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Judge Parker, 11/5/07

Hey there, omniscient narration box, there’s no need to shout! It’s not like the information you’re giving us is even vaguely exciting or interesting.

I’m glad that Sophie has convinced Keith that his climate is changing. For too long we’ve turned a blind eye to the inconvenient truth of Northern California warming.

Dennis the Menace, 11/5/07

Dennis gets a lot of flack around these parts for his total lack of menacing, but I have to say that I’m not going to call him a wimp for being disgusted by the idea of eating his mother’s vomit. That’s just good taste.

Pluggers, 11/5/07

This had better be as close as we ever get to seeing plugger sex, or else I will be wreaking a terrible vengeance on somebody.

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Hello there! Why not enjoy a comment of the week on a fine Sunday afternoon?

“Mary Worth in a nutshell: Not ‘there’s a lot to learn from our four-footed friends,’ but ‘there’s a lot to be said about learning from our four-footed friends.'” –Sharona

And now that your appetite has been whetted, why not enjoy the runners up?

“These kids may seem crazy, but if you ask me, they’re crazy-smart, using a Ford Taurus to conduct their mischief-making. The cops will never stop them; they’ll never even notice them.” –Salmon Pink

“Holy freaking cow! It’s like the oompa loompas gangbanged Judy Garland.” –SmartPeopleOnIce

“Cully isn’t rolling out with ‘Boyd Henry and his friends,’ with ‘friends’ in the plural, unless someone is hiding in the backseat. Which means Mitch didn’t ‘find’ the money so much as he ‘earned it from whoever is going down on him in that last panel.'” –Sobek

“Margo is totally about to crush her tiny cellphone using just her fist in panel three. I bet Margo goes through phones like most people go through chewing gum. Or like Tommie goes through Kleenex and anti-depressants.” –Tats

“And if you don’t go to college, well … you remember that song ‘Fancy,’ right? Well, that’s gonna be you.” –Nate

“I prefer to read Johnny Malotte’s ‘If they like our camp’ as ‘If they enjoy our drag show’. His son wouldn’t be the first person to work his way through college by dancing for businessmen.” –Francis

“Cindy has that vile Winkerbeanian smirk that comes from years of pretending to have emotions. Her divorce from Funky must surely have been smirkingly smug.” –The Avocado Avenger

“Worst job in the Malotte compound? Cleaning the hair out of the drains. This must be done hourly and requires patience, intestinal fortitude, and a strong lower back.” –Joe Blevins

“Occam’s Razor would suggest that Ian keeps the dog hidden away in his beard. It feeds on errant crumbs and dribbled soup.” –Plus a constant

“Bless you, Dolly. Nobody can stupidly state the obvious to nobody in particular better than you.” –Jordan

“You know, Mary, someone once said, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’ But then again, someone else also said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to see Mary Worth get her face ripped off by a rabid dog?'” –John C Fremont

“DT: Tess is ‘worried about, Dick in that weird house.’ What an odd, and awkward, euphemism for one’s vagina.” –PeteMoss

“I reckon the only possible arc for Mary Worth to take is a neutering story. Can’t have the pup upsetting the strip’s delicately balanced, 100% sexless ecology.” –Keg of Curd

“It’s obvious! The ‘snap’ is Sam doing the drag queen gesture of contempt. It’s called foreshadowing, people! Margo will fall for him and then he’ll reveal his secret! Or he has fallen for her because he thinks she is a man. We get to watch as he recoils in horror.” –Doodle Bean

“What a testament to Milford’s extraordinary level of social integration, that persons from all walks of life — from the Rock and Roll Carole King, to elements of the bad news white trash crew wearing unsleeved wife-beaters, to a 68-year-old school functionary paid to look at buses — all have exactly the same hairstyle!” –Joel

“I went to Montoni’s New York and all I got was this lousy T-shirt … and cancer and suicidal depression!” –smacky

“ENTER THE MARMTRIX!” –norbizness

“The Malotte family is an illustration of the ‘quantity over quality’ principle of Darwinian evolution.” –Moss_Moses

“The Persuader is one of the most frightening supervillains ever to stain a page of newsprint. He just lopped off two of his fingers with his knife and didn’t make a sound. Next: ‘Tell me what I want to hear or else I will cut off my fingers!'” –PTrig

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The Phantom, 11/4/07

I’m not a big defense policy expert or anything, but I’m pretty sure the US Air Force is not in the business of handing out free jet fuel to random Vietnam War-era aircraft, no matter how friendly the country is whose flag is painted on the tail. Perhaps Bangalla is willing to turn a blind eye “enhanced interrogation techniques” (likely, if the slap-happy antics of the Unknown Commander are any indication) and demands payment in sweet, sweet petroleum products.

The Phantom NEXT! boxes are pretty generally awesome, but few have brought me as much pleasure as today’s. “Avast, swabbies! Be sure ye be wearing yer film badge dosimeter, lest ye suffer from radiation sickness! Ahhhr!”

Zits and The Middletons, 11/4/07

At last, two Sunday comics that aren’t afraid to admit the hard truth about teenagers: that they’re nothing but barely controlled hormone-soaked lust-beasts. Today’s Zits honestly hits a little too close to home for me, as one of my high school’s guidance counselors was a primary subject in my teenage fantasy life, which I’m sure was also true for most of the other boys and several of the girls. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, in the interests of me having coherent conversations about college application essays), I was assigned the other guidance counselor, who was a avuncular fiftysomething dude, and who was very nice but whose naked lower back I was frankly glad to never see unprompted in my mind’s eye.

Today’s Middletons is an instructional example of how the throwaway panels at the beginning of a strip (so named because some newspapers remove them to make layout easier) can really change the tone of a comic. The complete strip today offers a poignant look at that moment when young people are on the cusp of adulthood, beginning to think of grown-up matters while still clinging to childish things. But the version in my paper started with the “Cool clouds” panel, and thus was basically two teenagers talking about girls they want to bang. On the bright side, Baltimore Sun readers were spared the unsettling undertones of the “do you want to see the frog in my pocket” exchange.

Judge Parker, 11/4/07

Speaking of raging hormones, I’m getting pretty tired of every improbably proportioned female in this strip hurling herself at Sam Driver. His wife I can sort of understand (though you think she’d have given up by now), but what Sam’s got that justifies, say, Trudi lunging at him lips-first in the next-to-last panel is beyond me. It’s like he’s doused himself in some chemical that makes him irresistible to women (“reverse alcohol,” in the memorable formulation of Dinosaur Comics) — not because he wants to seduce them, but because he enjoys rejecting and humiliating them. If I want twisted, passive-aggressive psychodrama in a serial strip, I’ll read Mary Worth, thank you very much.

Spider-Man, 11/4/07

Not being evil myself, I wasn’t aware that a lack of sleepiness was one of the benefits of pledging one’s allegiance to the dark side. Think of all the extra sinister plotting — or, alternately, dusting and laundry — you could do with that extra eight hours a day! It does not, however, come as a big surprise to me that Peter Parker would rather snooze than fight evil.

Hi and Lois, 11/4/07

The creators of Hi and Lois do not appear to understand how and by whom municipal tax rates are set.