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For Better Or For Worse, 11/19/09

I’ve been staring at this vintage Foob strip for a while, trying to figure out if the seatbelts have been only been drawn in for 21st century reprint purposes. I kind of think they have been, especially based on the final panel, where Ellie’s shoulder strap sort of vanishes abruptly at the edge of her shoulder rather than fading into the zip-a-tone murk as one might expect, and Michael’s lap belt and shoulder strap stay wrapped around him despite his being dragged bodily into the next seat. So, yeah, neither of them were wearing seatbelts when this strip was drawn, presumably in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and that’s OK! It was the style at the time! I can distinctly remember that when I was roughly Michael’s age here — an age at which, I assume, a child today would be lashed into a rear-facing car seat — we had a peppy Plymouth Champ, with a buzzer that would go off if the passenger seatbelt wasn’t fastened; so, my mom would let me fasten it before I got in the car and then I would just sit on top of it. And that was totally normal! She didn’t want me to die or anything! One can be nostalgic for an earlier time with, though you probably wouldn’t be if you had a kid who died in a car accident because they weren’t strapped down properly. Still, does it make me a monster if I wish that newly regenerated young Michael were cruising along unsecured as his mother attempts to drive under the influence of whatever the 1970s Canadian equivalent of NyQuil was? Because we’ve seen what’s in store for him, and maybe it would be better if he just went face-first into that lovingly rendered radio.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/19/09

Ha ha, hilarious fisticuffs delivered! It appears that Tim is rapidly devolving into some kind of feral monster; poor Cue is right to be scared! Unfortunately, if his crib wasn’t capable of keeping out a couple of deranged old people, it certainly won’t provide shelter from whatever kind of violent, hideous gnome Tim has become. I know that sometimes if men act heroic and protective it will cause the ladies to swoon, Tim, but I think Becka will cease to be aroused right around the time you start chewing off Cue’s face.

Lockhorns, 11/19/09

I’m assuming this is one of those “I walked into a doorway” domestic violence cover-up stories, because I’ve never actually seen Leroy and Loretta in church. And really, why would they go? Why would they worship any deity who has placed them into a universe of such intense and unmitigated misery?

Mary Worth, 11/19/09

Normally statements along the lines of “my life was an empty desert of existential meaninglessness until I started nurturing new life inside my uterus” enrage me, but I’m willing to allow it here on the off chance that Delilah is subtly trying to insult the childless Mary Worth. “Mary, don’t you wish you had come to your senses sooner … before your once bountiful womb became withered and barren?” Thus perhaps this isn’t a Delilah-centered story we’re starting; rather, she may just be returning in a cameo to put the real plot in action. Just as Tommie the Tweaker reappeared just to prove that Ella Bird’s psychic powers were legit, so too will Delilah’s child-bearing smugness primarily serve to send Mary into a funk that she can only solve one way: by forcing Dr. Jeff to steal a baby for her.

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Mark Trail, 11/18/09

Here’s a question for you: am I spoiled by Mark Trail? I mean, yes, this is the sort of wordless action strip that makes the feature worth reading, and yes, Mark has waded into the swamp to deliver a crushing blow to an alligator’s mouth, without regard for his personal safety, in order to save his mutant ward’s whiny little dog. I should just be able to sit back and enjoy it! And yet … well, he’s not using his fists, is he? He’s using a tool to do his fighting for him. Sure, for an ordinary human punching an alligator would be a recipe for certain death, but Mark is not ordinary, and may not even be human. When his violent righteousness turns on the poachers, as it inevitably will, will Mark think, “Hey, I am already holding this stick! It helped me beat the alligator — maybe it will help me defeat these men as well!” And once there’s an intermediary object between Mark and his targets, well, it’s all downhill from there. The next think you know, he’ll be suing them, or writing angry letters to the editor about their misdeeds.

Gil Thorp, 11/18/09

Today is the day that reveals the true shape of Gil Thorp’s football season B-plot: it’s Cyrano de Bergerac, if Cyrano were a band geek, and instead of feeding love poetry to Christian he just gave him recaps of high-school volleyball games, and while watching the whole drama you kept waiting for the action to switch back to Christian’s teammate’s brother in prison. Still, I have a feeling that Valerie will learn that the person who really enjoyed watching her play volleyball was a slightly cross-eyed clarinet player, and true love will blossom at last!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/18/09

You know, I really and truly would have been delighted if the whole Becka-Tim side story ended up being entirely tangental to the plot, with Cue successfully negotiating the return of the wayward oldsters with the crooked nursing home operator while Becka fended off Tim’s ham-handed advances. But now it appears that the two narrative threads will finally meet, so I’m hoping that the fisticuffs between the exceptionally dim small-time marijuana dealer and the socially awkward fishing magazine writer will at least be kind of hilarious.

Apartment 3-G, 11/18/09

“Kitchen staff” no doubt sets alarm bells off in Ari’s head. “Wait, she used to be rich, and now the only person she can afford to exploit to get her meds is me? Danger, danger!”

(By the way, if you’re trying woo a pill-popper with rice pudding in actual New York, might I suggest Rice to Riches at 37 Spring Street in Manhattan? YUMMY!)

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Mark Trail, 11/17/09

Hello there, faithful readers! I think it’s been a little too long since you were last treated to the dimension-warping horror that is apparently the natural configuration of Rusty’s face when he’s excited about Sassy. So, enjoy! Take a good look at his eyes bugged out in terror! Against your better judgment, try to look down his maw, only to see darkness, infinite darkness! Watch each of his blue-black hairs rippling across his huge, bulbous head! And then maybe you’ll understand why Mark doesn’t let Rusty go to school with the other children.

Mary Worth, 11/17/09

So I’m guessing that someone over at King Features told the Mary Worth creative team to use the interweaving and ongoing Apartment 3-G storylines as a model, rather than this strip’s typical self-contained plots. The grinding of the plot-shifting gears are still loud and obvious; it’s just that we appear to be revisiting older plots rather than allowing them to vanish into Mary’s Successful Meddles file. Thus, we had “Adrian gets flim-flammed” followed by “Delilah in Charley’s sex den” followed by “Adrian’s boyfriend in a coma,” and now we’re back to Delilah again.

But! Perhaps Mary Worth needs to learn when a beloved character from the past should be revived! For instance, Adrian was a prime candidate for a plot sequel, since her previous storyline had ended with her emotionally devastated and in the process of being wooed by an unethical cop who was the son of Dr. Jeff’s secret schoolboy crush. EXCITING! When we last saw Delilah, meanwhile, she had rejected Charley’s lustful advances and was reconciling with her boring husband. We certainly don’t need to see any more of that. It’s possible that Delilah is calling to beg for advice on her compulsive need to rapidly change clothes, having somehow gone from a canary yellow number to an even more hideous salmon-colored tracksuit in just a few seconds; but more likely she’s just calling to let Mary know that she’s finally decided to embrace her womanly destiny and pop out a kid. If so, I hope for entertainment’s sake she at leasts brings the little squaller over to Charley’s no-children-allowed pad, to humiliate him further.

Blondie, 11/17/09

Most everyday objects in Blondie, like Herb’s weirdly top-heavy little car, are in a sort of boring version of the uncanny valley: while not cartoonish enough to be funny or interesting, they’re also not particularly realistic-looking if you really examine them for any length of time. I have to say, though, that in panel two pretty much nails that lonely exurban freeway off-ramp and overpass. The dark sky makes for quite an evocative scene, as these four white-collar drones head back to their identical houses, bickering in a desultory fashion about their hated jobs, in that incongruously cheery pastel car.

Family Circus, 11/17/09

Normally I’m against any and all premature expressions of the Christmas spirit, but if Dolly is humming her little tune slowly and creepily off-key while staring at Billy with that blank expression as a prelude to strangling him with a garland of tinsel, I’ll let it pass.

Marmaduke, 11/17/09

It probably shouldn’t come as any surprise that Marmaduke has harnessed the slower, plumper inhabitants of his community so as to more efficiently drag them off to his blood-drenched devouratorium. The question is, how did he get these poor damned souls to ingest the powerful tranquilizers that have made them so complaisant and easily led to their own doom?