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For Better Or For Worse, 11/13/06

OK, so maybe this final panel doesn’t mean what we all think it means. Maybe it’s been punctuated wrong. Maybe Elizabeth means, “You’ve changed so much? I don’t believe it. I think you’re the same whiny, passive-aggressive, schlubby, boring, dull, soul-crushingly dull, boring, boring, boring, dull, annoying, whiny…”

Oh, who the hell am I fooling. TRUE LOVE CANNOT BE STOPPED.

Mary Worth, 11/13/06

Aw, see, Mary? She’s just as scared of you as you are of her! It’s like it is with bears! And speaking of bears…

Mark Trail, 11/13/06

Huh, some of that dialogue seems awful familiar … almost as if I’d heard it before somewhere else. But where could that have been?

Mark Trail, 11/11/06

God damn it, Mark Trail, don’t you move slowly enough without, you know, just repeating the same damn dialogue over two strips? At least Jake and Snake have swapped lines in what’s suddenly become some kind of low-rent, heavily armed Waiting for Godot. The giant rabbit has fled, presumably out of boredom.

I do have to admit that if I were in the process of being kidnapped by mulleted cabin-dwelling bearnappers, I would be profoundly uncomfortable to learn that my fate would be determined “back at the cave.”

Slylock Fox, 11/13/06

I’m not resentful that I spent five minutes staring at Slick Smitty’s coat, trying to figure out if the fact that he was wearing a suit and had rolled up his sleeves was a clue about the origin of his latest flight; nor do I begrudge the fact that the crucial clue to this puzzle is Smitty’s watch, which is completely illegible. Rather, I take umbrage on behalf of our broad-tailed, buck-toothed friend. Why is he just “the beaver”? Why doesn’t he get a patented Slylock Fox clever name, like “Bobby Beaver” or “Buford Beaver” or maybe even “Castor?” Instead it’s just “the beaver,” like they’re all alike, like their individuality doesn’t matter. This strip is racist.

Family Circus, 11/13/06

Translation: “When I grow up, I’m going to move as far away from the rest of you losers as the science of the age will allow.”

Marvin, 11/13/06

Wow, Marvin sure isn’t afraid to disparage Italians. Good thing none of them live in Indiana, right? Right? What? Uh oh.

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It’s Sunday night, and you know what that means: this week’s Comments of the Week! First, the top finisher:

“In regards to Funky Winkerbean, this is probably the only time in this dude’s life that he’ll have had two girls in French maid outfits grinding up on him, and the one who likes him is insecure and drunk. Nothing on earth could stop that sex from happening … except vomit. It’s like an episode of the Twilight Zone if it were written by Shakers.” –Trent

And the nearly-as-hilarious runners up:

“Iris Beedie may not be as street smart as her pony-tailed prisoner son Tommy, but he solicits drugs in lunch bags to passersby, so his street cred is not exactly beyond reproach.” –MossMoses

“If Snake and Jake spend all their time setting up elaborate traps for animals just so they can kill them for fun, what do these clowns do for money? The mortgage on that log cabin has got to be sky high, and ammo doesn’t come cheap these days. I think Snake is a substance abuse counselor and Jake is a hairstylist to the stars.” –dramashoes

“If Crankshaft was not complicit in atrocities committed by US troops during the Vietnam Conflict, I don’t know who the hell was.” –Joe

“That movie is better than 90% of the stuff on TV. Recast Loretta Lockhorn with Jessica Rabbit and you have every sitcom on CBS.” –yellojkt

“I also like how there’s a comma after the first Ha Curtis makes, but none of the others. The writer put in one comma, then realized that because it was Curtis, he should have put Ha in quotation marks, then realized that because it was Curtis, he needed to do something more with his life.” –Steve S

“Do they call it Lost Forest because it is so small no one can find it? How in the hell do all these people keep stumbling into each other in the middle of the woods?” –Barking Spider Brewery

“That drawing of J. Jonah in panel #2 just ain’t right. Most of me wants to vomit on my keyboard, but there’s a small part of me that wants to reach out and touch that incredibly bristly head of his and see if his hair is sharp enough to break the skin.” — King Folderol

“Molly doesn’t understand why bears in nature find her undesirable. In the human world, a naked woman chained to a tree while two men drink Old Milwaukee twenty feet away while holding guns is an invitation to fantasy fulfilled.” –Dingo

“Lynn Johnston should change the name of her comic to Invariably Worse.” –paddywhack

“Did Arbuckle break up with Liz? I mean, the strip’s forte is all-encompassing hopelessness and not real human emotion, so I could see it.” –Ryan

“Regarding the strange arrangement of Mary Worth’s kitchen: Her kitchen is mostly correct for what we call ‘universally designed,’ which is interior-design-speak for a person who will live most of her life in a wheelchair throughout her elderly years. It’s also correctly designed for a disabled person, like a person who becomes permanently wheelchair-bound after getting her legs broken with a brownie pan. I say, good forward thinking Mary!” –MGArchitect

“I find myself idly wondering what Marty Moon is doing. Whatever it is — working on his car, baking a ham, mastering sudoku, performing back-alley abortions — it has to be more interesting than the mindless plots and horrendously drawn characters we’re getting now. I’m getting worried if Moon doesn’t get a storyline soon, McLaughin’s gonna forget how to draw a goatee and we’ll lose him forever.” –Cold Eels, Distant Thoughts

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Judge Parker, 11/12/06

Oh man, Sunday’s pre-“Meanwhile” Judge Parker packs in as much queasy adolescent sexuality as a John Irving novel. The image of Ned sticking out her ass for her mother, and asking “You don’t think it’s too revealing … too sexy?” is somewhat alluring, but mostly horrifying. Abbey’s blatant look of mingled horror and arousal in panel five adds to the squirm. She probably would like to complain about her daughter’s trampy outfit, but realizes that she doesn’t really have the moral authority to do so since you can totally see her buttcrack in panel three.

By the way, Neddy, French women dress in sexy and stylish clothes, not like … that. Prepare to be mocked.

(Incidentally, Abbey isn’t Ned’s bio-mom … and I’m pretty certain Ned was adopted as a teenager. I’m not sure if that makes the underlying tension here better or not.)

Post-“Meanwhile,” the phrase “Nice work, Celeste … you smell like a still!” may be the best marital put-down this side of the Lockhorns. Still, it’s nice that Reggie gave her a full two hours get her drunken mess of a life together enough to get to the press conference.

Beetle Bailey, 11/12/06

There’s a lot to hate about today’s Beetle Bailey. It follows the weird stumbly, improvised, cumulative-joke rhythm that’s been somewhat typical of the Sunday strips of late. I also wonder what happened to Beetle’s perfectly presentable t-shirt-and-shorts combo while he was in the truck, or why Miss Buxley is the only person Beetle can think of to call in his predicament, or how Miss Buxley could possibly be so femme that she doesn’t own any clothing item that isn’t a dress, or any shoes that aren’t high heels. However, I’d like to reserve the brunt of my ire for the phrase “But it sure left its output,” which has never been and will never be uttered by any speaker of idiomatic English ever.

Mary Worth, 11/12/06

As Mary walks towards her date with destiny, it’s amazing just how rattled she is. First off, in the first panel she appears to actually be practicing her first greeting to her new archrival. In panel three, she looks like she’s sneaking down the hall way, ready to leap around the corner and bash in roller-suitcase-woman’s skull with her pan. But mostly I’m charmed by the look of grim determination on her face, which gives way to an utterly insincere smile in the final panel. Next week is going to be great.

Family Circus, 11/12/06

The lesson: You can’t have nice things when your kids are morons.