The Comics Curmudgeon

I see death by paper cuts in Tom’s future

Mary Worth, 5/23/13

Uh oh! Looks like our Worthian lovebirds, who were going to get around to telling Elinor about their hot sexing any day now, are about to find out that the coverup is always worse than the crime, now that Elinor has been clued in by Random Charterstone Nosey Old Lady #4. I am 100% in love with the shouty orthography in Marie’s word balloon in panel one, as she throws elder solidarity to the wind and assumes Elinor must be deaf, not betrayed.

Gil Thorp, 5/23/13

Oh, wow, I take back what I said about Gil Thorp not being nuts anymore, since Gil has apparently decided to convene a kangaroo court right here on the bleachers and impose Coach Law on his charges. Even if Jimmy’s dad loses everything in the lawsuit in the so-called courts of the so-called United States and Jimmy becomes poor and homeless, Coach doesn’t want to hear any jawing about it, because we already settled this in the gym, guys.

Family Circus, 5/23/13

Ha ha, for once I find Billy’s smug, sullen little slouch is perfect. “Hey, sis, they’re called shoes, you might want to look into ’em.”

FINE, Gil Thorp, I’ll briefly pay attention to you

Gil Thorp, 5/22/13

Guys, remember when Gil Thorp plots used to be bonkers crazy insane? Well, those days seem to be long past, which is why I have been studiously ignoring the spring plotline for months. Here it is, in a nutshell: baseball player Foley Knox is the son of a lawyer and an aspiring lawyer himself, and his lawyer dad is suing the gas station owner father of another player because some guy fell down while pumping gas there, and Foley is being a dick to the other kid about it, the end. The other kid and his dad are Chaldean Christians from Iraq, and it briefly looked like that was going to be a plot point somehow, but it was dropped in favor of a B plot involving Foley’s delusional romantic pursuit of Darby, the softball team’s star pitcher who has a toddler because she was previously teen pregnant, which was briefly controversial last spring. Anyway, today at last these plots collide when Foley decides to win the heart of his fair beloved by defeating her tortfeasor in judicial combat! This will also fail.

Wizard of Id, 5/22/13

So Wizard of Id, which is usually not funny on any level, actually made me laugh in two distinct ways today? WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? I appreciate the fact that the joke hinges on grammatical ambiguity — haha, you think “[a]re protesting” is a verb in the progressive aspect, but in fact “protesting” is a deverbal adjective modifying “drones”! But what really made me laugh was the sign that just says “NOT COOL”. It’s a sign that you can use at any protest and one that lets everyone know that, yeah, you’re politically engaged, but you’re also pretty chill.

Mark Trail, 5/22/13

Meanwhile, the AMAZING FOREST BEAR INFERNO is still going on in Mark Trail! I’m a little confused by the positions of everybody/thing in this comic, but, comparing the perspective in the two panels, if Cherry and Shelly are looking at the water and the tree is directly behind them, won’t they have to run sort of towards the bears in order to get to the tree? I mean, I get that they’re right on the shore and their options are limited. This is like the time my wife and I were in Stanley Park in Vancouver, and these raccoons emerged from the trees and wanted to go drink from the pond we were standing at the edge of, and they were heading right for us and didn’t seem scared of us at all, and we were in their way but there was no way for us to go that didn’t involve getting closer to them at least to start. Sure, they were raccoons, not bears, and nothing was on fire, but I don’t believe I ever pretended to be a brave man.

Heathcliff, 5/22/13

One of the things I didn’t expect when I recently worked Heathcliff into my comics rotation was the feature’s not infrequent expeditions into the inscrutable. I like this one, even if I don’t really understand it. Ha ha, Heathcliff is voyaging home via hot air balloon! It’s whimsical!

Pluggers, 5/22/13

Yes, I’m sure the automated recording that delivered this platitude really feels bad after this sick burn! Basically, pluggers have very little control over their own lives and will sullenly lash out at anybody about it, whether they can hear them lashing out or not.

Family Circus, 5/22/13

“Billy and Dolly and Daddy and PJ are in the basement, right, Mommy? With all the sand? And time’s up for them? They won’t bother us ever again? Oh, also, this hourglass ran out, I guess.”

Spider-Man, 5/22/13

Spider-Man’s high school science teacher always hoped he’d kill or terribly injure himself in a lab accident.

Mediterranean musings

Click the banner to contribute to the Comics Curmudgeon. Details here.

Update — Well, we ran out of JP and RMMD magnets mid-afternoon EDT on Tuesday, May 14. Thank you generous (and fast!) readers! Contributors at the $15 level will now receive a favorite Josh panel from the last few months, matted for framing and signed by Josh, or at their option a Margo bracelet. Thanks again!

Hey, it’s the Comics Curmudgeon Spring 2013 Fundraiser! It’s your hard-earned money — squander it here, and receive a one-of-a-kind Judge Parker or Rex Morgan, M.D. refrigerator magnet for contributions of $15 or more. Thank you!

Apartment 3-G, 5/14/13

“You don’t understand, Margo: I don’t want to be transported to the frontiers of ecstasy in the masterful hands of some handsome Italian Lothario — I want to have FUN. With my MOM.”

Meanwhile, Lu Ann sees herself in a mirror!

Momma, 5/14/13

Ah, but some daughters know what fun is, and a mother’s role in it. As Sonya speaks, Marylou Hobbs imagines herself tanned and radiant in half of her revealing new swimsuit, striding confidently toward her lover across the deck of his yacht lying at anchor in azure waters gleaming under a benevolent Mediterranean sun — her mother nowhere aboard, in mind, or accessible even in the deepest reaches of her memory.

Sonya’s bullying logic shocks her from her reverie, and she struggles to respond:

Heathcliff, 5/14/13

Heathcliff’s campaign to bend mice to his will is well documented, but only now does its purpose become clear. The mice are but pawns in his scheme to scare the neighborhood elephant into wreaking Heathcliff’s terrible vengeance upon the hated dogs. Who will be next? Are we humans safe? I don’t think we’re safe.

Gil Thorp, 5/14/13

Gil Thorp spices up its spring baseball story with a little constitutional law. You know, to make it interesting.

Wizard of Id, 5/14/13

Id spearchuckers have terrifying asses.

– Uncle Lumpy

There’s also the question of whether Marty is even in the same state as this baseball game

Gil Thorp, 4/4/13

So the Gil Thorp baseball season plot so far has been “Foley is annoying and also wants to be a lawyer like his dad,” which, booorrr-ing. But it’s always good to see Marty Moon back in the wooden packing crate that he huddles inside to call Milford games with his trademark thermos full of hooch. Did he have a laptop in there with him before? Does he have a laptop in there with him now? Is that “laptop” just one of those fake cardboard laptops they have to take up space on desks in furniture stores?

Judge Parker, 4/4/13

Haha, now we see why April didn’t want to invite Randy’s parents to their wedding: because the ceremony will take place behind the barbed wire surrounding the compound of her father’s apocalyptic death cult, deep in the Yucatan rain forest. And it won’t be so much a “wedding ceremony” as an “invocation to the Lords of the Dead, inviting them to drink the steaming blood of the mewling human sacrifice once known as ‘Randy.’”

Heathcliff, 4/4/13

Meanwhile, Heathcliff is single-handedly battling one of the tentacled Dread Elder Gods on behalf of those of us residing on this plane of existence, and, in unrelated news, some guy just wants pepperoni on his pizza.

Apartment 3-G, 4/4/13

“Yeah, it helps familiarize the public with businesses and nonprofits they might be interested in … ‘publicizes’ them, you might say. If only we knew someone who was up on that sort of thing!”

Wizard of Id, 4/4/13

Ha ha, yes, “The Hobbit,” that sure was a pop cultural phenomenon that saw a spike in interest several months ago! Anyway, not gonna lie to you guys, it took me a while to figure out that the Wiz was pointing at this dude’s feet.

An Army pension would at least explain why Lu Ann has no apparent real job

Apartment 3-G, 3/19/13

It seems cruel to leave Lu Ann just standing there crying a single noble tear and sobbing monosyllabically, but since some kindly off-panel person is about to console her, we can instead turn our attention to some exciting retro-continuity! Something you may not know: there was an Apartment 3-G storyline in the ’60s in which Lu Ann got married to Gary Powers, only to be quickly widowed when the young man was shot down over Vietnam. Gary came up a year and a half ago in the course of her engagement to Paul, at which point their marriage was put “seven years ago,” and now while it’s hard to read that tombstone’s death date he definitely appears to have died too young in the mid-’00s, presumably in one of our more recent wars. What’s the motivation for giving Lu Ann closure now? Would it be to help her finally find true love for real? Possibly with some nice older gentleman who haunts Arlington Cemetery, comforting war widows, in one of the creepiest meet-cutes in history?

Spider-Man, 3/19/13

It turns out Daredevil told Spider-Man to see Matt Murdoch just so that the two of them would learn each other’s secret identities! Is this how superheroes make friends? It seems a little forced.

Mark Trail, 3/19/13

It’s lucky for Rod Bassy and Catfish that there isn’t anyone within shouting distance, because that gag appears to just be kind of lightly resting on Rusty’s mouth and not actually preventing him in any way from talking. Since they’re planning on leaving him alone soon, I guess we’ll find out if they’re any better at tying knots!

Gil Thorp, 3/19/13

BASEBALL SEASON STORYLINE IS HERE EVERYBODY! It looks like as usual Gil Thorp will present a plot about high school athletics torn from the headlines: the dangers of kids playing non-contact sports suffering concussions when they slip on ice weeks before the season even starts.

Soapy Tuesday

Gil Thorp, 3/12/13

Oh, hey, Gil Thorp, remember that thing? What’s been up there? Well, let’s see … the miraculous basketball-improving peacock that Scott Fowler (OMG “FOWL”ER I LITERALLY JUST GOT THIS) thought was his reincarnated little brother was just some dude’s peacock that kept getting out of its pen. Gil, after making fun of Scott for his idiocy, decided to harness the idiocy of everyone else on the team by having them go hang out with the peacock and collectively gain its completely fake magic powers. This got them into the playdowns, apparently! Too bad they’re going up against Hamilton, a team that has its own lucky creature deal going on. Do you think this pig contains the spirit of their point guard’s dead dad or something? Whatever, it will surely be enough to ensure that Milford is ignominiously defeated in the first round.

Judge Parker, 3/12/13

Call it Stockholm Syndrome, but I will never tire of Judge Parker strips where beautiful people talk about money while petting pretty pretty horses. Did you even know how lucrative maritime law is, peasant? Of course not! You’re probably unfamiliar with even the basics of yachting lore!

Mark Trail, 3/12/13

“Bass boats … fishermen … the usual stuff … docks … bait shops … vans … fish guts left lying out on docks … wow, this kid sure is lonely and sad and obsessed with fishing, am I right? Maybe it’s for the best that a great fisherman like Rod Bassy has kidnapped him.”