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Crankshaft, 8/10/07

If there’s one thing that redeems Crankshaft for me, its the fact that the title character really does live up to his name. He’s always angry about something — or about everything — all the time. Take today’s strip, for example. Most people in this situation saying this word would be making a light-hearted little joke. You might expect them have a smile on their face — or, in this context, the patented Funky Winkerbean/Crankshaft gentle smirk. Not the ’Shaft, though. He’s regarding that feeble little sapling with the same look of unbridled hate and rage that he also uses on his yuppie neighbors, the children who ride his bus, his friends, and his own family. When he says “timberrr!”, he’s saying, “Hey, little tree, I know you didn’t get to choose where your seed landed. I know that you’re an example of the magic of life, of that genetic code that orders everything alive to reproduce and to grow, even the harshest of circumstances. I know all this and I don’t care. You’re in my gutter and I’m going to kill you. Fuck you, little tree.”

Mark Trail, 8/10/07

Did you ever notice that Mark never punches rich people? His fists of fury seem almost exclusively aimed at low-life hillbillies like Buzzard, occasionally deigning to sock out a lower-middle-class striver like Diver Dan. I used to think this was part of some ugly class-based agenda in the strip, but today we see the real reason: rich people are cowards. I’m guessing Mark is starting to ever so gradually clench his right fist just below the bottom of the first panel, leading to Leo’s terrified sweat balls and eventual confession. “He did it! Him! Punch him, not me!” The poor either aren’t afraid to get a facefull of Trail knuckles, or aren’t perceptive enough to recognize the incipient fisticuffs and surrender in advance.

Gil Thorp, 8/10/07

Speaking of punching, the next time Mark decides to punch someone, could we see him winding up looking through the undercrotch of the punchee? Failing that, could every comic in every newspaper just be replaced by today’s Gil Thorp, forever? Thanks.

Hi and Lois, 8/10/07

Hey, look, kids, it’s a ghost! That is, if you think “some dude being paid minimum wage to wear an old-timey miner outfit” is some sort of acceptable substitute for “a ghost.” Considering Hi ruined his family financially to go on this vacation, this is a pretty poor showing.

Mary Worth continues to be ludicrous, of course, but nothing I say could match t.a.m.s.y.’s Mary Worth/TDIET mashup.

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Hi and Lois, 8/9/07

Ho ho! Hi’s decided to take his family on a bizarre Western “dream vacation,” which, as we’ve seen over the past week or so, several of the Flagstons are dubious about. Now we learn that they couldn’t even afford the trip! Hi knows the family is being crushed by credit card debt, and he’s looking desperately for some magical way to get out of the hole! Maybe they’ll go bankrupt and their house will be repossessed! Too bad about that housing bubble bursting, eh Lois? Wait, where’s Lois? My guess: prostituting herself so they can afford dinner tonight, or perhaps committing suicide.

Beetle Bailey, 8/9/07

Hee hee! Cookie has one job to do at Camp Swampy — one — and he’s terrible at it, and everybody on base — the men who are supposed to be his comrades — lets him know it. Naturally this is killing him inside, so he climbs up on the roof. Maybe he just wants to get away for a bit, maybe it’s a plea for attention. Either way, the soldiers’ hatred is just further inflamed, and they openly call for his suicide.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 8/9/07

Hardy hardy har! That feeling of overwhelming love and oneness you get at the beginning of a relationship? Turns out it’s just equal parts sexual attraction and self-delusion! Once you’ve finally chosen to spend your life with a person, that’s when the scales fall from your eyes and you realize you’re chained to another insufferably imperfect human being, forever — and the only way out is suicide.

(Dear God, I hope “you know who” isn’t Al Scaduto’s wife.)

The Phantom, 8/9/07

It’s been pretty well established that what’s-his-name, the dude with the gun, is pretty reluctant about using it, so it’s actually fairly plausible that this couple could literally be beating up an armed man with both hands tied behind their back (the husband is doing the head-butting today, but yesterday his wife managed to get in a good foot to the groin). This is fortunate, because otherwise the Ghost-Who-Doesn’t-Do-Much might have to intervene, which would cut into his valuable musing time.

Family Circus, 8/9/07

I feel weird saying this about the Family Circus, but there’s a lot I love about this cartoon. I love that Billy looks genuinely angry that he’s going to be spending four valuable hours a night staring at this tiny television set while they’re at the grandparents’ house — so angry that he appears to be shouting at the screen at the top of his lungs. I love the look on Thel’s face in the other room, as she realizes that her unruly, obnoxious children are once again going to make her look bad in front of her own parents. I love the way Big Daddy Keane is marching in from off-panel — because this is a panel from the pre-PC ’70s, presumably Billy will be getting the strap again in short order. And I love the fact that PJ is awkwardly holding his shorts up, probably because he’s just crapped in them.

Mary Worth, 8/9/07

Drew, you’re a healer! You took the Hippocratic Oath! And yet your colleague here is clearly either having a stroke or is bombed out of his mind on the job, and all you can say is “Geez”. For shame!

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For Better Or For Worse, 8/8/07

I guess I’m supposed to be saying something about FBOFOW’s mini-flashback this week, huh? Uhhhh … well, I support the strip’s bold decision to use a Pulp Fiction-style fractured, nonlinear narrative. Really, when we heard about the “flashbacks,” we had no idea that they’d be jumping willy-nilly through time, enriching our understanding of the themes with foreshadowing of future events and filling in the details later on. I’m really looking forward to seeing how avant-garde the Foobs can get! Maybe it’ll even surpass Gil Thorp.

I also like the fact that Thérèse is now responsible for everything that is evil and wrong and dark in the world. Global warming? Thérèse’s fault. Cancer? Thérèse’s fault! The mustache? THÉRÈSE’S FAULT! Soon we’ll find out that Kortney and Howard were both Thérèse wearing very clever disguises, and that Thérèse was lurking beneath the stream back behind the Patterson house wearing SCUBA gear, just waiting to drag Farley to his death.

Apartment 3-G, 8/8/07

There are lots of reasons to love Blaze, but the top one, as far as I’m concerned, is that he’s the only young adult male in the strip who’s actually easy to identify on sight. Almost everyone else in the strip with a Y chromosome between the ages of 20 and 45 falls into one of two templates: the blandly attractive dark-haired guy (e.g., FBI Pete, millionaire janitor Scott Gaines) or the blandly attractive sandy-haired guy (e.g., Eric Mills, Alan). Blaze has his own style going on. Admittedly, this style involves a slightly shaggy haircut and a khaki shirt and black cravat that he puts on every morning before he sits down to eat his off-brand corn flakes. I’m not exactly sure what it’s supposed to signify. I’d say “gay” but that doesn’t seem right; perhaps it’s “gay, as drawn by someone who doesn’t actually know any gay people but who sometimes reads about them.”

The Lockhorns, 8/8/07

Usually the Lockhorns is about as subtle as a restraining order, but I have to admit that I’m puzzled by this one. Does Leroy have a heretofore unexplored love of modern art? Does Loretta have a heretofore unexplored hatred of modern art, and Leroy spent good money on this portrait just to spite her? Is the fact that the portrait isn’t strictly representational supposed to be some kind of visual shorthand for “bad”? Is it creepy that the hair in the painting appears to be an exactly cut-and-paste version of the hair on Loretta’s head, flipped 180 degrees? I know the answer to the last question, anyway (it’s “yes”).

They’ll Do It Every Time, 8/8/07

Hey, everybody! GH is none other than faithful Comics Curmudgeon reader … gh! It’s fun to imagine him in his impeccable suit surrounded by shlubby shlubmeisters in four-inch ties, but you should always remember that dress-down Friday doesn’t mean don’t-shave Friday. gh was also one of only two Curmudgeon readers to have an entry accepted by Pluggers, making him a potent double-threat. Can anyone else go for the bifecta?

Blondie, 8/8/07

Tune in next week for another exciting adventure of Dagwood Bumstead: World’s Shittiest Union Organizer!