Post Content

Mary Worth, 4/1/07

Ah, a Charterstone pool party! Always a nexus of pettiness and backhanded sniping, and always an excellent opportunity for Professor Chinbeard to make an ass out of himself. Usually he achieves this goal by insulting people behind their backs or attacking those who dare to show an ounce of compassion for others, but he’s more than happy to blatantly ogle the troubled, mousy new girl in front of his wife if that’s what it takes. It’s a good thing he wore his sexiest rust-colored leisure suit and inky black shirt for the occasion!

It’s hard to know what’s going on in Vera’s head, since she’s so impossibly subdued and guarded, but I’m guessing it’s something like, “Yep, this is exactly what I was afraid this scene was going to be like.”

Mark Trail, 4/1/07

Meanwhile, Mark Trail is either very, very high, or about four years old. This is the only explanation I can offer for what we see here today. “Did you know … SUNSPOTS! They make … pretty girls in bikinis … and planes and dolphins and whales OUT OF CONTROL! And then the pelican made a big hurricane … WHOOOSH. That’s why we built this huge crystal rocket ship in Washington, D.C.! WE’RE GOING TO THE SUN TO FIGHT THE SUNSPOTS! HOORAY!”

The Phantom, 4/1/07

Hmm, it looks like “DePaul & Ryan,” who’ve been drawing the daily Phantom for a while now, have taken over the Sunday duties from Graham Nolan. It’s too bad, as I’ve been a fan of Nolan’s work in this setting, but now he’ll have more energy to lavish on June Morgan’s breasts (he’s the RMMD artist too). Anyway, today’s new adventure belies the notion that Bangalla is a happy, healthy post-colonial democracy. People walking with a suitcase at night, in the same neighborhood as the presidential palace? They must be … suspects! Some quality time down at the police station with a rubber hose will loosen their tongues and establish exactly why we should be suspicious of them!

Also today, a couple of throwaway panels of note:

Panel from For Better Or For Worse, 4/1/07

If you looked at this in your paper today and recoiled in horror but then consoled yourself by saying, “Well, at least nobody recorded this and then uploaded the MP3 to the official FBOFW site,” then I’m about to shatter your world of complacency into countless shards of anguish (note: don’t click this link unless you want to explain to anyone within earshot why you’re listening to FBOFW-themed “rock” music).

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 4/1/07

It may not be menacing as such, but it’s at least a little disturbing to see Joey and Dennis contemplate the tempting target that is Mr. Wilson’s enormous ass.

Post Content

Spider-Man, 3/31/07

You may have missed Friday’s thrilling Spider-Man, in which the fake Mrs. Spider-Man attempted to escape from the back seat of her captor’s car! So, thrill to this installment in which … she … is … put back into the car by her captor. This, combined with my rage earlier this week at similar non-developments, has brought about an epiphany: just about everything that happens in Spider-Man happens only to slow down the action of the strip. It’s all an endless delaying action, making the big payoff we’re going to get that much more exciting. I’ve been reading this feature daily for something like three years now, so I can tell you that said payoff had better be really good.

Panel three: Spidey, you got clocked by a brick and you’re just now wondering if this whole “spider-sense” thing isn’t a load of bunk?

Pluggers, 3/31/07

Just when you think that the whole “anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic animals uneasily sharing narrative space” scenario can’t get any more unsettling, you get today’s paean to involuntary sterilization. For obvious reasons, I try not to pay too close attention to the various family relationships among the horrifying bipedal beasts of Pluggers, so I can’t say for sure if the dog and the Chicken-Lady are kin or just acquaintances, but I think what really makes this panel disturbing is the look of mortal terror on the face of the li’l pup contrasted with heavy-lidded indifference of his feathered captor.

Would it make me an evil chardonnay-swilling elitist if I suggested that actual plugger litter control is a crude, hand-scrawled sign that reads “FREE PUPPIES,” which you put on a pole in the middle of your dog-feces-laden yard? What, it would? Oh, OK then, I won’t … what, I already said it? Damn it.

Beetle Bailey, 3/31/07

Wow, who knew that painting your own porch furniture was something that somehow lowered one’s prestige, and that, more generally, the elite of our military’s officer corps lives in a fishbowl in which every action that they and their spouses take is judged by neighbors and passersby? Who should be painting a general’s chairs? A crew of enemy combatants, on loan from Gitmo?

Family Circus, 3/31/07

“I’m helping her too, Jeffy! I’m masturbating to Internet pornography because I know that cleaning leaves her too tired to perform her marital duties. Oh, and let me borrow one of those shirts, while you’re handing them out.”

Post Content

For Better Or For Worse, 3/30/07

I’m not entirely sure what I would considered to be the best possible way for this storyline to play out; it probably would have involved April an’ Gerald having a frank discussion about their respective thoughts about sex and feelings for each other, informed by knowledge about contraception that they learned in school and from their parents. But you know what? This scenario — where they almost let their fifteen-year-old hormones get the better of them but then don’t get the chance, and almost got caught but don’t, with Elly and John none the wiser — works for me. Hopefully in the longer term it’s just another awkward adolescent moment that will be looked back on years later with fond amusement, and not not chapter one of April’s Descent Into Whoredom. Because if she wants to wear something trampy at Liz and Anthony’s wedding (and you know she will), it’d be harder with a bun in the oven.

Mark Trail, 3/30/07

How not to solve a mystery: Like all too many human beings, Mark has seen a little evidence, used that evidence to jump to a conclusion, and now goes into the world not in the spirit of genuine inquiry, but only looking for something that confirms what he already believes. I’d love to see him shown up. “Come on, Andy, let’s look over here in that nearest cove! Hmm, what have we here … some logs … some debris … Dan’s bloated, rotting corpse … dammit, where are the things that will confirm what I believe?”

Sally Forth, 3/30/07

Oh, come on now, we all know — whether we want to or not — that the Forths screw like minks, constantly. I mean, look at this. Or this. Or this. They probably really go nuts when Sally’s totally blotto, which is pretty much all the time. “Been a while” probably means “since lunch, when Ted drove over and we did it in the car out in the parking lot.”

The Wizard of Id, 3/30/07

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second:

1. The Wizard of Id is written by Johnny Hart.
2. Johnny Hart is a strict creationist, as indicated by his constant ridicule of Darwin in B.C.
3. The Wiz here implies that the King is descended from monkeys.
4. [HEAD EXPLODES]