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Apartment 3-G, 9/23/04

And here I was thinking that the feds still needed to resort to antiquated concepts like “probable cause” or “a warrant” before launching a drug investigation. Apparently, though, all they need nowadays is a tip-off from a notoriously amoral PR flack in order to swoop on in. Hopefully all Pete did was break into poor Jack Landrow’s apartment and rifle through his stuff while he wasn’t there; if the whole thing ended in a Ruby Ridge-style debacle, it would no doubt generate a lot of paperwork, which would take Pete away from valuable pretending-not-to-flirt-with-Margo time. It’s a little-known fact that FBI-CIA cooperation on infiltrating militant Islamic groups has been hindered by the amount of energy intelligence agents spend on dealing with their ex-girlfriends.

Speaking of militant Islamic groups, I think the Taliban would want you to cover up there, Margo. I suppose that if you’re just going to be casually hanging around the apartment pretending to cook, while chatting with your former lover about the illegal abuse of his authority that you convinced him to undertake, then that’s the sort of thing that you’d wear.

Incidentally, while it’s always difficult to gauge the passing of time in the soaps, from the next few strips it appears that Tommie will spend the entire remainder of the evening in the next room listening to this conversation. Um, Tommie, I feel bad for you that the writers never give you anything to do and all, but don’t you have somewhere to be?

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B.C., 9/22/04

So all week I’ve been trying to understand B.C. I know, “Don’t do it!” you’re shouting. But generally this is not a strip that’s hard to figure out: whether it’s making jokes about golf, slamming on the ACLU, or saying that Jesus has come to put a stop to Hanukkah, it pretty much says what it means.

However, this week’s strips on the presidential race in, um, B.C.-land are fairly obscure. Comprehension is clouded from the get-go because the struggle involves three characters who are virtually identical in appearance and behavior. (They’re named “Peter,” “B.C.,” and “Thor,” and I won’t even begin to go into what all is wrong with that combo.) On the one hand, the sequence of events is oddly specific — Peter has successfully put up his sign, while everyone else’s campaign tactics are backfiring in strange ways. It’s more than just simple “Hah! Politics are stupid!” humor, but it doesn’t seem to correspond to anything else either. And, of course, it’s not even remotely funny. Maybe it’s supposed to be a commentary on the current U.S. presidential elections, but if it is, then it’s based on information coming from some parallel universe.

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Beetle Bailey, 9/21/04

Oh, man. First Camp Swampy gets all Queer Eyed, and now this. And I think that, despite the bad coloring job in the daily strip above, this is the same guy in both. Now, maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I think that it’s pretty clear that this soldier is gayer than a gay thing that is gay.

It would frankly be great if there were a gay character in a daily comic that isn’t Doonesbury. I’m just worried that Beetle Bailey isn’t the most sensitive venue for such an introduction. I mean, they haven’t been particularly nice in their depiction of computer nerds. Or, you know, Asians.