Comment of the Week

Wizard of Id has succintly portrayed the difference between Early and Late Medieval modes of warfare: while his Dark Age companions are boldly dying for their feudal lord, the canny Sir Rodney treats war as a profession. He is akin to the condottiere who would dominate later Italian warfare. That sly look and crooked smile is that of a man who sees human corpses as nothing more than money in his purse, arguably far more barbaric than his predecessors. But trebuchets suck for hitting single guys so we're probably about to see Sir Smarty Pants' insides in spite of his historically progressive role.

m.w.

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Beetle Bailey, 2/6/07

Those of you who read Beetle Bailey in black in white in the newspaper, as God intended us to do, were spared from the horrifying and baffling sight of an entirely blue Lt. Fuzz. I mean, forget changing races; our blond-haired junior officer seems to have changed species. The only even vaguely reasonable explanation I can come up with is that this is some kind of comics coloring sweatshop version of day-for-night filming. Some movies that don’t have the budget to properly light night scenes shoot during the day, then run the film through a blue filter to look more like nighttime. (Fans of MST3K will remember Attack Of The The Eye Creatures, a film in which this technique was implemented particularly ineptly.) Apparently someone down at King Features coloring thought that giving Lt. Fuzz a shiny white face would be all wrong for this ill-lit situation, and the only color in the limited palate available that vaguely conveyed a sense of shadowing was this weird blue.

Those of you who read Beetle Bailey in black in white in the newspaper were not distracted by this puzzle from the “punchline,” which doesn’t make a damn bit of sense no matter how much you look at it, so we online types got let off pretty easy.

Curtis, 2/6/07

Some have claimed that my Curtis geography lesson yesterday was misplaced, and that the idea of “Compton Kaheem” being from Philly is actually part of the joke. I’m still dubious, but I am sharp enough to realize that this strip is setting us up for a punchline tomorrow. Still, almost everything about it is stunningly loathsome. The elder Wilkins’ creepy mechanical laugh (not the first time it’s appeared in this strip), his little sing-songy invitation to his 11-year-old son to watch a little soft-core human degradation, said 11-year-old’s clench-fistedly eager anticipation of same with his dad sitting there behind him, the very idea of a “syrup chapter” of the venerable Girls Gone Wild franchise … I’m frankly having a hard time thinking of anything that might happen tomorrow that could redeem this, except perhaps the entire human race being wiped out by an asteroid.

Mark Trail, 2/6/07

Ah, Mark! For a man so in touch with the natural world, you sure do talk like an android. I’d love to hear Mark talk about some fishing stories. “There was this one fishing story, I used to tell it to Cherry when we were first dating. Rusty loves that story! His little face just lights up and he says, ‘Tell it again, Mark, tell it again!’ Excitable little kid. Yup, that sure is a great story. Then there’s this other fishing story I like to tell…”

The Phantom, 2/6/07

For those of you not in the know, “Bandar medicine” is the Phantom and Guran’s little code phrase for roofies. I have no idea how they think that’s going to help, unless “ill” is code for something I don’t even want to know about.

Gil Thorp, 2/6/07

Speaking of people going, having gone, or being about to go wild, those boys don’t look like they’re going anywhere near wild in panel two. There are entirely too many clothes, for one thing. And not nearly enough syrup.

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Gil Thorp, 2/5/07

It’s good to see that the revolutionary struggle that Steve Luhm and Hadley V. Baxendale waged for gender equality two years ago has transformed Milford High athletics into a gender-blind paradise. Hadley and Steve may have left Milford behind for higher learning at Vassar (where they are pursuing degrees in Women’s Studies and Anthropology, respectively), but their legacy is felt as the boys prepare to go cheer on the Lady Mudlarks in a nurturing, mutually supportive environment. More troubling is the … precipitation … in the first panel. Is that confetti coming down in the middle of the game against New Thayer? Or … snow? Is it snowing indoors? My God, has the girls’ athletic program, in budgeting decisions forced by the ultra-liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ interpretation of Title IX, eaten up the resources that should by rights be used to patch the roof on the gym where manly competition takes place? DAMN YOU, FEMINAZIS! DAMN YOU TO HELL!

Slylock Fox, 2/5/07

This edition of Slylock Fox presents an intriguing meeting of the realistic and the cartoonish, as the bowler-cap-and-shorts-wearing bright yellow Max Mouse peers nervously through the gloom at his much more lifelike feral counterpoint, who presumably spends less time aiding detective work and enjoying co-ed sleepovers with lady mice named “Melody” and more time eating garbage and being poisoned. Similarly pleasing and realistically drawn is the sinister, multitentacled furnace. As for the mystery itself, the solution is rather clever, though I imagine that whoever comes down to turn the furnace on will be less likely to provide clues to Slylock and Max to help them catch the thief and more likely to shriek and try to hit them with a broom.

B.C., 2/5/07

Ha! It’s funny because … there’s … a pit with a huge pile of … dismembered human legs. Or, um, parts of human legs, anyway. Um. Funny. Ha. Um.

Curtis, 2/5/07

Dear Curtis:

Here to help.

The Family Circus, 2/5/07

Years later, renowned developer William Keane, a close friend to the Secretary of the Interior, stood on the ridgeline and watched the bulldozers do their work, transforming this part of the former Yellowstone National Park into the Estates at Yellowstone™. As the formerly rugged ground was graded into the smooth surfaces necessary to build the broad arterials, looping drives, and nestled cul de sacs that would define the geography of this exclusive suburban community, a small smile played across his lips, as if some ancient anger had finally been soothed.

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Apartment 3-G, 2/4/07

So I just spent a good chunk of time catching up on the various comics I missed while I was away, and I have to say that nothing was so disturbing as the bizarre turn of events in Apartment 3-G that saw Tommie falling into the arms of a pencil-mustached lothario out of the 1970s 1950s 1890s [Note: Historical records confirm that there has been no decade in recorded human history in which Neil’s clothes, haircut, and mustache would be considered fashionable and attractive. –Eds] Less traumatizing than Neil, who will soon cast aside Tommie like a used tissue, is Gary, aka “Boy Tommie.” Clearly this lookalike duo is destined for romance, at which point all of time and space will collapse into a black hole of bland mopiness from which nothing, not even fun, can escape.

I really thought for a minute that Tommie was supposed to be wearing a bolo tie, but it turns out that it’s just a Victorian locket or something. Still, she is looking rather Old Western, and not in a good way.

Before I conclude, I do want to cast a look back at a couple of gems from last week. I certainly don’t mean this as a disparagement of Uncle Lumpy’s fine job filling in, but it’s just that he doesn’t necessarily share all of my incomprehensible comics obsessions, one of which is old people having sex.

Judge Parker and Crankshaft, 2/1/07

It was too slow-moving and pointless to cover here, but I always thought there was something a little odd in the interaction between Rachel and her regular butler (who now seems to be locked in his sickroom, totally forgotten) in the weeks leading up to Abbey and Neddy’s arrival in Paris. I don’t even want to know about the twisted power dynamics that go on in a sexual relationship between an old gazillionare biddy and her manservant. I do know that I love Rachel’s expression in panel two. It says, “Yeah, that’s right, you sexy young mulleted whippersnapper, I’m eighty years old and dying of cancer, but I’ve been gettin’ me some hot servant tail for decades, while you can’t even bed your own husband by wearing something low-cut and getting him boozed up!”

Crankshaft’s face, meanwhile, bears the ashen expression of a lonely widower who is suddenly reminded that he hasn’t felt the intimate touch of another human being in decades. That’s Crankshaft for you, which mainly serves to provide comic relief for Funky Winkerbean.

Finally, yesterday’s Watch Your Head had an amusing take on Curtis.