Post Content

Family Circus, 10/24/08

So, the constant mental and emotional abuse of Jeffy has been a long-standing theme of this strip, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that his physical abuse is starting to come to the fore. Attempts to shut him up by doping him up — “Mommy says that if I take all these pills, I won’t feel anything anymore!” — are doomed to failure, as nothing can stop Jeffy’s relentlessly adorable malapropisms. This thing’s only going to get uglier, with either Ma and Pa Keane dragged off to jail, or Jeffy burning the house down, then blaming his vengeance on “Ida Know”.

Mary Worth, 10/24/08

Having been browbeaten by Mary into not visiting his beloved son Drew in Vietnam (where, I might add, Drew is doing the charity work that his father wants to be doing), Dr. Jeff is trying to salvage some pretense of autonomy by blaming his homebody ways on his bad knees, which I’m reasonably sure have never once been mentioned in this strip to this point (though there is a cane floating aimlessly next to him in panel one). Mary then mocks him by claiming that going through airport security is just sooooo irritating; it’s almost as bad as having pretend knee arthritis! The truth is that kindly old lady Mary always breezes through the security lines, with the TSA none the wiser about all the heroin she keeps tucked into the waistband of her support hose.

Apartment 3-G, 10/24/08

Noooo Margo, you’re beginning to feel empathy for another human being! Admittedly, it’s a dead human being, but that’s how it starts. You need to gulp down some of that ink-black soul-destroying devil’s milk, before it’s too late!

Shoe, 10/24/08

This is today’s Shoe. It’s about urinating on things!

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 10/23/08

Wow, it looks like our hero the ’Czak may be Gil Thorp’s most introspective and self-aware character in recent memory. Admittedly, given the parade of goofy, grinning morons who populate this strip, who refuse to turn their gaze inward even when they’re perpetrating grievous self-harm, this is like calling Jeff “the Gil Thorp character least afflicted with mutant-deformed-hand-itis in recent memory”; still, there’s something sad and appealing about his realization that his days as a goofy, grinning moron, getting up to vaguely homoerotic hijinks in the locker room, are numbered.

One of the things I actually unironically like about this strip are the occasional return visits from Milford alums — a couple of years ago, Vanilla Ice lookalike Von blew back into town to help dry out Marty Moon and romance high school girls — so I’m hoping that a few years down the road we get to see glimpses of Jeff sitting around the dorms at his third-tier state university, drinking heavily and listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” and calling angrily in to Marty Moon’s public access TV show. He’s clearly on the road to gloom already, as not even Trisha Jones’ navel in panel one, nor her blatant kissy face in panel three, can pull him out of his pit of preemptive despair.

Dick Tracy, 10/23/08

Dick Tracy is getting slightly artsier when it comes to its gratuitous violence. Sure, it could have just shown us that hapless Genesis Corporation employee being beaten to death by a giant robot while Braces laughed maniacally, but I like the fact that we’re just shown the aftermath, and left to wonder how exactly the broken window figured into the scene of carnage that we just missed.

Blondie, 10/23/08

Here, let me translate today’s Blondie for you. “Those Dagwood Sandwich Shop franchises aren’t extracting as much money from this zombie comic brand as I might like. If those stupid Peanuts kids can sell insurance, then I don’t see why this crap can’t sell … pretty much anything anyone would pay for. USE ME, CORPORATE AMERICA! I WILL DANCE TO YOUR TUNE! I, DAGWOOD BUMSTEAD, AM YOUR WHORE!”

Spider-Man, 10/23/08

Behold, the power and majesty of … NAP MAN!!! If only there were something that could keep Peter Parker awake. You know, like the anticipation of fighting a super-powered nemesis and clearing his good name, or a television set.

Apartment 3-G, 10/23/08

…aaaaand another barely disguised sexual advance from Tommie goes completely ignored.

Post Content

Apartment 3-G and Judge Parker, 10/22/08

Today we have an object lesson on how two comic strip characters can be in remarkably similar scenarios and yet evoke very different reactions from their audience. Both Sam and Margo are talking about what a “tough day” they’ve had because they’ve been minorly inconvenienced as a result of being on the periphery of the brutal murder of somebody else’s loved one; yet Margo is of course loved and adored by millions of fans, whereas if anyone thinks about Sam at all, it’s something along the lines of “Oh, look, it’s that smug dick in the sunglasses.” That’s because Margo has the good sense to take things really, really over the top — bad-mouthing her bereaved roommate, deliberately dropping inappropriate metaphors, making it all about HER HER HER, just like everything else that happens within a ten-mile radius of her or anybody that she knows — whereas Sam is, well, just being a smug dick in sunglasses, as per usual. Sunglasses and a stupid vest.

Crock, 10/22/08

Let’s say that you run a major syndicate that, among other things, produces hilarious and engaging comic strips. And let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you have reason to hire people to color said comic strips who are for some reason not the same people who draw those comic strips in the first place. Now, because your strips are so hilarious and engaging, those professional colorists may well be wont to read them and be amused and/or engaged by them in the course of their duties. But if they take a few seconds to chortle under their breath or nod knowingly while on the clock, they are literally stealing from you, obviously, because you’re paying them while they’re engaged in what’s clearly a leisure-time activity. What to do, then? The solution is plainly to only hire colorists who (a) hate comics so much that they refuse to read them, (b) don’t speak English, or (c) are illiterate. And if that means that sometimes blatant in-strip color cues go ignored, well, that’s just the price you pay for running a tight ship, you know?

Herb and Jamaal, 10/22/08

So, are Internet service providers the new post office, not only in the sense of “organizations that deliver information from your home anywhere else in the world for a mere pittance”, but in the sense of “and can you believe how slow it is! Ha ha! And how about that airline food, ladies and gentlemen, am I right?”

I know that the back of this weird panda-faced dude’s cab is just one of the eight or so Places In Herb And Jamaal Where Jokes Occur, and the beauty of the strip’s setup is that any joke can plugged into any of those places, but might I be so bold as to suggest that perhaps the punchline might have been better if it involved the slow pace of the cab’s journey to Herb’s destination? Or, you know, Internet providers, whatever, and hey, men and women, they sure have different views on relationships, don’t they? Ha! Boy howdy!

Family Circus, 10/22/08

“Or are you dead? Mommy says that if you’re dead, we can have gin and ice cream for dinner every night, forever!”