), and a bowl of some mushed up vegetable of some sort? Mmm mmm good! But in panel two everyone’s facial expression has suddenly taken a turn for the grave, as if “getting to know [other humans] better” is something Bonnie and Ernie simply don’t do. Why? What terrible secret do they hide? This is why Mary Worth is so exciting! Because someday, in the next six to ten weeks, we’ll find out, and it will be blander than we can possibly imagine!

One sort of delicate point that I feel compelled to bring up is that Mary’s new friends are both pretty profoundly unattractive, even by the standards of a feature in which ol’ cross-eyes is the resident beauty. Since this strip is about as subtle as a frying pan beating you about the head and neck, forever, obviously their appearance reflects badly on their character; they’re no doubt going to be revealed to be perverts or scam artists, or monsters pieced together from human corpses and reanimated by a crazed scientist eager to play God.

Hi and Lois, 3/30/10

It’s all too appropriate that our blue-haired librarian is wearing a pink scarf. Thanks for destroying everything that’s good in the world with your terrible library, Fidel Trotsky-Tsung!

Spider-Man, 3/30/10

“And let’s hear it for lounging around the house in your underwear and high heels! And for cowardice! Sweet, sweet cowardice!”

Slylock Fox, 3/30/10

In panel one, a delightful band of puppies wants nothing more than to frolic and play with this laughing child. In panel two, the lad is about to be torn limb from limb by a vicious pack of feral dogs.