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Family Circus, 10/18/06

I’m going to ignore the main joke here, which involves the sort of smothering middle-class suburban overparenting that’s going to leave Jeffy a bed-wetting basket case well into his thirties, and just say: what the hell is wrong with Mamma Keane’s waist? I mean, look at it. I could put one of my hands around that. As if it isn’t enough that Big Daddy Keane made her pop out four kids with enormous heads, it looks like he also bullied her into getting some ribs removed to maintain that girlish figure. Yipes.

Pluggers, 10/18/06

A plugger knows he has to keep his Oedipus complex pushed deep down inside if he doesn’t want to get a divorce.

People ask me why I read Pluggers every day. If you pay attention over the long term, patterns and character traits and plotlines emerge over time. I would urge you to revisit this cartoon, involving the same family, to really get a sense of the psychodrama going on here.

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Beetle Bailey, 10/17/06

I don’t have contact with anyone in the army right now, so I have to assume that Beetle Bailey is an accurate picture of what life is like in the American military today — and a very troubling picture it is, too. I’m not sure what’s worse: Beetle stewing over getting punched in the face by his superior officer, the chaplain urging Beetle to just submit to the abuse, or the idea that a “turn the other cheek” philosophy makes for good soldiering. Beetle pointing to his bruise in the second panel looks like something out of a Lifetime movie about domestic violence starring Judith Light.

One Big Happy, 10/17/06

First pants-wetting jokes, now pants-crapping jokes. Let it never be said that One Big Happy doesn’t push the boundaries of acceptable child-centered family-newspaper comedy.

Judge Parker, 10/17/06

“Hoo hoo, Sam, look, if I put this cigar under my nose, it looks like a mustache! Hee hee! Isn’t that funny? Oh, wait, I forgot, you’re on the phone, you can’t see me.”

By the way, Sam came home from work this evening to find his wife wearing something low cut with a bottle of wine and a lit candle set out, glowing at him with a thousand-watt “let’s get it on” stare, and yet this is how his evening is ending. Maybe Reggie Black is onto something with his “not the marrying kind” smears against the Randy Parker campaign.

Mary Worth, 10/17/06

Oh my God, Mary Worth is the queen of bitch. “I’m sorry, were you still giving a second thought to what’s-his-name, with the mustache, whom we drove to his death? You pathetic, weak-kneed little fool. And now you’ve interrupted my favorite sex fantasy: you know, the one where Dr. Jeff Cory wants to have sex with me and I turn him down.” This heavy-handed shift is presumably meant to indicate that we’re ready for the next storyline, which will involve Dr. Jeff’s triumphant return from the exotic and cleft-palated east, but I’m still hoping that the ghost of Aldo will haunt the proceedings yet. Best case scenario: Jeff, newly awakened to a life of service and kindness to his fellow man by his trip to Cambodia, hears the description of Aldo’s doom and recoils in horror. “Why … you’re all a pack of murderers! Sociopaths!” He flees Charterstone in disgust, while the Fearsome Foursome stares on uncomprehending. “What’s his problem?” huffs Ian.

Gil Thorp, 10/17/06

I … I don’t know what this means, but … it seems kind of gay to me. “Stormy” needs your life-breathing-nipple-based heroism, Sean, whether you like it or not.

By the way, faithful reader/madman jonnya offers this hilarious instigation for you to buy crap from my store:

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Has the Comics Curmudgeon ever been graced by a merchandise model as adorable as faithful reader Banana’s young’un?

The only thing that comes close is this picture, though technically the kids in that photo aren’t actually modeling merchandise, but rather serving as props. Still, it’s good to boost the cuteness factor however we can. Remember, a variety of Molly the Bear merchandise is available for both big and little people.

Meanwhile, Fencepost Frank would like to remind you that he’s updated his MySpace page and that his hat is still available.

Fencepost Frank was a particularly early figure in the Comics Curmudgeon mythos, and many of you may not have been around during his heyday. This strip is actually one of the few in which he appeared, but I think you can understand from reading it the long shadow he has cast.