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The Lockhorns, 7/20/07

Normally, when the Lockhorns turns away from its wonderfully refined set of canonical jokes and attempts to inject an (almost always lame) reference to some aspect of contemporary pop culture, I’m strongly opposed. However, today’s gag has so many layers of perversion that I have to admit to being kind of charmed by it. I suppose it’s possible that Leroy simply sees adoption by a wealthy movie star as his ticket out of his failed marriage and soul-crushing job, and an opportunity to live in a huge mansion without having to work for it; it is a long shot, as Loretta notes, but he does appear to be about three feet tall, so maybe there’s a chance that he’ll be mistaken for a impoverished Belarusan orphan boy whose freakish, hairless appearance is a result of his parents living downwind from Chernobyl.

But since Angelina Jolie is generally summoned up in conventional discourse as a totemic sex goddess, and Leroy is sporting that crinkly smile that he usually gets when drunkenly flirting with statuesque blondes twice his height at parties, one has to assume there’s something more going on here. Does Leroy believe that Jolie’s “adoptions” are mere covers for her sexual appetites? Does he harbor some sort of infantilism fetish? More disturbing that the potential answers to either of these questions is the affectless way Loretta conveys this information to her dumbfounded friend. She’s so used to the bottomless well of numbness that is her marriage that it never occurs to her to leave or anything; the prospect that Leroy might take off for better prospects seems to fill her with neither joy nor despair. It’s just another thing that might happen.

Anyway, no other comics came close to this level of depraviy today, but a few tried.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/20/07

Dear God, please let “bedbugs” not be code for some intimate part of the human anatomy.

Mary Worth, 7/20/07

In a desperate attempt to avoid thinking about this dialog as anything other than a transparent but incredibly awkward lead-in to a proposition, I’m focusing on Dawn’s fork. Her tiny, tiny fork. Maybe she’s on a new diet plan that works on the theory that if you eat with miniscule utensils, you won’t be able to shovel as much food in your mouth. Dawn’s determined to look good naked when she “tries something new.” Damn it, that didn’t work.

Marmaduke, 7/20/07

He’s not so much “listening” as “figuring out the most efficient way to kill and eat you.” But whatever makes you feel better, lady.

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Got a note from faithful reader willethompson the other day with this charming photo:

Awhile back, gh came up to my neck of the Carolinas to pick up his M!B!S! mug and we made a lunch of it. Dingo had been waxing eloquently about pho for a bit, so we arranged the pickup to take place at Saigon Garden, a shockingly good Vietnamese restaurant in Conover, NC. The bowls you see are the remains of two #47s, fish and roast pork with egg noodles.

By a weird coincidence, the Galactic Emperor Chennux was just on the other side of the restaurant enjoying a #15 Bun Saigon (he’s a sucker for fish sauce on cucumbers, or so Yom tells me). He seemed cranky, so we didn’t ask for autographs, although afterward we found the word ‘CHENNUX’ magmacannoned into the parking lot next to Greg’s car. And tell Applegirl that there was a case of shoes there, too, with her name on them. If she sends me her coordinates, I’ll have them shipped to her.

See, there’s nowhere else in the galaxy to get good pho other than our humble blue orb.

Speaking of M!B!S! gear, SOMEONE who shall go nameless ordered a t-shirt out of the latest batch but has failed to pay up. But their loss is your gain! If you’ve recanted on your previous unwillingness to buy and want the shirt, contact willethompson through his Website. First come, first served! And yes, if you want, you can pay via credit card or PayPal (to me, and I’ll get the money to him, but tell him you’re doing it that way first).

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Crankshaft, 7/19/07

I think someone has left an “h” out of a strategic word in that first panel.

For Better Or For Worse, 7/19/07

When I see lovingly rendered stink lines like the ones in panels three and four, it reminds me why I don’t look at the animated versions of these strips on the main FBOFW site.

Gil Thorp, 7/19/07

Ha ha! The Milford locker room smells absolutely disgusting! Oh, hilarity. It’s good to see that Coach Thorp and … uh … whoever the hell that is spend their potentially teenager-free summers ’roiding up and liftin’ weights down at the high school.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/19/07

Ha ha, Darrin and Jessica are in deep shit! Because they live in Funky Winkerbean, what should be a vaguely awkward but ultimately fondly remembered act of wholly consensual sex will in fact result in one or more of the following:

• Pregnancy (despite the fact that this has been the longest-drawn-out lead-up in teen sex history, probably still nobody will think to use any form of birth control because, you know, nobody gets to have any fun)
• Cancer (sexually transmitted, somehow)
• Pregnant cancer
• Cancerous pregnancy

Shoe, 7/19/07

Ha ha, the Perfesser’s life is shitty! I like the way he’s staring at the bottom of his glass as he contemplates the awful, wasted decades.

Family Circus, 7/19/07

Man, Dolly’s quite the little shit. Notice that Grandma isn’t even attempting to maintain a look of grandmotherly good humor. Someone’s going to get bashed on the head with a coffee cup, but fast!