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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.

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Ziggy, 12/18/09

Wow! Like a lot of people, I assumed that Ziggy would make a token response to Pearls Before Swine’s put-pants-on-Ziggy crusade before getting back to the bizarrely optimistic despair that is its stock in trade. But today brings us back to pants, and puts a whole new spin on things! Ziggy is visiting his wizened dry cleaner, who offers to give back the gnomish alopeciac’s trousers — along with his Nehru jacket, a garment that went out of style many years ago. Thus, this panel turns our scorn back upon us. Pants are so out of date, it seems to be saying. Maybe you narrow-minded losers are walking around, your thighs unfairly constricted by fabric tubes; but Ziggy is the new model man, his legs exposed to the open air, as is the style here in the future. You squares with the pants can do what you want. Ziggy won’t be having any of it.

Wizard of Id, 12/18/09

Hurl all the epithets you want at the Wizard of Id — “unfunny,” “irrelevant,” “badly drawn,” “minimizes torture” — but one thing you have to give it credit for is its unflinching attitude towards alcohol. While Hi and Lois, for instance, has gone along to get along, with “Thirsty” Thurston’s gin blossom-scarred nose of old having long ago vanished, the Wizard of Id’s Bung remains on the funny pages as an unrepentant alcoholic, and not the fun, charming kind. Today, for instance, we learn that, in the brief period of time after he awakes from his booze-numbed slumber but before he can stumble down to the bar to start drinking again, his hands are shaking so badly due to the lack of alcohol that he injures himself while attempting to attend to basic grooming. This may shock and horrify you, but anything that leads to awkward conversations along the lines of “Daddy, what’s the DTs?” is OK in my book.

Six Chix, 12/18/09

Speaking of horror, there’s something quite touching about this scene, in which ephemeral snow-lovers trade a last few endearments even as their bodies droop and melt.

Mark Trail, 12/18/09

Sheriff Stogie Q. Doublechin is right! That is a good one! What kind of monster leaves a little boy trapped under a car on the beach? How the hell does a car even get onto a beach on the first place? And would anyone leave a child in the care of this obvious lunatic? No, the sheriff doesn’t think he’ll be following that lead, than you very much. He’ll just stay here with his thumbs hooked into his belt and glare at you there in your cage, mister! Haw haw!

Note just what a state Mark is in, with no less than five hairs somewhat out of place. This is really the most desperate we’ve ever seen him.

Crock, 12/18/09

So, uh, the Lost Patrol, after years of all-male company, has been saved by water and masturbatory fodder? Eh, why not, it’d hardly be the most distasteful Crock ever produced.

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Dennis the Menace, 12/17/09

I hereby request demand that Dennis the Menace be renamed Henry Mitchell the Lascivious, Menacing Pervert, as today he appears to be insisting that Dennis ensure that sexily emaciated 15-year-old baby-sitter Chloe remain in the Mitchell family employ. I’d say that Henry was merely planning to teach Dennis about sexual objectification early, or perhaps that he had found a new star for his masturbatory reveries, but yesterday we saw him making time at the mall with some non-wife person, so clearly he plans some unseemly, legally actionable advance. This panel is by far the most distasteful thing on today’s comics page.

Mary Worth, 12/17/09

By comparison, today’s Mary Worth is positively innocent, though I do require that Wilbur keep both hands where we can see them. This is literally the twelfth consecutive day Wilbur has spent parked in front of his computer, and many of us were beginning to despair that we’d ever seem a flashback, so today’s sexy thought balloon about Wilbur’s lost love is something of a breath of fresh air, even if it is juxtaposed with a facial expression of Spock-like seriousness. C’mon Wilbur, who could have resisted that pearl necklace, that frilly collar, that fringy jacket? It was the sort of outfit that drove men wild, on whatever alternate-universe 1970s Earth where someone might have actually worn it!

Dick Tracy, 12/17/09

I would like to point out that that the alienating, inhumanely scaled architecture on display in the second panel of today’s Dick Tracy nicely parallels the alienation between long-haired father and long-haired son. I’d also like to point out that, if you want your rage-frenzied classical orchestra conductor dad to stop hitting you, you probably shouldn’t refer to violins as “fiddles.”

Ziggy, 12/17/09

In case you’re wondering what this is about: this is what this is about! I’d like to add that I dearly hope that comics editors really do go work wearing a suit and tie, and that they sit behind a large, imposing desk, and that, when they ask hairless, half-naked weirdos to maybe put on some pants, they do so with an expression that shows that they speak more from sorrow than from anger.