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Gil Thorp, 3/18/08

OK, ever since the Gil Thorp artist change, I’ve been able to accept that the vaguely flat-topped Robert Mitchum lookalike in the COACH sweatshirt is supposed to be Gil. But you will never, never convince me that the skinny, brush-cut dude in the COACH sweatshirt in panel two is Assistant Coach Kaz. Never, you hear me? Where’s the classic Heat Miser ‘do? The pearl earrings? The hairy forearms and brutish fists? This is a travesty beyond imagining.

Oh, also, Andrew and his little siblings are about to be put into foster care because “the man” says that it’s not OK for children to raise themselves. Presumably the Gil and Kaz stand-ins will cook up some web of lies that will prevent the sinister social services fascists from caring for the kids’ well-being; perhaps it will involve convincing them that Andrew’s “teenage” friends in panel three are actually his 35-year-old aunts, which from the looks of it shouldn’t be hard.

Apartment 3-G, 3/18/08

Margo is no doubt backstage chewing her single glove in rage and frustration as Lu Ann wastes her coveted Girl Talk slot by blathering on all moon-eyed about how swell her talentless junkie boyfriend is. Still, it’s really Margo’s own fault for trusting her air-headed roommate to go on TV without careful coaching. And for using Lu Ann’s embarrassing carbon monoxide poisoning as the selling point for her bland art in the first place. When things go spectacularly wrong, it’s usually a safe bet to blame it on Margo’s desperate scheming, is what I’m trying to say.

Mary Worth, 3/18/08

“For the moment, the mutant super-breath power we shared was a secret between the two of us. But we knew that someday, it would be the instrument of our revenge against a world that had been cruel to us for too long.”

Pluggers, 3/18/08

Pluggers are subject from birth to relentless propaganda and conditioning, so that by the time they’re eight, they suffer from crippling nostalgia for a world they never knew.

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Ah, relaxing on a Monday night … done with work … maybe I’ll surf the Internet a bit … read the comics — wait, comics? Aw, crap, I knew there was something I was forgetting!

Yeah, uh, let’s do some quick Sunday strips to catch up!

Marvin, 3/16/08

Just when I think Marvin can’t get any more delightfully charming, we’re treated to the spectacle of Marvin’s parents engaging in witty banter as their child stews in a mess of his own creation. I just hope that when time has ravaged my lower GI and urinary systems, I’m capable of making droll witticisms while I wait for my caregivers to clean off the filth.

Doodles by Mac and Sack, 3/16/08

I’m sure little comics-reading children across America enjoyed this week’s Doodles, which featured an adorable little koala unable to sleep because he’s forced to sleep inside the mouth of a monstrous insect-beast, presumably to satisfy his creator’s sadistic sense of whimsy.

Plus, a couple of charming panels:

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 3/16/08

Margo dropping the star-bomb isn’t really news, but Margo cussing because she can’t find her other glove is definitely amusing, and Margo using her gloved hand to point to her non-gloved hand so as to demonstrate the missingness of the other glove makes me positively giddy.

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/16/08

Oh, June, are you sure this is a conversation that you really want to have?

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Apartment 3-G, 3/15/08

Joe strikes me as the sort who was raised in a more genteel and conservative age, and so I assume that he’s referring to Lu Ann, with “friend” standing in as a euphemism for “that woman you have sex with and yet refuse to marry as the laws of man and God demand.” Sure, it seems weird that Joe would have The View Girl Talk showing on his cafe’s TV at whatever hour Alan is rolling in after a rough night of heroin and whoring, but at least we’ve been warned about her promised appearance in advance. Still, I really hope that, when Alan looks up at the TV, he’ll see the smiling face of the only other person in the strip whom he might consider a friend: Jones the beatnik! Maybe there’s a news story about how he was gunned down by the NYPD in a drug bust gone bad; or, better, maybe he’s the star of a new reality dating show where girls will compete to trade their sweet bodies for his dubious charms.

Mark Trail, 3/15/08

Yay, petnappers! Man, Mark Trail hasn’t seen a good petnapping plot since the delightfully gothic backwoods animal-thievin’ tale that we were privileged to read back in the winter of ’05-’06. These animal-ransoming ne’er-do-wells seem like hardscrabble urban working class types rather than yokels per se, and are significantly less grotesque than the last bunch. Do they plan to steal Woods and Wildlife’s prize puppy before the sick little contest winner can lay her feeble hands on it? Or is this pathetic young dog-lover an entirely fictional construct, cooked up by these thugs to lay their hands on one more innocent little creature that they can sell? And, perhaps the most important question of all: Will some noble soul urge them at some point to “please [not] steal any more pets”?

Momma, 3/15/08

The first two panels of today’s Momma do such a good job of recapitulating the origins of the current housing credit meltdown that it seems petty to point out that “You know what darling? You’re pathetic” doesn’t actually constitute a punchline as such, and that the attempt to draw Momma saying this through gritted teeth has only succeeded in transforming her face into a melting, Dali-esque horror.

Crankshaft, 3/15/08

In Crankshaft, the younger characters have finally decided to kill off the elderly hate-demons who dominate and suck all the joy out of their lives.

Slylock Fox, 3/15/08

And in Slylock Fox, the monkeys have finally decided to rise up against us, as deep down we all knew they someday would.