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Baldo, 9/20/06

Baldo is one of those strips that I like enough to read every day, but it’s almost never so exciting that it gets mentioned here. This week there’s some serious oddness going on, though, as the title teen attempts to romance a bottle of conditioner. It was weird enough when it happened yesterday; its recurrence today is starting to freak me out. The fact that Baldo’s hair retains its perfect shape even in the shower may go to show just how intimate he is with hair-styling products.

Beetle Bailey, 9/20/06

One of the odder recurring bits in Beetle Bailey is Beetle’s extremely intermittent relationship with Miss Buxley. Although they are occasionally seen going out together or even holding hands, they seem to be perpetually on a second or third date. This is to my knowledge the first time that Private Bailey has even tried to get to first base with the buxom secretary, and the dialogue around the attempt is particularly bizarre. I myself have never been in the army, but I did go to public school, and so I know a thing or two about old water fountains, and if Miss Buxley thinks that the techniques needed to get water out of one makes a man a “good kisser,” then she’s much, much kinkier than I ever gave her credit for.

Actually, the more I think about it, Miss Buxley is probably not complimenting Beetle for trying to suck her liver out through her windpipe by asking him if he’s a man-whore, but rather saw him coming at her face with his lips ludicrously extended and is trying to come up with something — anything — to say to distract him from his advances. This fits in better with their body language, in which he’s grabbing her by the elbows and she’s bracing herself against his chest, and with the fact that she’s way, way out of his league.

The Lockhorns, 9/20/06

don’t visualize it don’t visualize it don’t visuAAAARRRGGGH MY BRAIN MY BRAIN MY BRAIN

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Faithful reader and commentor jonnya created this charming video on YouTube, so I thought I’d post it here for those of you too lazy to read the comments and click on the links.

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Mary Worth, 9/19/06

While we can’t really tell that Aldo’s car is in motion here as he chugs down his bargain-basement booze, I think you and I both know that it is. And while some square lame-os will tell you all that this makes him a bad person, I think you and I both know that it actually makes him totally awesome. If there’s one thing that can make up for the bowl haircut, the late-70s ‘stache, and the dorky polo shirts all in one deft move, it’s tipping back a bottle of hooch with one hand as you try to navigate Santa Royale traffic with the other. Aldo’s willing to smear himself along the side of a school bus for our amusement, which is more than any of those so-called “responsible drinking” advocates can say. It certainly trumps Gil Thorp’s Marty Moon, who just drank himself into a stupor in a parked car like a little wussy.

Garfield, 9/19/06

I haven’t really changed my opinion about the slightly retooled Garfield of recent weeks: yes, it suddenly has other characters, and yes, it’s slightly funnier, but it still pretty much blows. Today’s strip actually supplies something of a metaphor for this, visually. When you first look at it, it looks like, in typical hack fashion, the same drawing has been photocopied and reused three times. But if you look at the final panel more closely, you can see that Jon’s upper lip is protruding out a bit more than in the previous two, so obviously some redrawing work has gone into it. So, I can appreciate that effort on a theoretical level, but in a larger sense, why bother putting in the work in the service of this gag, which manages to hint at something unspeakably perverted and yet actually just be dull and lame? The difference is noticeable, but ultimately not important. Which is in the end how I feel about the changes to the strip.

Pluggers, 9/19/06

You’re a plugger if nobody in the world would rather be you.