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So, today was the 75th anniversary of the beginning of Dick Tracy! Many of the strips distributed by the same syndicate offered their tributes today, which were for the most part significantly less wanktastic than Blondie’s endless anniversary hijinks. The awards for the two least seamless nods go to:

Gil Thorp, 10/4/06

Gil Thorp, which features a namecheck by a teenager who never reads the paper and wouldn’t read a 75-year-old comic strip if he did, and who was at most two years old when the most recent movie incarnation of the franchise came out; and…

Shoe, 10/4/06

Shoe, which features Detective Tracy’s severed head in a case behind Roz’s bar, with death’s grim rictus forcing him to feign amusement at this awful joke.

In non-Dick Tracy news:

Mary Worth, 10/4/06

Actually, it seems to me that in a single evening you corrected things quite nicely.

Seriously, I’m really beginning to believe that Mary and her crew are just going to talk themselves into a sense of guiltless satisfaction. If this is the beginning of the all-singing, all-dancing, all-sociopathic Mary Worth, then I’m going to just embrace it and run with it. I can’t wait to see what murderous crimes they’re going to escalate to next! “Yes, perhaps crucifying Mr. Jenkins in the Charterstone courtyard and leaving him to die over a period of days was a bit harsh, but he did tread on the flowerbed, and there is a sign warning against doing just that, so in a real sense, this is all his doing.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/4/06

Wow. So, it looks like June and Heather are on the verge of a full-on makeout session, with Rex watching from afar and thinking “ME LIKEY!” Could this strip get any more polymorpheously perverse — or divorced from its ostensible narrative content?

June seems pretty upset that Heather’s petty personal problems have ruined her vacation plans. I’m surprised Heather even bothers to bring up her mother’s feelings, which are clearly not as important as June’s, who had already picked out the kilt Rex was going to wear. All this clan stuff sounds promising to me, though; Heather’s English, if I remember right, so maybe we’ll get into some kind of Anglo-Scot hatred storyline that will baffle the vast majority of Americans for whom all “those people over there” are pretty much indistinguishable.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 10/4/06

YEAH, THAT’S JUST HOW IT IS! ‘CAUSE YOU STILL LOVE HER, BUT SHE LOATHES THE VERY SIGHT OF YOU! WHAT’RE YA GONNA DO? HAW HAW! Ah, whimsy.

UPDATE: So it turns out that “David Tarafa” is actually faithful reader and occasional commentor Lambnesiac, who is the first Curmudgeonite to be successfully TDIETed. And, uh, whose marriage is I’m sure much, much healthier than the Scadutotization would have you believe. Uh. Heh.

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Apartment 3-G, 10/3/06

Wow, for a strip that had to tiptoe its way around what was blatantly supposed to be an extramarital fling a few months ago, Apartment 3-G sure seems to have enthusiastically transformed itself into a Viagra commercial today. I like the way Margo and the Professor are all smiles throughout the exchange, to show that Margo’s impotence cracks are all in good fun. Gina, meanwhile, looks suddenly concerned in panel two, as if she hadn’t considered this possible downside to her old-man-snagging ways.

Beetle Bailey, 10/3/06

Ha, ha, it’s funny because General Halftrack and Beetle are both cowards! But is it also a cutting commentary on the array of active and retired generals who have questioned Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s leadership in the Iraq war? Who says it can’t be both! Well, I do, because this is Beetle Bailey, so it’s really only the first thing. Except for the “funny” part.

Fox Trot, 10/3/06

The interlinked man-woman symbol pendant is a nice touch, and the “beetle music” line is groanworthy, but neither should distract from the fact that Jason is using his iguana as a prop to hit on his mom. Ick. And ick.

Mark Trail, 10/3/06

OK, arrow-ass-bear-whose-arrow-seems-to-have-mysteriously-disappeared-but-we-know-it’s-still-you-probably, you need to remember that you are a vicious, 1,000-pound beast, with flesh-tearing fangs and razor-sharp claws. The fact that you allowed this pasty, defenseless, hairless ape to bop you on the snout with a tree limb — as if you were a dog to be chastised with a rolled-up newspaper! — and ran away, leaving all of the human’s internal organs safely inside his body, brings shame to all wild bears everywhere. You’re not expected to try to understand the hostility towards you, just react to it with savage carnage.

Judge Parker, 10/3/06

GAYEST. JUDGE PARKER. EVER.

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So, here’s this week’s Comment Of The Week almost-made-its. In case you haven’t noticed, this has pretty much become a regular feature at this point.

“In reality, this is how this conversation would go: ‘Honey, guess what I saw?’ ‘It’s probably some feeble attempt at ingenuity for the idiotic masses, but what?’ ‘A freaking divorce lawyer, you self-righteous piece of crap!'” –reader-who-posts

“Notice how it’s all about La Camerona. ‘I spent 45 minutes of torture inhaling Wilbur’s piercing aroma of Indonesian hair tonic and neglected genital hygiene, wasting my shrewish hectoring on this pathetic nitwit who has gone out and killed himself before he could even get depressed over my emasculation of him!'” –Craigers

“Aldo Kelrast’s death hits especially hard as he was the only character in the Worthiverse that had anything resembling ‘passion’ or ‘basic wants.’ His death is the final proof that in Charterstone simple human emotions are not only undesirable, but deadly.” –Anonymous

“For those reading Cathy this week: What is up with the war against business casual? Did a t-shirt kill her dog or something?” –Shawn Struck

“What kind of cop just strolls in to say, ‘YEP, IT’S SAD, BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, OH WELL.’ I submit that this is not, in fact, a real cop, but instead a stripper that Mary & friends hired for Aldo’s wake. And before you ask what kind of stripper delivers a sermon on the dangers of drinking and driving and doesn’t remove a stitch of clothing, it’s the kind that Mary Worth would hire.” –SarcasticAcid

“As the days pass within the sinister case of Aldo Kelrast, Charterstone Stalker, I feel sorry less for Mary Worth and more for Toby Cameron’s pants.” –Dingo

“I suspect that Anthony will be strangely envious of Grampa’s corpse being, as he is, dead on the inside already.” –michael

“Margo apparently still has it, whatever ‘it’ is.” –LynnyM

On Mark Trail: “Also, for a few days we’ve been watching these bears in the woods and not once have we seen any signs of defecation by either animal. I guess thats the answer to that philosophical question.” –MGArchitect

“OH MY GOD! THERE’S FIRE IN GIL THORP! Fire, I tell you! Fire = adventure! It’s almost a substitute for a coherent plotline!” –leathermessiah

“Planning Eric Mill’s niece’s birthday party takes PREPARATION, dammit. It’s not like she’s planning an invasion of a third world country or anything. There are lots of variables. If any one goes wrong, disaster could strike. For example, what if one of the kids pukes into the whiskey fountain after doing a keg-stand? What are you going to do then? The obvious — start serving up shots straight from the bottle. But there have to be fresh bottles and chilled shot glasses immediately available. Planning, people! Planning!” –hogenmogen

“On the FBOFW site, they animate the comics. Granted, this animation frequently consists of nothing more than characters blinking, but the idea is that is makes them seem more ‘alive’. I just use it to scare my little son.” –Zikar

“Today Toby and Chinbeard finally realize the life-truth that Aldo knew all along: The best sex is always with the totally wrong people.” –AppleGirl

“Today’s edition [of RMMD] is, as is par for the course, awesome. No, I don’t know who those people are. (And you don’t either, so stop acting like you do.) But I can tell that they’re totally awesome! Will there be a tie-in between these lowlifes and the egregious purse-napping June suffered a few days ago? Who knows? But I’m guessing this: ADVENTURE!!!!” –Fred P.

“In the way in which young people can be clueless as to the (ick) continuing sexual activities of their progenitors and elders, Gina is so proud to make it crystal clear to the old biddies who made her dinner and cleared her plates that she’s leaving to ‘do it,’ while oblivious that Margo has just returned form a day-long brunch ‘date,’ and Tommie is still satisfied from scorning and humiliating Ted just the other day.” –ohyes

“Normal people would use the guns, but [The Phantom] is a strip in a paper where kids can read it, and they have to learn ‘family values,’ such as punching people and throwing them through windows instead of shooting them.” –hogenmogen

“It is entirely possible that Spider-Man is a cartoon strip which doesn’t actually have a ‘best character.'” –Fred P.

Also, faithful reader Dadzilla sent me this picture of his encounter with a bear statue. The statue didn’t understand Dadzilla’s hostility.