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Family Circus, 3/4/10

Today’s comics mostly didn’t grab me, but I did quite enjoy this installment from the 50th anniversary flashbacks to the first week of the Family Circus. Dolly, grinning like a meth-crazed demon, announces to a horrified gathering of Eisenhower-era matrons that she plans to end her little recital with a tune about a stab-happy killer from a Weimar-era Marxist agitprop musical. Her accompanist (mother?) is too enfeebled to resist her demands, barely being able to maintain consciousness as her horrifically tight girdle squeezes all the air out of her lungs, but someone’s going to be turned over to HUAC before the afternoon is out. Can it just be 1960 in the Family Circus forever?

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Dennis the Menace, 3/3/10

Yes, it’s always fun to find novel ways to mock Mr. Wilson’s weight, Dennis, but with gold currently trading at around $1,150 an ounce, in all likelihood you’d be worth a million bucks yourself! Your little friend there, who’s so badly emaciated and weak that you need to pull him around in a wagon, probably not so much.

If Dennis were to become some kind of gold bug, that would be a new and interesting dimension of menace. Instead of just cracking wise about his tubby neighbors, he could instead “accidentally” hit baseballs through the windows of members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and monopolize classroom time with extended diatribes about the fraudulence of fiat money.

Apartment 3-G, 3/3/10

More evidence that Ari is the worst psychiatrist ever: his identifying some faint reflection of an external light source in Tommy’s dead, emotionless eyes as a “sparkle.” The most one could expect to see there would be a glimmer of relief — in this case, relief because the Professor’s brief, vague recap of his entirely self-inflicted problems has confirmed for Tommie that her policy of not making any sort of effort at personal fulfillment or happiness is for the best.

Lockhorns, 3/3/10

Speaking of dead, emotionless eyes, today’s installment of the Lockhorns is particularly harrowing. It is of course not surprising that one half of this doomed couple would resort to dark voodoo magic to inflict pain on the other; but you’d think that Loretta would at least be experiencing a bit of joy from the prospect of tormenting her husband with the help of poweful spirit beings, or that she’d show guilt or defiance at being discovered in the act. Perhaps she should be sticking a pin into a voodoo doll of herself, since that appears to be the only way she’d be able to feel anything.

Mark Trail, 3/3/10

“Outside the political arena, we are passionate lovers, as this bouquet of red roses indicates! Good day, gentlemen!”

Senator Wallace’s outfit is not dissimilar to that sported by known lothario Mr. Kessler, so this is as good a place as any to note that the fellow has his own Twitter feed now. More proof that Mr. Kessler doesn’t go for teenage girls; if he did, he’d have set up a MySpace account.

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Spider-Man, 3/2/10

It should OBVIOUSLY come as no surprise to anyone that faithful reader Chip Wittle’s comment of the week runner up would essentially come true — that Peter Parker, having left his stupid costume at home, would acquire a new stupid costume, from a costume shop. Hell, he already did this three years ago, when a then-slumming-in-LA Parker bought a vaguely pirate-y get-up and a plastic eye mask and dubbed himself “Justice Guy” (though if I’m remember correctly, the name may have resulted from a passerby mishearing his protestation that he was “just a guy”). But how to make this plot twist exciting and new for the hot Miami sun (and burning-hot Miami buildings)?

Well, the first step is to up the ludicrousness quotient of the costumes. If that lady isn’t rescued in the next few days by Justice Wizard, Super Wehrmacht Officer, or The Ballerina (or, better yet, by some combination of the three), I will be sorely disappointed. Then there’s the fact that this “Party Shop” is closed; last December Mark Trail proved that having your hero engage in a little vigilante breaking and entering is ratings gold, so obviously Spider-Man wants in on that action (although probably there will be less heroic window-smashing and more jiggling of doorknobs and whining). Finally, there’s the intriguing reason for the store closure. Presumably whatever comical outfit Spidey puts on will be lousy with influenza virus, which means that everyone he “rescues” for the remainder of this storyline will die of H1N1 sooner than later.

Hi and Lois, 3/2/10

Bored with his stultifying suburban life, Ditto has decided to strike out on his own with a couple of working men, riding the trash-collecting routes and seeting what real life has to offer! He’ll have a blast, until they sell him to a band of hobos.

Gasoline Alley, 3/2/10

Hmm, Frank Buckles is the last American World War I survivor, but Uncle Walt also served in the Great War, and everyone’s being circumspect about the context in which he did so. My conclusion: he actually fought for the Central Powers. This seemingly immortal fixture on the comics page will finally meet his end when, in the midst of a flashback, he puts on his Stahlhelm, fixes his bayonet, and charges the local police, believing them to be doughboys come to wrest Alsace-Lorraine from the Kaiser’s grasp.