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Ziggy, 7/13/09

There’s plenty to love about today’s Ziggy — the terrifying demon-clown that’s popped out of the suggestion box, for instance, or the fact that Ziggy appears to be suffering a massive coronary upon seeing it, or the nameless bureaucrat watching it all with pinched, sadistic glee. (I was about to refer to this individual as “Ziggy’s boss,” since I initially thought that this was some sort of office scene, but I don’t think that can be right; Ziggy has never really been depicted as holding down any sort of job, which makes sense, as he appears to be pretty much unemployable.)

One thing I don’t like about this panel, though, is that we’re confronted with the bottom of Ziggy’s feet. Now, obviously the less time spent thinking about what goes on below Ziggy’s waist the better, but I think we’re all pretty much in agreement on the fact that he regularly goes about pantsless and, apparently, shoeless. The absence of discernible toes puts something of a dent in that theory, but one could always write that off due to the low level of detail in the strip; but the shading work on the soles of Ziggy’s feet today force us to contemplate what exactly the hell it is we’re looking at. My best guess is that what we call “feet” are actually enormous, uncloven hooves, making Ziggy some kind of bipedal semi-centaur. Ha ha, and you thought that Ziggy’s biology couldn’t get any more disturbing than your existing conception of it! On the bright side, though, the feet/hooves are large enough that we don’t get a good view up Ziggy’s smock, which is a blessing.

Family Circus, 7/13/09

The best little part of this cartoon is the sly little smile on Dolly’s face. “Wow, Billy, before this moment I always thought that male supremacy was an immutable fact of nature; but now I know that it has to be reinforced daily with displays of authority great and small. This knowledge will come in handy in my quest to smash the patriarchy!”

Slylock Fox, 7/13/09

“Laughing potion” is a powerful toxin that gets its name for its effects on the victim’s musculature. First the muscles of the face involuntarily contract, spreading the mouth into a ghastly parody of a grin; then the diaphragm spasms uncontrollably, causing a series of short, laugh-like bursts of air before total paralysis and suffocation set in. Slylock will determine which glass contains the potion by giving Max a sip from each one until he drops dead.

Pluggers, 7/13/09

It takes all the wiles of the pharmaceutical industry just to keep pluggers alive.

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Blondie, 7/12/09

I’ve often wondered at the obviously complex relationship between Dagwood and Mr. Dithers. For a while, I thought that Dithers was really Dagwood’s millionaire father, who disowned him when he decided to marry low-class flapper Blondie (this is the strip’s pre-Depression backstory, FYI) but who was never able to cut the kid out of his life completely, and so has kept him employed despite his obvious incompetence. I don’t think that’s true, but it’s hard to tell exactly what keeps these two together, not just professionally but socially as well. Today at least hints at the source of their codependence: their relationship provides the sort of dramatic highs and lows, the anger and catharsis, that their stable, happy, and boring home lives never could.

Normally, of course, I’d be imputing some kind of sexual relationship or tension here, but it’s obvious to anyone who reads Blondie that the only kind of thing that stirs Dagwood’s loins involves pastrami and lots of mustard.

Crock, 7/12/09

As a regular reader of the shambling nightmare that is Crock, the core grotesqueries of this particular strip — that the dog intends to urinate on the cactus as an act of malice, and that the cactus can bend on its own accord and fire off its spines as defensive missiles — come as no surprise to me. I am a little perturbed to learn that the camel’s name is “Quench.” I understand that there is a certain conceptual nexus between camels and water-drinking, but it doesn’t seem quite right; it’d be better as the name of a robot that, in an ill-conceived promotional exercise, can morph into a bottle of the new Quench™ brand sport energy drink, in the upcoming Paramount/Dreamworks film Transformers 3: Revenge of the Thirsty.

Oh, and the camel is wearing a hat, which is also inappropriate.

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Funky Winkerbean, 7/11/09

NOOOO! DON’T OPEN THE DOOR! DON’T OPEN THE DOOR! IT’S … ZOMBIE WALLY, COME TO EAT YOUR BRAINS HAPPINESS!

No, seriously, this whole week has been full of foreboding and doom, and since we all know that nobody in the history of Funky Winkerbean can ever be happy, and since there’s been all sorts of weird hints about it, obviously Wally has been held secretly captive in Iraq for 10 years, or 5 years, or whatever mishmosh of space-time has passed since the big jump, and now he’s come back to find that his wife has remarried, and everyone involved — Becky, Wally, John, Wally Jr. — is going to be absolutely devastated no matter how it all plays out. It’ll be just like Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Enemies, A Love Story, except not good.

Mary Worth, 7/11/09

NOOOO! DON’T LOOK BACK, DELILAH! DON’T MAKE EYE CONTACT! YOU’LL BE DOOMED! DOOMED!

God bless Mary Worth for really bringing the laughs this week. Today’s second panel is particularly hilarious. The gears in Charley’s head are spinning furiously; he seems to have consulted some mid-century text on how to have a socially appropriate interaction with someone that doesn’t make it obvious that you’re just trying to bang whomever you’re talking to, and he suddenly remembered, about 45 seconds after the conversation actually ended, that you’re apparently supposed to mention that you look forward to your next encounter with your interlocutor. Meanwhile, Mary looks like a grim-faced Marine escorting a civilian prisoner out of some sort of war zone. “Don’t worry, you’re in good hands now. Once we get back to base, though, you’ll have to undergo an extensive debriefing to see we can glean any useful intelligence from your contact with that enemy subject.”

Dennis the Menace, 7/11/09

The real menace here, of course, is the suffocating nanny state, which has filled Dennis’s head from birth with such emasculating nonsense as “steps should be taken while traveling via motor vehicle to reduce the chances of being horribly killed.” Now Dennis can’t even enjoy red-blooded American sports like being trampled to death by horses!

Oh, and hey! Even though I didn’t post yesterday, it still was a very important moment: it was the fifth anniversary of the very first post on this blog. Have I really been doing this thing for five years? Mercy! Huge thanks to all of you, new readers and old alike, for your constant support and affection, without which I surely would have given this up in despair long ago. And special thank for the reminder of my agedness to longtime faithful reader Mooncity, creator of the Autumn Lake Webcomic, who whipped up the following charming graphic for the occasion:

To be fair, it’s also possible that people aren’t following the site because they haven’t heard of it — yet. If you know some non-ninny who might enjoy it, send them the link, won’t you?