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Panel from One Big Happy, 4/9/08

While the joke in today’s One Big Happy isn’t really worthy of note, there’s something very disturbing going on in the background of the first panel. Can you see it? Here, let me blow it up for you:

My God, is that … some ponytailed individual running through the park? Carrying a knife in ready-to-stab position? Is he or she fleeing from the scene of a vicious murder? Or running towards a hapless victim with the intention of committing one? Or are we seeing the midst of a multi-corpse stab frenzy? This panel will go down in history as the Zapruder Film of the modern comics.

Gil Thorp, 4/9/08

Stepping back from the total insanity for a moment … ha ha, just kidding, this is Gil Thorp, and under the new regime the total insanity is back, baby. To get a sense of this, look no further than panel three, where the pitcher is apparently making that ball hang in mid-air with just his mind. I think Milford has found its new pitching phenom … in outer space.

Meanwhile, it appears that the Very Special Spring Storyline is going to involve Gil throwing himself wholeheartedly (and disastrously) into his student-athletes’ lives to make up for years of disinterested coaching. It’s only now that it’s occurring to him that letting a deranged old man spouting obvious lies basically coach his baseball team may not have been the best idea last spring. Anyway, this year’s first victim of Gil’s new over-involvement is apparently going to be “problem child” Tyler Jay. Here’s a hint, Gil: If you want Tyler to keep on the straight and narrow, don’t let him play on the baseball team, where he’ll have ready access to many club-like objects.

Hi and Lois, 4/9/08

The innocence of youth is apparently a myth, as baby Trixie seems to imagine a future where people are forced to desperately stitch up the bleeding, mangled bodies of their loved ones as a matter of routine.

Dennis the Menace, 4/9/08

Usually, the Mitchells roll their eyes or loosen their collars in awkward humiliation when Dennis says something inappropriate, but here they’re positively gleeful at his suggestion that his aged grandfather is old and feeble-lunged. I’m not sure whose father he’s supposed to be, but Henry and Alice are obviously both lacking in filial piety and deserve to have Dennis foisted on them by the universe in karmic retribution.

Pluggers, 4/9/08

don’t think about a plugger’s prostate don’t think about a plugger’s prostate DON’T THINK ABOUT A PLUGGER’S PROSTATE

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Before I launch into Tuesday’s comics, there’s something I was going to put up yesterday and forgot! Faithful reader KT has drawn his own comic based on the Tucson Comics Curmudgeon get together. Check it out, especially if you were there!

Cathy, 4/8/08

I know I shouldn’t be trying to think too hard about Cathy, but it vaguely bothers me that Cathy invariably ACKS her way through a rehash of her various financial sins during her annual early-April trips to the accountant. It would be one thing if Cathy were some kind of rich heiress who had a full-time financial advisor who monitored her income and expenses over the course of the year, but, come on: he’s just doing your taxes. He just needs to know what numbers to put into the 1040 form. He doesn’t need to know about your credit-card abuse. The key, I suppose, is that Cathy is a never-ending cavalcade of nightmarish self-loathing; in the sense that, for instance, a dream about being back in high school and having to take a test you didn’t study for isn’t about your educational history per se, Cathy’s visits to the accountant are less about the U.S. tax code and more a vehicle for free-form economic anxiety. Similarly, Cathy’s bathing suit purchasing episodes aren’t really an attempt to acquire new swimwear, but merely provide an avenue for wallowing in hatred of one’s own body. It’s just that sort of deep panic and despair that makes this strip such a constant joy to read.

Beetle Bailey, 4/8/08

Speaking of symbolically loaded nightmare visions, the action in today’s Beetle Bailey obviously takes place in the sleeping Sgt. Snorkel’s unconscious, as his mind tries to deal with his overwhelming attraction to Beetle that threatens to overwhelm his dedication to Army regulations and his moral code. Here, his fondest wish — Beetle served up on a plate, to “eat” — is played out metaphorically. The shape of the Beetleloaf in panel two is highly suggestive, but the unappetizing color represents Sarge’s superego making a last-ditch effort to dissuade him from his forbidden lust.

It’s also possible that, in an attempt to keep costs down and corporate profits high, the KBR contractors running Camp Swampy’s mess hall are killing the slower-moving soldiers, putting them through some kind of enormous meat grinder, and feeding them to their hapless comrades.

Herb and Jamaal, 4/8/08

At last, we find out why the characters in this strip refuse to call pop-culture products by name: as we can see in panel one, local movie outlets (and presumably book stores and TV stations) replace the actual titles of these entertainments with illegible squiggles. Poor Herb and Jamaal have no choice but to squint at the marquee for a few moments before requesting tickets to “that new action movie that everyone’s talking about.”

Apartment 3-G, 4/8/08

Notice that Alan has to point to his shitty painting in panel two, because otherwise Blaze would have no idea what he’s referring to when he mentions “making art.” “Oh, you mean this … thing … here? Oh. Huh.”

In panel three, however, the boys are giving each other knowing looks that promise a hilarious and doomed money-making scheme in the offing. Based on their outfits, I’m going to guess that it will follow the plot of Midnight Cowboy a bit too closely for comfort.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/8/08

So … Mooch is a pedophile, an arsonist, and some kind of universe-jumping time traveller? That’s what I’m getting out of this, anyway.

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The comments of the week are nigh! But first, a few intriguing links for you:

• Faithful readers Wanders has a blog called Mary Worth and Me, which shockingly I’ve only become aware of in the past few days. Lovers of the Iron Lady of Charterstone will definitely want to check out this post, which collects Mary’s entire flashback monologue into one horrifying blob of dullness!
• In other single-comic blog news, faithful reader gkl has started one dedicated to Gasoline Alley, entitled Going Antisane with Gasoline Alley. Good coverage of the current deranged and somewhat offensive storyline, which I haven’t been bothering to cover but boy, it’s dumb.
• And then there’s the mysterious and wonderful Family Circus Is My God Now, which combines Family Circus captions with current event photos to cast a spell of awesome.

And now, the comment of the week:

“Wow, they’ve even given up on having backgrounds in Crock.” –commodorejohn

Short and to the point! And also the runners up:

“The irony of a guy called ‘Mooch’ bitching about not getting paid for helping someone move is … well, not actually all that interesting, so that’s probably why it ended up in Funky Winkerbean.” –Trilobite

“Does the typical American family really keep a golf club next to the door in an umbrella stand? Maybe it belongs to Lois for times like these when Hi splurges on a ‘nice’ bottle of Night Train wine and subsequently spends the rest of the week ‘working at home’ in his bathrobe.” –minor flood

“I was just thinking that a ‘nice’ bottle of wine can be interpreted so many ways. Hi probably figures ‘nice’ = free. As in: ‘It was so nice that it rolled out of the grip of that wino, and I’ve nearly gotten his spittle wiped off the neck.'” –Frank Parsnip

“Meanwhile, it looks like the Milford boys are getting the world’s saddest blowjobs.” –Manos

“As for The Persuader, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen a no-foolin’, eyes-rolled-up corpse in a Spider-Man strip. I certainly hope it’s not the last. I have a list.” –Sock Puppet

“Mary, ‘love’ and ‘acceptance’ are not the same as ‘butting in’ and ‘telling people what to do with their lives.'” –cheech wizard

“Hey, look. Jeffy’s got a dinosaur praying to the god of Creationism. Isn’t that just too cute for words. You know what this strip needs? The Spanish Inquisition.” –kippetje2000

“Toby is just a Mary-in-Training. She’s two steps away from the neckerchief, which we all know is an unsuccessful attempt at hiding your wobbly, liver-spotted neck, Mary.” –Old School Allie Cat

“Unless I miss my guess, Jeffy’s God is the Open Window. Some might call that a subconscious sign of his desire to escape the Keane Compound. I call that a rather obvious sign of his desire to escape the Keane Compound.” –DaveyK

“Love it when Alan glares out a window. It’s like all he ever does, whenever he’s not backing out of his responsibilities, sixth-grader style. You know Luann is wondering why he thinks she’s down there on the sidewalk. ‘Should I … take the elevator down there? To talk to him up here? I might be an airhead, but Christ this is some autistic shit.'” –RaJ

“I agree with Curtis’s dad too. After seeing those gawdawful ‘cheezy melt’ commercials — that’s gotta be what drove dad over the edge — I’m not lactose-intolerant, but I’m becoming lactose-irritable.” –Buck Ripsnort

“The funniest part about about Family Circus is that Jeffy is obviously forming a fundamentalist cult for toys. This will only end with one thing: jihad. Dolly’s Malibu Barbie beach house will be the first target, as it is a sign of degrading decadence.” –WillieO

“Mary Worth is a better superhero than Spidey. Just in this past storyline, Spidey came out on the short end of two confrontations with non-powered Persuader; enabled a state prisoner’s escape; was suckered into approaching a booby-trapped car; lagged two steps behind his wife’s kidnappers, invaded and destroyed private property, and got his hash saved by both MJ and Persuader. In the same time period, Mary provided medical care, food and shelter to a runaway dog, meddled whiny Drew off to Viet Nam, gave Charterstone partygoers a break by walking off with Toby, withheld a toy from an annoying baby, and passed a thorny rose to a pesky child. Is that a tear in Uncle Ben’s eye?” –Godzooky

“200 years from now, somewhere in the desolate pancontinental post-apocalyptic wasteland that once was North America, a lone figure stands, crumpled-up old newspaper in hand, and weeps silently at the carelessness of a time when water was flippantly priced at less than 2 dollars per flask by a cartoon fox.” –auRa

“I must admit I barely noticed the lameness of ‘In another room,’ because I was so busy admiring the euphemistic potential of ‘Dick Tracy broke into my sanctuary.'” –Mollie

“Oh, man, poor Donna Amalfi. Telling Mary Worth to deliver a book cart to a widow is like asking Jason Voorhees to deliver a cart full of chainsaws to a pair of teenagers having sex. It just can’t possibly go well.” –Tats

We must also give a big thanks to everyone who put a bit of scratch in my tip jar this week! And, of course, we give big thanks to our advertisers:

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