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Beetle Bailey, 1/10/13

Every long-running comic strip that isn’t Gasoline Alley, Doonesbury, or pre-time-freeze For Better or For Worse has a problem: its characters remain the same age, more or less, but it tries to keep cultural references current, which means that everyone’s personal chronology is unmoored from the universal progression of time. What is their strange existence like? Today’s Beetle Bailey provides a horrifying insight. Everything that’s ever happened to the damned inhabitants of Camp Swampy over the last 50 years of our time — every terrible pun, every downed shot, every golf game, every act of egregious sexual harassment, every long march, every horrible meal, every vicious beating — has taken place over the course of a single, eternally long day. Time cannot heal the physical and psychic wounds its characters suffer, because time simply does not pass for them. This strip is more harrowing than I ever imagined.

Luann, 1/10/13

We interrupt my longrunning and deliberate policy of ignoring Luann to bring you today’s incredibly disappointing Luann. Yeah, TJ and Anne Eiffel made out, for, like, a second, before TJ stormed off in a high dudgeon, proving that TJ was never as hilarious and unmoored as he seemed. He was apparently just dicking around at Weenie World, recording Anne saying mean things and being extremely low-level unethical, because he was bored and wanted to get her fired, but he was never really committed to the idea. Because you know who could really ruin Anne’s life, TJ? Her boyfriend, that’s who! What’s the matter, aren’t you serious about this? Aren’t you willing to sacrifice? What are you, chicken?

Spider-Man, 1/10/13

So, to review: Spider-Man tried to save a lady who was falling off an elephant, but then he got kicked unconscious by the elephant instead, and the lady was rescued by the ostensible villain. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN!

Apartment 3-G, 1/10/13

Sure you want to leave, Ari? It appears that Margo and Greg have reached the “We will use literally any pretext to get drunker” stage of evening.

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Mary Worth, 1/8/13

Oh my God, has this Mary Worth cake design contest plot secretly been a Mary Worth Dr. Jeff gets jealous plot all along? Have I been extra good this year, to be rewarded so handsomely?

For those of you who are relatively new to Mary Worth fandom, the last Dr. Jeff jealousy storyline was pretty delightful. While volunteering at the hospital, Mary met a pair of brothers who were feuding even at their mothers deathbed. Then Mary picked up one of the dudes right at his mom’s funeral (under the guise of helping him with his grief or whatever), and they went on a date where he boasted about his political power — with Mary having broken a date with Jeff to do so. Somehow they made it into the local paper’s gossip pages, which left Dr. Jeff angry and humiliated, and they broke up, for a like a minute, but then Jeff repented and stated leaving pathetic, begging messages on Mary’s answering machine. But wait! It turns out the new beau hated seafood, which was a huge deal-breaker, so that relationship ended a little too amicably later that week. Mary and Jeff eventually reunited, bandying about unsettlingly erotic metaphors.

Since then it’s been smooth sailing, but now the green monster of jealousy is rearing its ugly head again! Poor Jeff just spent all that money on a semi-convincing blond dye job in order to look more youthful and vigorous, and this is how he’s repaid?

Apartment 3-G, 1/8/13

Meanwhile, Margo’s Christmas adventure just keeps getting more entertaining! I think at one point she and Greg were going to see Professor Ari working in a soup kitchen in a Santa outfit, but they wisely decided to stay in and make out instead. So Santa’s come to them! And he’s ready to get ripped.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/8/13

The Smif Menfolk Fambly Reunion is just day after day of unceasing violence. Just Smifs beating the crap out of each other in the streets, in houses, in Smif Fighting Pits with greased walls. The women can only cower indoors and pray, and prepare to tend to the survivors.

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Mark Trail, 1/7/13

SORRY EVERYBODY about not having kept you sufficiently up to date on the conclusion of the thrilling Caribbean (?) Ransom storyline in Mark Trail, but it turns out to have been disappointingly light on the comical violence. As one could have guessed, Otto decided to let Mark go without collecting the ransom money, seeing as Mark saved his life and all, but Otto’s henchmen weren’t so keen on this idea, which gave Mark the opportunity to show that a fishing line trumps a rifle literally every time the two come into conflict. And then Otto hands out a brutal beatdown with his cane, proving that just because he’s decided to be magnanimous to Mark doesn’t mean he’s going to stop ruling his island with deadly force. Did you save me from sharks, Juan? Did any of you other pathetic losers save me from sharks? No? Then you’ll keep your mouths shut and do as you’re told.

Archie, 1/7/13

There’s something cruelly hilarious about people in the audience of a high school concert, who were presumably well aware of the musical quality that they’d encounter with performers at that skill level, just getting up and walking out when one particularly terrible kid gets up on stage to perform himself. You’ll notice that Archie’s mom didn’t even bother going to see her son in the first place.

Apartment 3-G, 1/7/13

Yes, finally, Margo gets some of her mojo back. “There are lots of things I don’t tell my boyfriend about, Greg, and making out with other dudes is pretty high on the list.”

Hi and Lois, 1/7/13

Dot is supposed to be, what, seven? Eight? I’m just trying to figure out how long it takes kids to recognize their parents’ marriage as the shameful web of deceit that it is.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/7/13

In his first epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul expresses hope that, after the Resurrection, we will understand each other and God better than we can now: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Crazy Harry seems to have interpreted this to mean that in heaven everyone just runs around naked all the time.