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Mark Trail, 1/23/07

Hmm … “Mark, this is Dick … the beaver we trapped is back!” Oh, close enough. Welcome back into my heart, you crazy beavers! All is forgiven!

I love Mark’s goofy, heavy-lidded grin in the final panel. “Yeah, that Dick … he’ll shoot a beaver, all right … no warning … those kids should be worried … he’d shoot the kids too … Rusty and … the other one … the little girl … what’s her name … oh, Christ, I am so wasted.”

Gil Thorp, 1/23/07

Ah, it’s another fabulous Gil Thorp crowd scene, this time brought to you by M.C. Escher. The Lady Mudlarks’ five fans are in full effect, showing their apathetic love in the center of the yawning, featureless abyss that is the Milford gymnasium. Lisa’s mom, who is usually right, apparently thinks that only her patented wacky Mussolini impression will get this crowd fired up. That having failed, in panel two she manages to bend the nature of reality itself, and Blondie McBuzzcut looks up in confused terror as she manages to get her arm in front of his face in defiance of ordinary spatial dynamics.

Speaking of panel two, Person Of Indeterminate Gender Wearing A Fur-Trimmed Jacket And Hat Even Though He Or She Is Inside is back! It’s good to see that Lady Mudlark fever is chronic, if not infectious.

I might be more hip to the nuances of the thrilling “But…” in panel three if I were more intimately acquainted with the meanings of high school basketball referee hand signals. But all in all, I’m pretty glad I’m not.

Spider-Man, 1/23/07

Spidey’s been in the midst of a wholly uncharacteristic crime-fighting spree this week, but don’t worry: it’s just a cover-up for his usual whiny marital angst. I’m not sure how you pronounce “?”, but I can guess why he’s trying; I don’t think any member of the actual criminal element has used the phrase “plugged nickel” in, well, ever.

Pluggers, 1/23/07

No. No. If some aspect of being a plugger is contingent on being literate, then … everything I know about how the world works is meaningless.

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Slylock Fox, 1/22/07

This little scene immediately brought to mind a quote I’ve always liked, from A.W. Brian Simpson’s Cannibalism and the Common Law:

Leading cases are the very stuff of which the common law is made, and no leading case in the common law is better known than that of Regina v. Dudley and Stephens. It was decided in 1884 by a court in the Royal Courts of Justice in London. In it, two profoundly respectable seamen, Captain Tom Dudley and Mate Edwin Stephens, lately of the yacht Mignonette, were sentenced to death for the murder of their shipmate, Ordinary Seaman Richard Parker, after a bench of five judges had ruled that one must not kill one’s shipmates in order to eat them, however hungry one might be.

Fortunately for Slylock, who’s grinning a grin here that’s a little too sly, as a non-human animal his conduct is governed not by the common law, but by the Law of Nature. Max will make a tasty little snack to take the edge off until the raft washes up on the west coast of New Zealand, where our vulpine detective will use his powers of elementary deduction to solve long-running land disputes between the government and the Maori before dining on the native fauna, which is completely unadapted to mid-sized predators.

Also beyond the Queen’s justice in this vignette is that crafty bottle-stealing octopus. I will say again that Slylock Fox has some of the best incidental details of any strip out there.

Dick Tracy, 1/22/07

So the Tracys seem to think that kicking a little cash at some Alzheimer’s researchers will somehow atone for the monstrous crime of erasing a man’s mind. Note, however, the “Inc.” in the address. That’s no high-minded government research lab, it’s a for-profit pharmaceutical firm — probably a shell company in which GlaxoSmithKline owns a controlling interest. Dick and Tess will no doubt be seeing a generous return from that generous thing she did.

Elsewhere, some dude plans to break into a jewelry store with a crowbar, in a totally interesting criminal act that will surely demand the attention of the world’s greatest, most techno-enabled detective.

Family Circus and Dennis the Menace, 1/22/07

Jeffy’s blatant assault on his mother yesterday was apparently just the beginning; today, she must bribe him with food to stave off another barrage, a strategy that will last only until his little tummy is filled up. Meanwhile, the snowball offensive has spread to Dennis the Menace as well. Mrs. Wilson looks fairly shocked by Dennis’ naked aggression; no doubt years of sub-par menacing have lulled her into complacency.

If all the children in the comics pages rose up senselessly and violently against the adults, like the birds in The Birds, I for one would be a happy guy. I’m sure Elmo has a lot of aggression he needs to work out against Dagwood.

Apartment 3-G, 1/22/07

Lu Ann needs to make nice with her ghost, so she’s brought in … her incredible psychic microwave! Good lord, she’s even dumber than I thought.

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Family Circus, 1/21/07

I thought I had seen the depths to which Keane family dysfunction could sink, but that was before murderous little Jeffy sweet-talked his mother into lovingly handcrafting the very projectiles with which she would soon be pelted. In a way, this cartoon is emblematic of that dark, little-discussed side of parenthood: sometimes, you can pour all of your soul into that little life that you nurtured first in your body and then in your home, neglecting your own private life, personal development, and relationship with your partner to help them become a person, only to see them transformed into an inscrutable monster, an opaque being who only resents you for crimes you can’t imagine or explain, who, despite the years of midnight feedings and changed diapers and band-aids and drives to school and hot meals, is ready to crack your skull open with a ball of ice the moment you turn your back.

On the other hand, she did call him “little man.” I’d be pretty pissed too.

Beetle Bailey, 1/21/07

I know they’re called “throwaway panels” because they just get thrown away, but really, this isn’t even trying. “Hey, I’ve got to fill these two panels with something — how about something that isn’t funny on its own, and that doesn’t really fit in with the main joke, but is just close enough to it that you sort of stare at it for a while scratching your head waiting for it to make sense, but it never does? Bingo! Tee time! I’m off!”

Judge Parker, 1/21/07

With what look like new Barretto-drawn strips back in the daily Judge Parker, our anonymous fill-in artist is offering his swan song with some entirely gratuitous Abbey T&A. I ask you, does anyone rock the chino capris like Ms. Spencer? I think she goes down to Old Navy and buys the Ass Crack Revealing Cut version in bulk.

Also, Sunday’s Mary Worth was a wasteland of exposition and white people, but in the final panel we did get to see her terrifying all-seeing third eye!

I never doubted your powers, o master! Please to not tear my soul asunder with your oculus of ultimate power!