Get Fuzzy: There'll be more Smurfs on you than Ugg boots at a Bieber concert.

I know that picking Get Fuzzy as the best comic of the day every day is kind of lame. But this story is just so good. And that line is amazing.

9 Chickweed Lane: What was I saying?

When Brooke McEldowney isn't fucking around with Nazi love triangles, he's often writing some of the best dialog in the comics section. Today's strip is a good example of that. There' nothing much happening. It's just two people talking. But the conversation is just so well done. It's a very natural sounding joke.

So, in short: fewer Nazi love triangles, more stories about two people talking.

La Cucaracha: Less Latinas on TV with "reeely theeek fony axsents."

Rare is the day that I praise La Cucaracha, but the excellent aping of exaggerated dialect here made me laugh.

Though he doesn't come right out and say so, Lalo Alcaraz seems to be talking specifically about Modern Family here. Modern Family's depiction of race has always been somewhat problematic--its stories often condemn stereotyping, but only after they've used stereotypes for laughs--so it's interesting to see a Latino cartoonist take issue with it.

Beetle Bailey: Maybe you don't know what sexual harassment IS, sir.

Lately, Beetle Bailey has been running through a set of old cartoons in celebration of either its 60th anniversary or getting picked for a stamp. I'm not quite sure which. But regardless of why it's happening, I always appreciate seeing older incarnations of a comic strip and observing how it has changed over the years.

This particular comic is from 1986, which is around the time that Mort Walker Inc. started taking complaints that its strip was a bit on the sexist side seriously. The strip dramatizes the transition nicely by coupling didactic, feminist dialog with amazing, gravity-defying tits.

Luann: Good.

This comic consists entirely of a couple of characters sitting around talking. And it's really good. The punchline doesn't even have the rhythm of a punchline. It just sounds like a thing TJ would say.

It would probably be creepy to start shipping these two (though Luann has never shied away from shocking inappropriateness before), but I'd absolutely support an overhaul of the comic in which all the other characters are jettisoned, while TJ and Shannon move to Las Vegas together and try to make it on their own in the big city.

Beetle Bailey: Aren't the stars beautiful tonight?

I don't think I've ever seen Beetle Bailey go in for such joke-free sentimentality before. We get this sort of thing in sister comic Hi and Lois from time to time, so maybe Mort Walker Inc. just made a mistake and this strip was supposed to feature Trixie and Dawg. In any event, I'm oddly fond of it, even if the artwork can't really match the sentiment.

Candorville: Didn't you go to Tonga, Clyde?

I know I harp on this a lot, but if you want to write a comic strip with political content, you should under no circumstances allow your political interests to overshadow your focus on your characters. Candorville, like Doonesbury, is a good comic not because of its political slant, but because its characters are recognizable and specific and funny and human.

A humorous tonal shift from time to time doesn't hurt, either.

Blondie: I sure appreciate this little favor, Herb.

A few notes on this Sunday edition of Blondie:

1. Why does Herb always have to pee? Doesn't he watch Wheel of Fortune?* Hasn't he seen all those Flomax ads?
2. What naturalistic exposition!**
3. Why does Dagwood keep asking Herb to do him favors? Why does Dagwood even consider Herb a friend? Herb is a terrible person.
4. Ha! Men! They can't ever remember things that are important to their loved ones!
   

*This is Blondie. Of course he watches Wheel of Fortune.

**Not really!

9 Chickweed Lane: What did you say to him?

And the soul-sucking continues.

Agnes: She said if I didn't help her win the lawsuit, we would never have fine things like almost-new Toyotas or Jack LaLanne Juicers.

Jack LaLanne Power Juicers are never not funny.

I also appreciate the clever middle panel dialog and the existence of poor characters who are not grotesque stereotypes.

Cul de Sac: I don't see what's wrong with being grabby.

This comic is a perfect example of why Cul de Sac is so great.

The first panel highlights the specificity of the characterization. Grabbiness is, of course, a problem lots of children have. But it's something that Alice, specifically, would have a problem with.

The second panel highlights the expressiveness of the drawing. Look at those eyes. Look at that hair. Look at the tiny little mouth. Look at the little lines around the rabbit. It's completely clear what's happening, and it's completely clear what's about to happen.

And the third panel highlights the smartness of the dialog. It would have been easy, and still funny, to just see Alice screaming. Instead, we get an even funnier description of that scream. "An inhuman cry of anger, betrayal, horror and thwarted grabbiness" is just great, great writing.

Get Fuzzy: Each color is represented by an iconic fruit, thus providing both coloric and iconic representation.

This Get Fuzzy has excellent comic timing, and "Did you just eat the threat banana?" is just a funny line.

Mark Trail: I caught the guy taking pictures inside the cooler ... he ran into the woods behind the lake!

The fat lady with the tiny head has an odd definition of "caught." Then again, when you're dealing with MFT,* a word like that really does become relative.

*Mark Fucking Trail

9 Chickweed Lane: I just beat the shit out of Colonel Horrocks.

I still have a ton of problems with this interminable 9 Chickweed Lane story, but I'm always a fan of hiding objectionable words behind chairs. In general, I just like the idea that word bubbles are part of the material world of the comics section.

Mark Trail: We have a portage up ahead. Then we will stop by and visit with our friend Ben Harris...

"Our friend Ben Harris really is a swell fellow! You have not forgotten that our friend Ben Harris is our friend, have you Ranger Buzz? (You are also my friend, Ranger Buzz!)"

The Phantom: And we WON'T let her down! We'll KEEP ON fighting EVIL!

"And SHAGGING hot ship CAPTAINS! And ABANDONING our CHILDREN! And using EXCLAMATION POINTS inappropriately!"

Mark Trail: It's going to be a tough decision, Mark, about what to do!

This comic is hilarious because someone actually gets paid to write dialog like this.

In other news, I've found this storyline to be thus far completely incomprehensible. Apparently, I would have felt the same way in 1979.*

*Via friend of the blog Bill Peschel.

Get Fuzzy: You realize you're tiny, right?

Every single character in Get Fuzzy talks differently than every other character in Get Fuzzy. Likewise, every relationship between any two characters is different than every other relationship. As today's comic shows, this goes for the bit characters too.

Mark Trail: I forgot to tell you, Mark, an old friend of yours, Tim Moore, wanted you to call him!

Mark is apparently so stupid that he doesn't know who his old friends are unless Cherry explicitly reminds him.

This is not surprising, given Mark's less than stellar people skills.

Cul de Sac: Welcome, Blisshaven Parents! Please enjoy our Winter Pageant!

I write a lot more about bad comic strips than I do about good comic strips, mostly because it's easier to snark than to analyze. I'd like to change that a little bit, so I'm introducing a new feature: The Best Comic of the Day. It's pretty self-explanatory. Most of the time I'll add commentary, but sometimes I might not.

This Cul de Sac is the first entry in the feature. And it's not just the Best Comic of the Day, but one of the best comics I've seen in a long time. It's nothing we haven't seen before--a school play, proud parents, kids forgetting their lines--but it's done really, really well. The comic doesn't have a traditional punchline, but every panel is funny in its own way. The drawing in the second and third panels perfectly capture the emotions of a child standing up before what seems to him to be a large audience. The writing perfectly captures the rhythms of a child delivering his lines--"It is always winter time, wherever I may. Go!" And the final panel even gives us very specific character-based humor, with the differing reactions from Beni's parents.