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Hi and Lois, 9/14/08

Here’s a rare case of a Sunday strip being radically altered by the presence or absence of the throwaway panels in the top row of the comic. If, like me as I read my physical dead-tree comic section, you saw the strip beginning with Dot asking Ditto “What do you want to do today?” you get a fairly pedestrian parable about young boredom. But with those first two panels, the strip suddenly stands at one step removed, with Dot setting her Dale Carnegie-like powers of persuasion against Ditto’s persistent and chronic ennui. Dot isn’t trying to have fun with her brother; she’s set herself up in mortal combat with his own shapeless self, trying — and, as you can see by Ditto’s state at the end of the strip, supine and refusing even to move, failing — to mold her brother into a man of some semblance of action.

Crankshaft, 9/14/08

Much as I enjoy the thought of Crankshaft spending a week alone stewing in his own old-man filth, I must object to his barber’s use of the neologism “batching it” in the third panel. I’m assuming the terms derives from the word “bachelor,” but I fear that it may also somehow involve Crankshaft’s batch.

And here’s a couple of amusing out-of-context-panels for you:

Panel from Beetle Bailey, 9/14/08

This is a charming and whimsical scene, as Corporal Yo regresses into nonsense child-talk as he drifts aimlessly through the sky.

Blondie, 9/14/08

This is funny because it makes it look like Dagwood is paying for sex.

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Judge Parker, 9/14/08

Is an attractive, large-breasted young woman answering the door wearing next to nothing for no good reason? Why, it must be Judger Parker then! Thank goodness Sam is on the case, since he’s repeatedly proven himself to be immune to sex appeal of any form and will continue grimly towards the goal of his mission: informing the inhabitants of Dewey Cheatem’s house that the man who is probably their friend or loved one or a member of their family has been killed. Sam would like you to believe that he’s doing this because he, and only he, and not the corrupt, incompetent Phoenix law enforcement apparatus, will be able to solve this mysterious crime, but I suspect that he mostly just likes being a dick.

Apartment 3-G, 9/14/08

Though the Alan Is A Drug Addict storyline in Apartment 3-G has given us all many joys, I believe that today is in fact the Big Payoff, as we learn that, for the true addict, Getting High Is All He Or She Cares About. As we have seen, this can damage your relationships with others, cause you problems on the job, and, once the only drug dealer in all of New York heads to the Hamptons for his annual vacation, will leave you incredibly bored, since you won’t have any hobbies left other than ingesting that wonderful dope.

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Mark Trail, 9/12/08

Would it be OK if I just posted Mark Trail every day, with minimal comment, for as long as it continues to be this mind-blowingly hilarious? Today our hero proposes solving a local water crisis — part of an enormously complex issue involving the need to protect nature but also leave room for development, the tangled legislation around water rights, agricultural water requirements, climate change, and the competing demands on drinking water from dozens of different communities of varying sizes and political clout — by calling in a man whose main problem-solving algorithm consists of “Does it have a face I can punch?” and “Are there any intervening objects that would impede the trajectory of my fist?” Hijinks will almost certainly ensue.

Almost as funny is the continued presences of our friend the raccoon, who is attempting to get fresh with the little girl in the first panel. Raccoons are well known to be fearsomely intelligent carriers of parasites and disease who are unafraid of humans and are probably plotting our overthrow even as I type this. Last year when Amber and I went to Vancouver, we saw in Stanley Park an enormous raccoon that was hanging out just inches away from a baby sitting in a stroller, while a woman (presumably the baby’s mother) was standing six feet away taking lots of pictures of this supposedly adorable nature encounter. I’m not saying I wanted to see the raccoon grab the baby and drag him or her off into the underbrush, but, well, a valuable lesson would have been learned if that had happened. Since the little girl in Mark Trail isn’t real, though, I’m totally down with a raccoon-kidnapping subplot here.

Dick Tracy, 9/12/08

Dick Tracy’s mission in life is to kill and maim as many criminals, suspected criminals, innocent passers-by, and bleeding-heart libs as possible, so it’s no wonder why he’s so excited to see a version of himself that’s thirty feet high, imbued with superhuman strength, and impervious to bullets. Still, I think illustrating his massive tie-erection in the first panel is in somewhat poor taste.

Mary Worth, 9/12/08

“Ian’s going to think I’m an idiot for letting someone steal my identity and then use my money!”

“It happens to many types of people, I’m sure! Not just idiots, but morons, twits, fools, dummies, lame-brains, airheads…”