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Apartment 3-G, 6/20/11

“I just rented the car” may be Margo’s best ever scheme for distancing herself from a nice gesture offered to one of her so-called friends. “Look, Lu Ann, Tommie’s the one who remembered that today was your birthday, remembered that you still lived with us, and realized you were dumb enough to want to go to the ‘psychic center of the state,’ whatever the hell that means. At first I thought it was the ‘psychotic center of the state’ and I was afraid this was some conspiracy to get me to visit my crazy stepmother in the loony bin, but I’ve been assured that this is some new age mumbo jumbo that won’t result in me being shot at, or hugged. Anyway, long story short, turns out Tommie doesn’t have a driver’s license — every time the DMV guy running the test starts asking questions, she bursts into tears — and you can’t take a cab or a subway to this shithole, so I got guilted into driving. I’ll be waiting out here thinking about something else while you commune with the spirits in there or whatever. And no hugging!”

Archie, 6/20/11

More proof that these Archies are reruns: a modern-day strip would probably feel a need to spin this into some kind of joke about writing things on Facebook walls that would only prove that nobody involved in creating the strip has ever actually used Facebook; but back in simpler times, we were instead just treated to Archie wrapping his pillow around the Veronica-signed yearbook, the better to use it as a masturbatory aid. Also of note are the industrial strength brackets on Jughead’s suspenders, which demonstrate how difficult it is the hold up the pants of someone who has absolutely no hips to speak of.

Mary Worth, 6/20/11

Mary looks like a contemplative lowland gorilla in panel two, and no wonder: she’s confronting a situation that gives rise to contradictory meddling impulses. On the one hand, she’s already been tasked with the job of meddling Liza out of Drew’s life (and, with any luck, out of town altogether); on the other, when confronted with a hysterically weeping woman in a bathroom stall, her urge is to help solve that woman’s problem, which is why she spends so much time hanging around public restrooms in the first place. Will her desire to fix everyone’s life override her goal of making things right for her not-boyfriends layabout son?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/20/11

Elviney is of course Hootin’ Holler’s most unrepentant gossip, but laughing in poor deluded Hassie’s face seems a little cruel even for her.

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Spider-Man, 6/18/11

Ah, yes, a character who is despised and rejected despite his super-powers shakes his fist and declares with a twisted visage that someday his tormentors will show some respect! It’s pretty much the origin story of every comic-book supervillain ever created. Are the Spider-Man newspaper comic strip people even vaguely aware of the conventions of their own genre?

Apartment 3-G, 6/18/11

Tommie’s touching reunion with her estranged (?) mother has taken place entirely off-panel, between yesterday and today’s strips. Normally I’d complain about this, but really, it’s a blessing. The only thing that could possibly be duller than a strip about Tommie is strip about Tommie and her boring mother.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/18/11

A sexy, sassy, midriff-baring goth teenager … her sexy, pissy, shoulder-baring mom … the two of them appear to be roughly the same age … looks like Rex Morgan, M.D., is on a collision course for sexy wackiness!

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Panel from Archie, 6/16/11

I’m terrible for not bringing this news to you earlier, but Henry Scarpelli, who for a long time was the artist of the Archie comic strip, died a couple of months ago. (UPDATE: Uh, as many people have pointed out, that article is from April of 2010 — so I have no idea why the art only changed a few months ago. Maybe he had drawn comics months in advance? Som artists do!) I will always have a warm spot in my heart for him because it was he (I assume) who inserted the occasional Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000 gag into the strip, possibly without the writer really knowing what was going on.

Since his passing, the syndicate apparently came to the conclusion that, what with the huge backlog of timeless Archie yuks available there’s no real reason to pay anyone to create new ones, and has, I believe, been running older strips from the ’90s, which explains why they’ve been even less in touch with today’s youth than usual. (Please correct me if I’m wrong on this point!) Anyway, the older version of the strip was not created by a cybernetic intelligence, but an all too human individual who, if this panel is any indication, spends his days in an isolated cabin, preparing for the day when he will lead the righteous cleansing of our degenerate nation.

Luann, 6/16/11

Yeah, Toni’s brother sure is flake and a jerk! He’s not a fine, upstanding, responsible person like Brad and Toni are. You can tell they’re upstanding and responsible because they do upstanding and responsible things, like trash Toni’s brother constantly, right in front of his daughter.

Apartment 3-G, 6/16/11

Aw, isn’t this nice, Tommie’s mom has come to visit! Too bad Tommie didn’t get some advanced notice; it’s little embarrassing to have her arrive at 3 p.m. and find her daughter and her roommate lying around in an opium haze.