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Curtis, 7/30/06

Here’s a good candidate for the “When Ambitious Artistic Gambits Go Bad” file. Ma and Pa Wilkins are having a nice little bedside chat, gazing lovingly at each other in their bedroom mirror. It’s an interesting technique that establishes the mood well and offers a different angle on what could have been a typical scene. Unfortunately, the fact that Mrs. Wilkins’ word balloons seem to be emanating from her reflection, while Mr. Wilkins’ come from off-panel in the direction of his actual body, make it look like there’s a third person in the room doing the talking. The effect is deeply, deeply unsettling, at least to me.

To note: Mr. Wilkins’ spiffy mustache in the flashback panel. Best not thought about: the egregious “barking dogs” imagery in the throwaway second panel.

Mary Worth, 7/30/06

Look at Aldo’s reflection in the final panel: while his actual face makes him look grimly determined to get his stalk on, his reflection looks nervous, timid, and unsure. Perhaps we’re looking at a dichotomy like the Green Goblin’s in the first Spider-Man movie, where the real-life Aldo plots evil and nefariousness, while the mirror-Aldo represents his conscience and tries to prevent him from killing and dismembering yet another grey-haired morsel who won’t submit to his advances. At any rate, this may be the first instance in any visual medium in which a man puts on a bow tie to presage his murderous intentions.

Throwaway panel item of note: the Charterstone homeowner’s association has apparently approved the construction of some sort of bamboo Great Wall, no doubt to keep the riffraff out. The presence of the evil Mr. Kelrast illustrates the folly of such measures.

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Hi and Lois, 7/29/06

See, right-wing naysayers: the debate over same-sex marriage has actually strengthened traditional marriage … or at least has provided fodder for “traditional” (i.e., boring, not-funny, 1950s-sitcom-style) jokes about marriage. This one in isn’t as horrifying the Beetle Bailey a few years ago when Mrs. Halftrack announced that she was in favor of same-sex marriage and the General, leering, told her that he was in favor of some-sex marriage. Note to the Walker-Browne axis: we don’t really want to hear your opinions on current politics, and we definitely don’t want to know about your characters’ sex lives.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/29/06

The Closeted Doctor Wacky Blackmail Adventure continues unabated. For those of you not following along at home, I forgot to point out in my last update on this strip that “Troy Gainer”‘s real name has been revealed to be the only slightly less porn-star-ish “Adam Long.” Today, we learn that, despite his earlier reluctance to get involved in this situation, Rex has some pretty clear and specific ideas on the best locations for doing a prisoner/ransom money exchange.

Mary Worth, 7/29/06

And by “compassion,” Mary of course means “pity.”

And by “rose,” Aldo of course means “dead object of my stalking affections.”

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Garfield and For Better Or For Worse, 7/28/06

I know I haven’t really said anything about it, but Garfield has had a real actual storyline going on for, like, two weeks or something now, and there are non-Garfield/Jon/Odie characters, and backgrounds other than the featureless void of Jon’s house, and dynamic tension and Jon even kisses a girl! The reason I haven’t said anything about this is that despite what appears to be some sort of real effort to inject some energy into the strip, it’s still excruciatingly lame and not funny. There, I said it. Sorry, Paws, Inc., toilers, but my reaction to this plotline has been a sort of tepid “Huh, that’s weird,” for about three seconds each day, promptly forgotten until the next day’s strip persists with the weirdness.

Meanwhile, much as so many of us love to hate For Better Or For Worse, it still undeniably drives passions. I have to admit rather shamefully that I’ve been totally involved in this week’s horrifying Liz-Anthony meet-cute at the car dealership, and I said a little cheer at Lizardbreath’s thought balloon which I hope — oh dear God of Canada PLEASE — means that she’s afraid of leading him on because she doesn’t want to break his heart again. Let him down easy now, Liz! For his good! For your good! FOR OUR GOOD!

Apartment 3-G, 7/28/06

“Hello! I’m Eric Mills. You know, I’m not the most attractive man in the world, I’m not really much of a dresser, and, let’s be honest, I frankly don’t have a personality that makes up for either of those factors. And yet I get more action than Don Juan and Casanova put together. I bet you’re wondering how I do it! Well, to find out all my secrets, you’ll need to subscribe to my once-a-month series of cassette tapes, Eric Mills Tells You How To Succeed With The Ladies. But let me give you an example of one of my sure-fire techniques now. Let’s say you’re at a party. What you do is, you find a halfway good-looking girl at the bar, and you check out how much she drinks. Does she drink a lot? Is she by herself? You’re in like flynn! The next thing you do is invite her out for lunch — an early lunch, if you can swing it — and get her good and drunk on whatever second-rate hard liquor she seems to like. I’ll tell you, gents, boozy floozies love it when you can remember their drug of choice; if you have to choose between keeping track of their mother’s name or whether they prefer Smirnoff or Absolut, go with the vodka. Anyway, by the end of the lunch, she’ll be way too drunk to go back to work, and as a gentleman you’ll have to walk her back to her apartment, and so … well, if you can’t take it from there, you need more help than I can give you!

“Oh, one more thing. Did I ever mention I’m a hat man? I love me a drunk girl in a hat. Yowza!”

Marvin, 7/28/06

So is this supposed to mean that Ming Ming has taken such a profoundly satisfying dump that she briefly transcended her individual consciousness and glimpsed a higher plane of reality? Or just that she’s pushed a certain amount of excrement “out” of her “body”? Either way, Marvin makes us long for last week, when it was just being racist.