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Apartment 3-G, 10/31/09

So Bobbie Merrill has spent the week angrily thought-ballooning while wandering through a suspiciously all-female Manhattan street scene, and today we learn the reason for the setting: she’s accidentally wandered into the crazed mob desperate to debase themselves on the humiliation-TV hit I Dressed In The Dark, a cultural phenomenon that Bobbie treats with richly deserved contempt. It’s hilarious to me that a character willing to offer up a “gift basket” (if you know what I mean) (and I think you do) to a portly middle-aged head-shrinker in return for prescription sleeping pills still turns out to have more dignity than Ruby and Tommie. Sorry, lady, Bobbie won’t be having any of what you’re selling, even though you work for “TV.”

Family Circus, 10/31/09

You might have expected the demonic holiday of “Halloween” to have been completely banned over at the Keane Kompound, but in fact Billy’s parents have dressed him up as the most terrifying thing they can think of: Daylight Saving Time, which is obviously a conspiracy by the U.N. and the Trilateral Commission to undermine American sovereignty and impose One World Government.

Gasoline Alley, 10/31/09

In the latest easily ignorable Gasoline Alley storyline, centenarian strip patriarch Walt Wallet and his caretaker Gertie went to a concert, only to be separated in a series of non-hilarious hijinks. Today’s strip is notable, however, because it appears to imply that it would really save everyone a lot of trouble if Walt were to take himself to the cemetery before dropping dead.

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Gil Thorp, 10/30/09

I may not be the most knowledgeable guy in the world when it comes to football — I lost all my play money in my family’s NFL pool by the end of week four this year — but I know enough to know that generally when one of your guys runs a punt back 98 yards for a touchdown, that’s a good thing, right? And yet there’s Coach Kaz, looking horrified and flapping his hands around theatrically. I suppose it’s not considered classy to run up the score when you’re already winning by more than two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, and we’re going learn some Valuable Lessons About Sportsmanship.

In a larger sense, I’m finally figuring out that there are really only two basic story-driving Mudlark character types: troubled loners and loudmouth jerks. And in this year’s football storyline we’re getting one of each! In SAT analogy terms, Duncan Daley:Cully Vale::Jamarr Gaddis:Andrew Gregory.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/30/09

Oh, man, just when I thought I couldn’t love Cue any more, what with his shiny bald head, his general attitude right on the border between menace and dyspepsia, and his continued and reckless use of the word “crib,” it turns out that he’s also a small-time pot dealer! “Take it easy man … I just called to get some weed” shall be solemnly inscribed in the book of Greatest Rex Morgan Quotes Ever; it certainly compares favorably to “Sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to kill your buzz” for soap opera drug lingo verisimilitude. Now, you might think that Cue is being pretty selfless, passing up an opportunity to profit from the sale of illegal narcotics in order to bring these poor souls back to their home, but he’s actually thinking strategically. Someone in his line of work would love to have contact with a group of people who are largely idle all day, have a little bit of money, and don’t particularly care about any damage they might do to their short-term memory. Yes, sir, this trip’s gonna be lucrative for ol’ Cue, reward or no.

For Better Or For Worse, 10/30/09

Today is the day when I break my blood oath to ignore the pure rerun installments of FBOFW on this blog. I do so because I am so very, very amused by the title of the girlie magazine that John is reading not ten feet away from his wife in panel three. What sort of photography, pray tell, graces the inside pages of Nacho Man? Are there pictures of nearly nude ladies, their most intimate parts concealed only by a thick, gelatinous layer of melted nacho cheese? Are there sexy photo spreads featuring other popular bar foods, like chicken wings or mozzarella sticks? The mind boggles, and one ought to be thankful that we can clearly see both of John’s hands. Also of note is the ad on the back of this fine publication for Lion Tamer cologne, which, I assume, smells of sawdust, circus peanuts, panicked sweat, and lion shit.

Crock, 10/30/09

I kind of love the miserable expression on the face of Anonymous Legionnaire On The Left in panel two. It’s as if he knows that he will only appear in this one strip, and that his only purpose in his mayfly-brief existence is to elicit the punchline for this awful, awful joke, but despite that terrible self-knowledge, he is incapable of stopping himself.

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Mary Worth, 10/29/09

I would appreciate anyone who could help explain exactly what the hell I’m looking at in panel two. It seems that the effect intended is “dramatic camera angle shot from just behind Scott’s shoulder, for some reason,” but everything’s also skewed at an angle that makes it look like Adrian and Scott are villains in the Adam West Batman TV show (if only), so it’s sort of hard to look at it and not see Scott’s chest as kind of rising up and his head tilted back. My interpretations: either Adrian is disconnecting Scott from the machines keeping him alive and forcibly dragging his dying form to the altar, or he’s convulsing at her very touch in a desperate attempt to escape their impending matrimony.

Mark Trail, 10/29/09

You know, Sassy gets a lot of crap from you people, but she and she alone seems to realize that Mark is on the verge of leaving the swamp without physically assaulting anybody, and is thus taking matters into her own itty-bitty paws. I’m assuming that we’re going to get the overly complicated plot-sequence of “Sassy almost gets eaten by alligators, Mark rescues her, Mark spots poachers while out and about,” or maybe even “Sassy almost gets eaten by alligators, Rusty rescues her, Rusty gets captured by poachers, Mark must rescue them both,” for all you Rusty-in-peril fans. I’d sort of like to see a version that cuts out the middle steps, where the poachers spot Sassy and recognize that her beautifully spotted off-tan pelt would make a charming muff. Fortunately, Mark’s ability to hear piteous mewling at a distance is superhuman.

Family Circus, 10/29/09

It seems that we’re only now seeing the consequences of the Keane’s decision to keep any and all information about sex and procreation out of the Kompound. Clearly Dolly believes that her parents “made” her baby brothers Jeffy and PJ out of clay or some other random crap they had lying around the house, though looking at them you can hardly blame her.

Pluggers, 10/29/09

Think what you will about this installment of Pluggers, but it can’t be worse than my initial misinterpretation, in which a starving, impoverished dog-man was about to eat a lint-covered hot dog he found underneath his couch cushion for lunch.