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Archie, 6/29/07

When I was a little kid, one of my favorite comic series was Richie Rich. I loved how ridiculously and cartoonishly wealthy he was; there was one particularly memorable sequence in which Richie and his family wandered through a wing of their freakishly huge mansion that they had forgotten existed, and found among other things a bathtub full of jewels. Archie’s Lodge family’s plutocratic status never quite reaches that level of caricature, but sometimes it comes close. The enormous gap in wealth between Veronica’s family and everybody else in Riverdale does lead one to wonder about the community’s economic structure: perhaps it’s all a company town owned by Mr. Lodge. The absence of a community of fellow-billionaires at least explains why Veronica goes to Riverdale High with the plebes: there aren’t enough rich kids to sustain an elite private school, and education at home with a governess has sadly fallen out of style.

At any rate, you’d think that the Lodges could at least afford a secluded private beach that wasn’t within binocular-viewing distance of the grubby seashore where the masses hang out. From the looks of it, they can’t be more than a hundred yards or so from the public beach; maybe there’s just a velvet rope separating the two or something. The weird target thing in the background might explain the proximity, though: perhaps the Lodges like to pick off plebian beach-goers with a high-powered rifle for sport. Since Riverdale law enforcement consists entirely of Lodge hired goons, they can hunt this cunning human prey with impunity.

The little girl at bottom right, who is at most knee high and yet appears to be about eight, is freaking me out. MAKE HER STOP STARING AT ME!

Gil Thorp, 6/29/07

The immature among you will no doubt latch onto the phrase “I pumped you full” and have your jollies at the thought of ol’ Clambake sodomizing the student-athletes of Milford. Maybe you’ll even use it in your own classless double-entendres (“Yeah, I’d like to pump her full of misplaced confidence, if you know what I mean!”). For my money, though, the funniest thing in this strip is the narration box in panel three. If I had my druthers, every single Gil Thorp strip would include a panel that contained the phrase “Also down on himself: [Insert name of indistinguishable Milford resident here].” Soon the strip will be so consumed with self-loathing that it’ll make Funky Winkerbean seem like an Ecstacy-fuelled rave.

Family Circus, 6/29/07

Since PJ is the fourth child, if we were being realistic his baby book would actually contain his crumpled-up birth certificate stuck between two random pages and nothing else. The kids seem to have the right idea, as they clearly think of him as one of the pets.

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Gil Thorp, 6/28/07

Milford’s boys of late spring aren’t content to let the softball team get all the glory when comes to insane and pointless acts of dogooderism. Today we see that the Milford baseball team is on a “peace tour” of the Middle East: they’ve injected themselves with an experimental growth serum and are now sixty feet tall, and are playing a series of baseball games along the West Bank separation barrier to cow the locals with their Godzilla-like might and force peaceful existence upon them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have worked, as Clambake has apparently been beheaded by a radical Islamic Jihad splinter cell, presumably because he wouldn’t SHUT UP with his filthy infidel Negro League lies.

Mary Worth, 6/28/07

You know what? I want to see more flirting in Mary Worth. Honest. And then the sex. Because any sex that results from this ham-handed danse l’amour will be so awkward and excruciating, it’ll be like pornographic performance art. And if there’s one thing I want to see in the funnies, it’s pornographic performance art.

Man, those Charterstone pool parties have some good grub — a bowl of French fries, a bowl of yams, and a bowl of off-color hard-boiled eggs. Mmm-mmm! I also love the huge, brutalist set of concrete stairs that lead nowhere. Presumably that empty platform at the top is the altar for human sacrifices. You’re it, Dr. Drew! Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon!

Judge Parker, 6/28/07

I moved away from the Bay Area five years ago now, but I still feel a lot of affection for it. I knew that the state was having trouble paying for the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge, but I don’t see how painting the Golden Gate Bridge grey is going save any money.

Pluggers, 6/28/07

You’re a plugger if everything you own is garbage.

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Popeye, 6/27/07

So it’s been seven months and two plotlines since I’ve deigned to comment on Popeye’s spinach- and/or mescaline-fueled antics. If you’re not following along at home, I’m not going to give you any context for this, because it’s just all the more delightful as a surreal and horrifying standalone vignette. Olive Oyl laughing so hard that her jaw nearly unhinges as she presses the barrel of the gun to her temple, her breast-sporting doppelgänger laughingly urging her to blow her brains out as she slams her bracelets together with a hearty CLANK!, Wimpy ignoring the horrifying drama to demand more food — WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT IN A COMIC? In three panels, Popeye has managed to be more unsettling that the last 18 months of Zippy the Pinhead.

Six Chix, 6/27/07

On a day that didn’t feature a beloved Popeye character cheerfully threatening suicide, this would surely be the funny pages’ most disturbing comic. “Oops, terrible mixup, we meant to order tanning beds but we bought cremators instead! Wondered why they were so big! Ha ha! So, yeah, we burned your wife to death.”

Mark Trail, 6/27/07

Wow, Crooked County Commissioner #1 sure is looking … distinguished, isn’t he? There’s just something about him that says, “Gosh, this handsome and paternal figure would never do anything illicit; rather, he would be an excellent person with whom to negotiate a delicate land deal involving public funds. And he just might be the right person to be the highly paid head of the county’s new airport authority! I wonder why I feel so simultaneously drawn to and respectful towards him now?”

And, in the first panel … he also seems to be super cool as well! I know, mature and distinguished and super cool in one package? I don’t pretend to understand how he does it. All I know is that the new airport’s gonna be the best airport ever!

Marvin, 6/27/07

Perhaps you’re right, Marvin. But we can pass legislation that forces freaks like your mother — with their grotesquely oversized heads tottering atop their reedy, stick-like bodies in a most stomach-turning fashion — to live out their days in closed institutions where normal people can’t see them. And we will, if the letter I’m about to write to my Congressman has anything to say about it.

Slylock Fox, 6/27/07

The heroine seems a little young to play the part, but everything in this cartoon — the meal of canned tuna and toast eaten right out of the can and toaster, respectively; the filthy house, crawling with rodents; and, of course, the dozens of hungry, hungry felines — screams “crazy cat lady.” But you know what? Once you realize the role you’re born to play in this life, I say, why wait?

Mary Worth, 6/27/07

Wait, what? “Yawnfest?” “Beyond boring?” I think somebody needs to turn around. CANNONBALL! CANNONBAAAAAAALLLLL! It’s never a boring party when people are doing the cannonball. CANNONBAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!