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Hi and Lois, 1/21/10

Uh oh, it looks like that damn Women’s Lib has ruined storytime forever, am I right, fellas? Used to be little girls would hear medieval tales about being rescued from dragons and becoming some handsome man’s property and just eat it up, but now they want, like, social and economic autonomy and shit. The befuddled look on Hi and Ditto’s faces shows that they know that patriarchy has been fatally undermined.

Of course, Hi appears to be reading not so much out of a storybook as from a few pieces of loose-leaf paper folded down the middle to form a crude booklet with “ONCE UPON A TIME” scrawled across the front. Perhaps the inside is filled mostly with Hi’s rantings about how the 19th amendment brought about a gynocentric tyranny, which makes Dot’s response all the more reasonable.

Herb and Jamaal, 1/21/10

Herb seems to have been possessed by an extremely mellow demon, which has compelled him to casually pull the Bible off the shelf and spit on it. The holy book responds to this assault by releasing thick clouds of acrid smoke. Who will win this low-stakes battle for Herb’s immortal soul?

Mark Trail, 1/21/10

Meanwhile, the sinister Parker Brothers have struck at the … dudes … in the canoe … who I don’t know who they are … by running their outboard motor at them? I guess? Oh, that’s a punching for that, that is.

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Blondie, 1/20/10

I haven’t compiled an elaborate spreadsheet charting the time of day that the action in Blondie takes place or anything — that will be the point when I officially slip into the comics-obsessive deep end, and you are all allowed to officially have me put away when that happens — but my gut tells me that we’ve been seeing more nighttime episodes of late. This is all good with me, as I find that it gives the strip a sort of poignant charm that it desperately needs. Take today’s installment, for instance, in which Dagwood and Herb wander the otherwise empty sidewalks of their soulless exurb. They’re in their work gear, but it’s a well-known fact that they car-pool in to their generic white-collar jobs, and they live in the American sprawl zone where you can’t get anywhere without a car anyway, so where exactly are they supposed to be walking to? My guess is that they were dropped off in front of their bland low-slung off-white homes and had some sort of midlife crisis à deux, and are now walking around their subdivision jabbering nonsense as they psych themselves up to abandon their families and launch themselves on a life-affirming adventure.

Mary Worth, 1/20/10

Say, let’s check out what’s going on in Mary WoAAAUUUGGGH DAWN’S FACE HER TERRIBLE TERRIBLE FACE

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Mark Trail, 1/19/10

Since we last checked in with Mark Trail, we’ve learned that the contours of 2010’s first storyline will involve disputes over land use and land preservation and a sinister, charismatic Senator and a restaurant that serves wild game and … uh … that’s about all I can tell you. I’d like to say that you should go back and read the archives to connect those dots, but I don’t think you’ll be able to make much more sense out of it than I have, because it’s pretty incoherent. My guess is that the Mark Trail brain trust was ordered by the syndicate to tap into prevailing anti-politician sentiment by making the next villain an elected official, but since nobody involved in creating the strip understands politics outside the context of “forest law,” by necessity that part didn’t make much sense.

Anyway, now the strip is on much firmer narrative ground: rustic ruffians who want to interfere with good-hearted folks’ enjoyment of nature! “I thought we warned you to stay out of this end of the lake! We’re the Parker Brothers … do you think we’re playing a game with you?” Ha ha, get it, because … Parker Brothers … erm. Anyway, the main question now is whether these two outboard-motoring thugs will be punched separately or in a single mighty blow.

Judge Parker, 1/19/10

I haven’t been covering Judge Parker here either, but its action has been much easier to follow. Rocky and Godiva are having marital problems, so Sam convinced Rocky to stay by describing how financially ruinous their divorce would be! Sam and Abby are all smiles while discussing this, because their sexless sham marriage works out so well for them that they can’t see why others wouldn’t enjoy one as well.

Apartment 3-G, 1/19/10

“You seemed quite comfortable” is obviously newspaper-comics-we-can’t-show-it code for “your penis seemed quite comfortable … in my vagina,” which is unsettling because (a) Bobbie and the Professor have remained fully clothed and (b) there’s no furniture in this apartment, which means they must have done it up against one of Bobbie’s beloved radiators. Just in case this pills-for-sex deal wasn’t tawdry enough for you! I hate to keep bringing the pills back up, but honestly, there’s no explanation other than powerful prescription tranquilizers for the disconnect between Bobbie’s sharpening tone and her blissed out expression in the second panel.