Hi and Lois, 4/5/12
Here is a comic about a dad getting snot all over a ball he’s about to throw back to his son.
Funky Winkerbean, 4/5/12
Here is a comic about sad, desperate alcoholism.
Luann, 4/5/12
Here is a comic about Brad and Toni making out.
B.C., 4/5/12
Here is a comic about a turtle vomiting.
Beetle Bailey, 3/21/12
Amos Halftrack, aspirational onanist.
Judge Parker, 3/21/12
Nuzzling, not muzzling!
Blondie, 3/21/12
Dagwood Bumstead, Siri’s bitch.
Cuss Skunk, urban hero.
Mark Trail, 3/21/12
Stink Jacket saves the day.
— Uncle Lumpy
Luann, 3/16/12
Well, give Luann credit for this: the possibility that a character might be gay is brought up in the non-condemning context of trying to figure out why he doesn’t connect romantically with girls. But that goodwill is pretty much negated by implying that being the only son of a single mother is a root cause of gayness, and whatever positive sentiments are left are mercilessly stamped out by Gunther cringing in terror as he describes a certain part of him that knows he wants to make sex to females. (SPOILER: It’s his penis. His horrifying penis.) The upside is that, by the time I got to Gunther going on about how he’s sure Rosa’s done it with lots of dudes, I couldn’t really feel much of anything any more.
Family Circus, 3/16/12
I like the skeptical look Ma Keane is giving Billy from the background. “Wait, that’s not even a pun! Sorry, kid, the adorable malapropism bar is set pretty high around here. You’re going to have to do better than that.”
Mark Trail, 2/4/12
Oh my God, can we please spend some time dwelling on the insanity that lurks in the few words bandied about by our cheerful bank robbers, and the abrupt transitions between them?
“Relax, Jamie, we dumped the car we stole…”
[Remember when we got into that car we never saw before, Jamie, and then I made it go without a key? That’s called “stealing.” Kind of like we did with the money! And then we just left on the side of the road, which I like to call “dumping.” Doesn’t that sound more exciting than just “leaving”? More daring?]
“…all we have to do now is hike a few miles to our hideout!”
[That’s why we brought these absolutely enormous backpacks on our crime spree. For the hiking!]
“This is bird hunting country … no one will be looking for us in these woods … We’ll be safe as long as we stay out of sight!”
[They’ll be all, “They dumped their car right near the edge of those woods, but why would they go in there? That’s bird hunting country! Bank robbers wouldn’t go and hunt birds, that’d just be silly.”]
“I hope you’re right, Jeff … I told my wife we were going on a fishing trip!”
[If she finds out that we were in bird hunting country the whole cover story will be blown to pieces! Why wasn’t I kept in the loop about the kind of recreational animal-killing landscape we’d be fleeing through?]
Luann, 2/4/12
When I read this strip, I said to my wife, “Oh, that wacky Knute!” But then I had to clarify that I wasn’t talking about Newt Gingrich. Which brings up an important question: Is the K in Knute silent, as I’ve always assumed? Discuss, as said discussion will certainly be infinitely more rewarding than actually talking about this comic.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/31/12
Nobody should be at all surprised that virulent anti-intellectualism makes good grades a romantic liability in Hootin’ Holler. However, I think we should take note of the variant of the common rhyme in panel two. Usually you hear “Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses,” but this isn’t the local version of the saying — and with good reason! Having long been isolated from flatlander optometry, Hootin’ Holler residents must make do with the few pairs of eyeglasses that have managed to come into the community via extended trading networks. Girls who wear glasses, far from being considered undesirable as mates, are viewed in awe for their ability to see at a distance or at night, and in some circumstances even read.
Apartment 3-G, 1/31/12
Well, being a nurse midwife is really more of a specialization you decide on when you’re getting your graduate degree in nursing, rather than just a course you take online from the University of Phoenix or whatever, but, uh, sure, Tommie, why don’t you go to it? “Are you serious? I’m going to get to pull people out of ladies’ hoo-hoos? Oh boy!”
Mark Trail, 1/31/12
“Yes, Mark, I too was on the verge of a violent life of crime! I’ve got a gun and everything. So your friend better come through with this TV movie deal or else I’ll probably have to kidnap you and hold you for ransom, ha ha! No, but seriously, get down in the crawlspace.”
Luann, 1/31/12
So, the past week in Luann has been dominated by an eternal teenage conflict: Gunther likes Rosa and Rosa likes Gunther and, uh, what now? Today we learn the answer. No couple in Luann can come together until a man defeats a romantic rival in passive-aggressive combat.
Mary Worth, 1/19/12
“They seem like good people! I think she’ll be all right! But of course you can never be too careful. I suppose that horrible kidnapper seemed like a good person, at first! My only choice is to monitor the situation to make sure that her parents aren’t kidnappers too. I might have to rescue Emily from them! Then I’ll be a hero twice!”
Luann, 1/19/12
OK, I take it back, this might be interesting after all. Haha, TJ, always the hilarious trickster! Remember, the best pranks are the ones where you leave a paper trail behind you that can lead to your arrest and imprisonment.
Pluggers, 1/18/12
Today I said to my wife the words that any woman longs to hear: “Honey, can you come in here and explain Pluggers to me?” Her take was that pluggers don’t know what an “app” is and assume that it’s derived directly from the word “apply,” and that therefore “applying” whipped topping (yes, obviously “topping,” not elitist whipped cream, what are you, some kind of fancy ooh-la-la gourmet French person) to a pie is an “app.” This makes at least as much sense than my own interpretation, which was “A plugger’s favorite app is eatin’ pie, or maybe just spraying wipped topping straight down their beak-mouths.” Which doesn’t really mean much of anything, but seriously, look at this panel, what the hell.
Gil Thorp, 1/18/12
Boy, Coach Kaz is all dressed up and being nice to everybody, which probably means that a break-up is in the offing. “Welp, good game, kids, but I’m leaving forever to take up my new job as an FBI agent in 1964.”
Luann, 1/18/12
Hey, remember, like, a month ago, when having TJ work for Ann Eiffel seemed like it would be an awesome idea? Well, we changed our mind, so that won’t be happening anymore. Don’t worry, we’ve long established that TJ has no need for a job for his income, so there are absolutely no consequences involved in today’s actions, which is an important element of drama.
B.C., 1/18/12
I’m always vaguely amused that B.C.’s ants are used as the players in various generic domestic melodramas. But they’re still ants! Ants who could be devoured by a predator at any time! I’m not sure if the surviving ant spouse means that the departing ant was appreciated for its nutritive qualities, or that it will at last find unconditional love in the chitinous bosom of some kind of ant-God in ant-heaven, but either way it’s all pretty grim.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/18/12
For a long time Rex has been losing badly to Sam Driver in the competition to see which smug, sexually repressed dick in a Woody Wilson-penned soap strip can have become more financially comfortable due to no real work or merit on his part. But maybe today is the day when the tide begins to turn!
Dick Tracy, 1/17/12
Hey, everybody, the Dick Tracy gang is on the case, going undercover in a hip (?) nightclub to track down an actual gang, of the drug-smuggling variety, who something something son of old friend of Dick yadda yadda guy named Cueball blah blah cocaine hidden in instrument cases. (Hint to the cops: There are two Cueballs, or Cueball has a twin, or something!) Anyhoo, I mainly want to bring your attention to the little explanatory label in the first panel. Normally these kinds of boxes-with-arrows in Dick Tracy are used to identify bits of improbable high-tech crime-fighting gear, but today’s example mostly seems to be all about assuring us that our law enforcement officers aren’t having even the slightest bit of fun on their mission, so please let’s not have Internal Affairs auditing our expenses, please.
Luann, 1/17/12
Oh snap Ann Eiffel just outed TJ! Or maybe she just intended to insult him in a somewhat homophobic and mildly actionable manner? Either way, even though we’re only like two days into it, I think Ann vs. TJ is going to be less fun than I’d hoped, like everything else that ever happened in Luann ever.
Luann, 12/5/11
Wasn’t there some zany plot a few years back where various De Groot family members and hangers-on wanted to know what TJ did for a living, but never could figure it out, largely because for mysterious reasons they refused to just ask him? I feel a sense of pride in the fact that I can’t actually remember how this worked out, and I refuse to look it up, but I’m definitely intrigued by his decision to charm his way into Anne Eiffel’s employ here, by describing how he caused a competing fast food restaurant to unwittingly violate child labor laws. Presumably he’s planning to bring Weenie World down from the inside, but all of TJ’s schemes inevitably backfire horribly, so perhaps he’ll accidentally triple hot dog sales and help Anne get promoted to CEO? Whatever the potential outcome, let’s all enjoy panel two, which illustrates the fact that TJ, who means well but is always plotting something, is forever perched on the seam between light and darkness.
Gil Thorp, 12/5/11
If I didn’t know any better I’d think that Brody Abro had his Asperger’s so thoroughly cured that he grew a little chin-tuft and let some soul-patched tattoo artist hover beefily over him. But I do know better, so probably the beard is supposed to indicate that this is shaggy-haired blond fellow with a face almost exactly like Brody’s is not actually Brody, but rather some new Mudlark with a silly name who we’re supposed to get attached to over the course of basketball season.
So, yeah, it’s an exciting new storyline! Involving tattoos! Just a tip: it’s not really that reassuring when you feel compelled to explicitly tell your customers that you follow the basic rules of hygiene for your profession. It’s like a waitress putting your food in front of you and saying, unprompted, “Don’t worry, the kitchen staff have all washed their hands today, and none of them have any open sores.” Maybe this attitude was OK in your prison tattoo business, Mr. Soul Patch, but you’ve rented a venerable Milford storefront now! Time to kick your professionalism up a notch.
Mary Worth, 12/5/11
Looks like Mary is going to be haunted by this missing child poster forever! Eventually her grinning face will be all Mary sees, every day. What could be the cause of this descent into madness? I’m hoping that Mary’s the real kidnapper, and that the haunting poster always floating at the corner of her vision is her version of the tell-tale heart.
Apartment 3-G, 12/5/11
“I’ve been there! By which I mean I totally made out with your dead husband. Back when he was alive, obviously! Did I forget to tell you this?”
Apartment 3-G, 12/1/11
OMG you guys, it’s retro-fitted continuity in Apartment 3-G! A3G trufans know that way back in the mists of time (i.e., the ’60s) Lu Ann was married to fighter pilot Gary Powers, whose plane was shot down over Vietnam. I look forward to seeing how exactly this all is going to be wedged into the present-day action (for certain limited definitions of “present-day” and “action”) in the strip. Here are some fun facts if you want to feel old and/or bummed about how long America’s current various wars have been happening: if the strip is going to stick with the Lu-Ann-is-a-tragic-war-widow idea, it’s possible to keep this seven-year time frame and still have Gary killed in Iraq or Afghanistan! Hell, I was blogging about this damn strip seven years ago. Oh, God, I’ve wasted my life! (Ha ha, just kidding, time spent obsessing over the minutia of Apartment 3-G has earned me the love of millions and is time well spent, or SO I KEEP TELLING MYSELF.)
Luann, 12/1/11
So yesterday Brad got his job back because a firefighter named “Sanchez” moved to “Spain,” which didn’t seem worthy of comment, but I do feel compelled to make note of his unseemly joy. Although I generally recoil in disgust when Brad and Toni are physically affectionate, it’s just as well Toni smooches Brad into silence when she does, as there’s nothing he could follow up “when” with that wouldn’t be embarrassing. “See, I told you that I’d get my job back through deus ex machina, based on absolutely no effort of my own, if only I waited long enough! Good things happen when you think magically!”