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Apartment 3-G, 9/19/08

I suppose that eventually the Apartment 3-G Terrible Downward Spiral Of Clean-Cut Middle-Class People Into Addiction storyline will cease to be transcendently awesome — presumably, right around the time that Ray’s squirrelly histrionics cause Alan to take a hard look at his life and straighten up and fly right and earn the love of a good woman and blah blah blah — but let’s enjoy the ride to its fullest while we can, OK? It’s actually sort of like drug abuse in that way: deep down, you know that you can’t sit in your room giggling over phrases like “Please! I hurt so bad!!” forever, but that doesn’t stop you from being taken up by the highs in the here and now. Perhaps even better than Ray’s sincere yet laughable description of the pangs of withdrawal in panel two is his expression in panel three: he seems to be thinking, “Hey! I know! I could reduce Alan to a powdered form and then smoke and/or snort him! All my problems would be solved!”

Hi and Lois, 9/19/08

The idea that innocent baby Trixie might look out the window and learn about the emotional pain and verbal abuse that lurks behind her suburb’s cheery facade is actually rather poignant; her look of wide-eyed horror in the final panel says volumes about what it’s like to discover that people who love each other can wound one another far more deeply than any strangers could. But bringing in the brother-sister metaphor just makes the whole thing creepy and weird. I like my domestic degradation without the unsettling incest overtones, thank you very much.

Sally Forth, 9/19/08

Watch out, Sally! She can quote the Last Starfighter, and she rests her fingers delicately on her collarbone, Ted-style! Also, it may be an optical illusion, but it appears that she might kind of have breasts? HOW CAN YOU COMPETE WITH THAT?

Beetle Bailey, 9/19/08

Oh, Freud would have a field day with this.

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Apartment 3-G, 9/18/08

Enjoy this moment of the Apartment 3-G Crazed Dopeheads On Parade storyline. We’re sliding through deliriously wonderful high camp right now, but we’ll no doubt end up in awful kitsch soon enough.

Beetle Bailey, 9/18/08

I find it kind of poignant that Otto is staring at the newspaper in the first panel, despite the fact that his thought balloon implies that he’s illiterate. I find it kind of confusing that he says “astrology forecast” instead of “horoscope.”

Gil Thorp, 9/18/08

“But then I noticed she was wearing some kind of terrifying vest-thing with a skull and crossbones on the front and a heart on the back! So now I’m just hiding behind these bushes until she goes away.”

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Crock, 9/17/08

Ever since the infamous Sally Forth-Target-Rush scandal, it’s been important for readers to stay vigilant and call comic artists out when corporate payola corrupts what ought to be a pure art form. Today, we see how brazen some on-the-take comics features can be. This strip was obviously subsidized by Tommy Hilfiger, Fruit of the Loom, or some other underwear manufacturer determined to associate Calvin Klein in the public mind with a disgruntled chicken being boiled alive as part of a terrible joke in an awful comic.

Mark Trail, 9/17/08

Like most people, I pretty much assume that the placement of the stems of word balloons in Mark Trail is some kind of elaborate and long-running surrealist joke. (Mark Trail itself may be an elaborate and long-running surrealist joke, but that’s a topic for a different time.) Anyway, today’s strip takes this little game to what has to be its logical conclusion, as a grinning Mark holds an entire conversation with himself in front of his dumbfounded family. Presumably he’s not letting Cherry get a word in edgewise, because he’s afraid that she’ll burst into tears upon learning that her husband is once again leaving for a new adventure after only about twenty minutes at home, and he has no desire to be befuddled once more by the expression of so-called human “emotions.”

Family Circus, 9/17/08

Ha ha, Jeffy! Mommy was giving you one last chance to convince her that you have too much sentimental value to her to sell, and you failed. I hope you enjoy the garment industry! You’ll be starting on the ground floor, which is to say the basement, where you’ll be chained up.

Pluggers, 9/17/08

Pluggers know there ain’t much point in going to a fancy bar when you can just get drunk at home on bargain booze and pass out on the couch.

The book is there so that this plugger doesn’t stain his shirt when he inevitably vomits on himself, as pluggers are illiterate.