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Curtis, 12/21/09

IS NOTHING SAFE FROM THIS BLASTED RECESSION? The one thing that has kept all of America going in this blighted recessionary wasteland was the knowledge that, if we could just make it to December 26, we would have the annual Curtis Kwanzaa Fable to enjoy. But now we learn that this year’s tale won’t involve awesome drug-induced mayhem like giant telepathic otters and bat-winged bears, but will instead merely consist of the last few employed Americans being hit up for money.

Slylock Fox, 12/21/09

Let us pass over today’s sordid crime with only a passing nod of approbation for the perp’s amphibian insouciance, and instead focus on the TERRIFYING DEVIL-THING casually trying on shoes. Those ears aren’t shaped properly for her to be a fox or even the demon Queen of the animal hell Slylock inhabits; I must therefore assume that she’s some kind of lesser Dark Angel, trying on some spiky heels for grinding into the faces of damned souls down in her subterranean punishment realm.

The Phantom, 12/21/09

As a longstanding fan of the Phantom’s saucy narration boxes, I’m bit unsettled to learn that our host for the strip is actually an aged, bloated Billy Dee Williams, so desperate for work that he’s willing to cram an ascot into his collar and spout cheeky nonsense.

Gil Thorp, 12/21/09

Wait … but .. basketball? Milford sports tend to be more or less mutually exclusive, so this seems to indicate that football season is over. But wasn’t the football team actually kind of good this year? What about the playdowns? It bothers me that I’m more tuned in to the championship picture in the Valley Conference than I am to the fortunes of any of the real-life NFL teams for whom I ostensibly root.

And what about Duncan Daley’s simmering drunken rage? I certainly hope that he interrupts Milford’s first game by wandering onto the court, confused and belligerent, with that case of beer still hoisted on his shoulders.

Mary Worth, 12/21/09

Thank goodness the creators of Mary Worth finally realized that America simply couldn’t take any more strips featuring Wilbur typing in front of his computer; any more excitement along those lines and there would have been riots in the street. Today’s strip is still pretty good though, with Adrian and Dr. Jeff making goofy facial expressions and hand gestures (what’s Adrian playing peek-a-boo with, I’d like to know), and Mary disregarding basic kitchen safety by attempting to simultaneously open the oven and lean over the pot on the front burner (with its handle sticking out into the walkway, no less!) to stir whatever’s boiling in the back. In other words, while Wilbur is eating lonely white-bread sandwiches and agonizing over his past mistakes, the Corey Clan has been helping themselves to the “medicinal” pot brownies someone brought Scott.

Apartment 3-G, 12/21/09

Every once in a while, the characters in Apartment 3-G talk like actual New Yorkers. For instance, it makes total sense that a proud Manhattanite like the Professor would bobble his head in shock as he blurted out “Ruby has friends in Queens?!” I’m assuming he’s emphasizing that last phrase just as he would if he were saying “…on Mars?!” or “…in hell?!”

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Mary Worth, 12/20/09

Wilbur is reacting to the revelation that he may have sired a young person named “Kurt” in a way totally at variance with the way in which a normal human would respond, which I guess is another way of saying that he’s reacting exactly like a Mary Worth character would respond. He seems to be treating the possibility that he has an unknown son not as a shocking revelation or a potential scam, but rather as part of the unpleasant memories of his college years. “You know, once I graduated, I never really wanted to revisit that part of my life — the drugs, the embarrassing politics, the creation of other human beings using my naughty bits, my obsession with prog rock…”

Marvin, 12/20/09

Today’s Marvin is another strip whose entire tone is changed by the throwaway panel in the top row. Without it, we have a simple, tragic story about a young boy whose selfless gift to Santa was pillaged by a greedy dog. But with those panels in place, we know that Marvin himself stole those cookies, and thus his moral indignation at this little drama’s denouement must be seen as rather ironic.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/20/09

This is pretty much a near-perfect Rex Morgan, M.D., containing as it does June wildly oscillating between supercilious rage and mortifying self-doubt, a groggy Rex desperately trying to soothe his wife and so he can get some sleep but still expending enough energy to be kind of a dick about it, and copious amounts of skin and sex appeal all around. (I’m assuming that “mortifying self-doubt” is the emotion we’re supposed to be seeing in the second panel, as “face-melting” isn’t an emotion per se.) Panel three is a particularly delight both for June Morgan boob fans and aficionados of general ridiculousness, as June seems to have carefully positioned herself before waking up her husband. “Brook thinks you’re too cute for me … I mean, has she even seen my impossibly perfect breasts? I’m gonna cut her!”

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Gil Thorp, 12/20/09

OH MY GOODNESS! It turns out that Valerie hooked up with the slightly cross-eyed band geek that Jamaar paid to keep tabs on Valerie, in a turn of events that could only be predicted by anyone who has ever had even rudimentary experience with narrative of any sort. Now, since I’m a slightly lazy-eyed former band geek myself, I’m a fan of band geeks finding love with Amazonian girl jocks, but I’m an even bigger fan of things not turning out as you’d expect in Gil Thorp, so I’m hoping that Valerie has merely turned the tables on Jamaar and is just paying Deion to pretend to be her boyfriend. That would explain why he’s rubbing his face ecstatically against her hand in panel two, as if this is a singular, unique experience that he wants to treasure every second of, while she just glowers meaningfully at Jamaar. Thus, the unseen dialogue: “I think we finally did it — we made ‘the Ghost’ disappear! Here’s $50. Never talk to me again.”

Dick Tracy, 12/19/09

Say what you will about Dick Tracy, but the art will never fail to baffle and delight. Today we learn that the enormous, bleak entry plaza to this concert hall is just part of a larger modernist architectural horrorshow, with the nightmarish structure apparently being topped by a rotating restaurant, or perhaps an attacking UFO. In panel two, we’re reminded that Dick Tracy never phones it in when it comes to shocking violence; while another, lesser strip might simply depict an enraged father strangling his son, here we see our crazed elder longhair attempting to literally rip off his son’s face. Finally, panel three offers a curious juxtaposition between Tess’s dialogue and facial expression, unless we’re meant to understand that she finds ingesting copious amounts of cocaine “peaceful.”

Beetle Bailey, 12/19/09

More proof that the soldiers of Camp Swampy really do represent the military’s dregs: they can’t even maintain interested consciousness when being instructed on the use of what looks to be some kind of terrifying futuristic radioactive death ray.