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Hi and Lois, 2/23/09

Internal rivalry is apparently bursting through to the surface over at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Enterprises LLC! It’s as if the project leader over in the Hi and Lois division got a sneak peak at the Beetle Bailey that ran Saturday and said, “Why, that’s not how do a cartoon about a woman irritating her husband by damaging the family car! Team, by the end of this three-hour creative meeting, we’ll have figured out how to both make the strip’s basic plot more comprehensible, and manage to convey the husband’s anger about the car without making the characters’ marriage seem like a soul-crushing prison!” True, it’s not like the final joke is “funny” per se, but that maybe seems like asking a lot.

Wizard of Id, 2/23/09

Though I’m not enough of a cryptozoological enthusiast to be up on the psychology of dragons, I am a bit confused about why one would, when informed of the untimely death or injury of its mother, respond with fire-breathing rage rather than, say, weeping. Theory: the strip originally implied that the dragon’s mother was involved in sexual congress with a phallically shaped jumbo jet (with Sir Rodney’s jab including the phrase “hit it”), but was censored at the last minute by the prudes at the syndicate.

Mark Trail, 2/23/09

“Yeah, I know it’s rough! It’s a good thing I’m all set for money, what with those three stories I write a year for that wildlife magazine! Seriously, remember that time I gave that little girl a puppy? I made more doing that than most doctors make in a year, plus a sweet per diem!”

The mystery of how Ken could be this storyline’s villain without facial hair has been solved. Obviously Patty is being slapped around and terrorized by the economy, not her put-upon husband. All will be well in that marriage once again once Ken gets a six-figure government check as a result of a provision of the stimulus package that timber industry lobbyists managed to sneak in at the last minute.

Luann, 2/23/09

Thing I will see in my nightmares for weeks and weeks: TJ’s perpetual death-rictus of a face looking even more skull-like than usual as he waggles his fingers in mid-air and cackles “Then shred, dude!” “THEN SHRED, DUDE!” [shudder shudder shudder]

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Mary Worth, 2/22/09

As if the sad outcome of all this weren’t being telegraphed obviously enough, we now have the “getting engaged far too soon” revelation, which surely presages disaster. But I’d like to pause for a moment to savor the sentence “Two months, half of the time online.” I don’t think anyone who met on a Web site dedicated to matchmaking (Match.com, Yahoo! Personals, Manhunt, etc.) would consider the pre-meeting exchange of information to constitute “dating”; obviously Ted and Adrian first encountered each other in some specialized online community (the Marcus Welby, M.D. fan boards, say, or pencilmoustachecare.com). Their love grew over a series of weeks in anguished discussion board posts, e-mails, and emoticon-laden chat sessions before one of them finally was able to fly across the country to meet the other in the flesh for the first time. Thus, Dr. Jeff is punching himself in the final panel not because he’s posing for his yearbook photo, but because he’s hoping the pain can distract him from the intrusive image of his daughter and some dude who looks like the Cary Grant’s romantic rival in some forgotten 1940s romantic comedy IMing each other while masturbating furiously.

Slylock Fox, 2/22/09

ANSWER: The lumberjacks may be bear-like things, but they drive a truck, operate power tools, work for a multinational timber-harvesting corporation, and otherwise participate in modern capitalist society. Brendan, meanwhile, is just an animal that lives in the forest and bites trees until they fall down. He has no property rights. I don’t care if he’s wearing a pink t-shirt.

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Beetle Bailey, 2/21/09

I know attempting to piece together what’s going in any particular Beetle Bailey is a fool’s errand, but what I’m getting — and please do correct me if I’m wrong — is that the General has gotten into some kind of fender-bender (with who? with what?), which has ruffled or shaken up his wife somehow (but not him?), and all he cares about his is car, and his wife is devastated by his indifference. Am I right? Because that’s … that’s pretty depressing. I hope I’m not right.

Marvin, 2/21/09

Marvin alone among comic strips dares to grapple with the profound social effects of today’s economic turmoil, as the evaporation of his grandparents’ stock portfolio has forced them to move in with Marvin and his parents. This has opened up rich new opportunities for hard-hitting original storylines. For instance, while usually two photocopies of the same drawing of Marvin would be open-mouthedly thought-ballooning a terrible unoriginal joke to his dog Bitsy, today two photocopies of the same drawing of Marvin are open-mouthedly thought-ballooning a terrible unoriginal joke to his grandparents’ dog Junior.

Judge Parker, 2/21/09

“Well hello, your honor! My breasts and I were just in the neighborhood … and we’ve arrived just in time for the couch-orgy, I see!”