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Apartment 3-G, 2/4/08

For the uninitiated, panels two and three are a good introduction to our gal Magee, revealing her to be a lovely and charming combination of Hermann Göring and P.T. Barnum. I wasn’t even aware that Lu Ann had shared her deranged oxygen-deprived series of hallucinations (or were they hallucinations? DUN DUN DUNNNHHHH) with her roommates, but assuming she did, it’s not at all surprising that Margo would chose to use that knowledge to publicly humiliate her for financial gain. The great thing about exploiting Lu Ann is that she was already kind of dumb even before the carbon monoxide poisoning played hell with her memory, so Margo can just claim that she’d already signed off on this publicity campaign months ago and she’ll probably buy it.

For Better Or For Worse, 2/4/08

THE FACE, MEREDITH, GO FOR THE FACE! I love how quickly Mike has given up hope of stopping his progeny from battling it out with razor-sharp kitchen utensils; now he seeks merely to level the playing field. I’ll give this to him, though: just one afternoon where one of his kids blinds the other one and he’ll never be left in charge of them by himself again.

Marmaduke, 2/4/08

I have to admit that I had always assumed that, when Marmaduke finally mastered the English language, he’d be a lot more threatening in his use of it. For instance, I’d have imagined that what he’d have written in the snow here would have been more along the lines of “YOU HAVE TO COME OUT SOMETIME AND WHEN YOU DO YOU’RE MINE.”

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Archie, 2/1/08

Uh-oh, looks like the Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000 has found a way to connect its cybernetic consciousness to broadcast TV! How else can we explain the grotesquely overwrought mugging for the “camera” in panels one and three? The AJGLU 3000 must think we organic consciousnesses live our lives out in some sort of awful state of constant performance, always exaggerating our reactions to everyday events to amuse an unseen chorus of canned laughter that chortles at our hoary jokes and slow burns. No wonder it holds us in such obvious contempt.

Dennis the Menace, 2/1/08

I know that it makes me both a crude and a bad person, but I find something distinctly but nonspecifically dirty (in the “dirty joke” sense) about today’s Dennis the Menace caption. Joey appears to be trying to wrap his tiny little brain about just what exactly it might mean.

Apartment 3-G, 2/1/08

Hey, Alan, that’s just the sort of thing that some of us are into, OK?

Speaking of things that some of us are into, Blaze has been looking resplendent in his dusty rose/baby blue westernwear combination for the past few days. It’s as if the artist sent a note to the coloring crew saying, “I know we already named him ‘Blaze’ and have him walking around New York dressed as a cowboy for no good reason, but could you make it a little more … obvious?”

Mary Worth, 2/1/08

This is one of the most vile, disgusting, and repugnant things I’ve ever seen in all my years of reading Mary Worth. Honestly, the nerve of these people, putting this in the newspaper where children can see it. Don’t they know that Ryan is Vera’s boss, thus making their relationship intradepartmental dating, not interdepartmental dating? I mean, good gracious!

The implication that days at the Affect Advertising Agency are little more than nonstop orgies, on the other hand, is all good fun. We really should have expected it, anyway, what with Vera’s first day consisting mostly of grab-ass.

Spider-Man, 2/1/08

So, Spider-Man is using an jailed criminal associate of Simon Krandis as bait to attract the Persuader’s attention, making appear as if he (the criminal associate) was being shuttled to the governor for a pardon. Naturally, the Persuader pulled a sixteen-wheeler in front of the van in which said prisoner was being transported and then sucked the van into the trailer using powerful magnets. And now Spidey claims that this is “just what [he] expected.” Uh huh.

I don’t mean to doubt the word of superheroes or anything, but nothing I’ve seen out of Peter Parker has indicated particular cunning or intelligence. This is a guy who forgets that he has his costume on under his clothes when he goes to the doctor, who forgets that his costume is in his luggage when traveling through airport security, and who thinks that his wife making lots of money as a movie star is a bad thing. Thus, I’m going to guess that he did not in fact predict the magnetized kidnapping of this van, which is quite honestly the most surprising thing to happen in this strip in the past year and a half. His bizarre stab at punnery in panel two — “Let the good times roll! … just like, um, we were, rolled into this truck? Get it?” — is a mask for his total state of flabbergasted surprise. Those wavy lines aren’t his raging spider-sense; they’re ordinary human panic.

Mark Trail, 2/1/08

Speaking of stupid people, Mark sure watched that plane (whose passengers just shot at him mere moments ago, let me remind you) get all North By Northwesty for quite a while before deciding to jump for it. Andy looks to be a bit farther out of the capsizing canoe than Mark; I’d like to believe that he leapt out before his master’s beyond obvious command, and will now run for the forest without a care for how his dim bulb owner made out.

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Marvin, 1/27/08

Non-redheaded persons who read this, heed my words! We redheaded folk may, as my hairdresser cheerfully informed me when I went to get a haircut last week, be going extinct, but like the mighty but doomed polar bear, we demand a certain degree of respect on the way out! For instance, in the matter of metaphorical color terms used to describe us, we are fine with the classic “redhead” or simply “red”; also acceptable are “ginger,” “rusty,” “strawberry blond” (for certain hues), and, if you’re feeling risque, “firecrotch.” “Raspberry” strikes me as a little off, and … tomato? Tomato? Please. Let’s never speak of this incident again.

Despite the totally radical and extreme dream-based snowboarding going on in most of this comic, due to its weird background the final panel is the only one in which it actually appears to be snowing. This implies that at some point in the middle of winter, Marvin’s parents put him and his bed outside while he was sleeping, a move that I very much approve of. Perhaps they chose to expose their child to the elements after one too many mornings waking up to the horrifying vision in the throwaway panel in the top row.

Mary Worth, 1/27/08

And Vera’s reign as the most normal person in the Drew-Dawn-Vera love triangle comes to an end … now. The weird generic blandness in the art here makes it unclear whether the clean-cut blondie in the final panel is supposed to be her brother Von or some new paramour, but either possibility is a weird enough choice for a get-together-with-an-old-flame meeting as to totally justify Dr. Drew’s epic head swivel in the final panel.

Turning to something with more personality than any of the humans in this scenario, let’s take a look at the sign being partially blocked by Drew’s brylcreemed noggin. I’m specifically intrigued by the top placard, which has a picture of some sort of white, foamy topping illustrating the exhortation to “ADD S[redacted]”. Since there’s enough room on the sign for one or two more letters, tops, and none of the synonyms for whipped cream that I can think of start with “S”, I’m kind of at a loss as to what it could be trying to tell us. My best guess: “ADD SIN”. Because whipped cream is sinfully delicious, you see!

Apartment 3-G, 1/27/08

“God damn it, this is an autumn shade, and I know I’m a spring! How many times do I have to tell myself — I should never go to the cosmetics counter when I’m drunk or high!”

The final panel of this strip walks a delicate line, giving Alan fans the beefcake they crave while sparing the rest of us the traumatic sight of Alan nipples.