Post Content

Crankshaft, 1/13/14

One of Crankshaft’s beloved/tiresome running gags is “Lena’s snack food is extremely poorly prepared and thus largely inedible,” but I don’t particularly remember her coffee being a punchline before. At first I thought it was the same gag, but note that Mary is taking another deep swig even after having spun into pin-eyed freakout mode in panel one. Clearly, while Lena’s brownies are dangerously unchewable, Lena’s coffee is dangerously addictive, with only a single sip of the pure stuff capable of turning you into a mindless junkie, drinking huge gulps even as your mind turns to mush.

Blondie, 1/13/14

Boy, Dagwood looks awful cheery for a guy who knows he’s going to die at five o’clock today! One can only assume that he has this attitude because he’s chosen this death; probably it will take the form of a spectacularly gory and public suicide capping off a killing spree in the office he hates so much. But as a final fuck-you to his employer, he’s going to dick around on the Internet on the company’s dime all day before he murders everybody.

Archie, 1/13/14

Mr. Weatherbee’s thousand-yard stare in panel two is the proper result of sudden, terrible knowledge: he realizes that we are well into the second generation of food’s transformation from a craft to commodity. Soon nobody left alive will remember a meal that was formed by your own hands or the hands of someone you loved. Whether or not we have any particularly fond memories of family dinners from our childhood, the marketing construct of “Just like mom used to make!” is so embedded in our brains that we’ll repeat it to each other endlessly as we scarf down machine-shaped corn byproduct extrusions dusted with MSG flavor crystals.

Apartment 3-G, 1/13/14

I’m not sure what’s sadder: that Margo doesn’t know anything about Tommie’s car situation, despite the fact that she’s her roommate and ostensibly one of her closest friends, or that Tommie thinks she can drive to England to see her fiance.

Slylock Fox, 1/13/14

Oh my God … that Footprints Jesus poster … it’s really a crime scene

Post Content

Mark Trail, 1/4/14

It’s been a weird short week, what with New Year’s Day being right in the middle of it and much of the northeast U.S. getting snowed in Friday, but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to relax and enjoy our weekend! And what better way to relax than to settle in with some crazy Mark Trail violence, with Mark and Jeff battling it out in waist- and/or thigh-deep water, surrounded by angry hornets. “I’m going to end this now, Jeff!” Mark declares, because he’s had his fun and is now going to unleash his “special” punch, the one that leaves punchees sullen and supine but otherwise unharmed.

Spider-Man, 1/4/14

Speaking of violence, here’s Spider-Man being handily defeated by Iron Man’s roboticized leftover armor, which everyone is calling “Manbot” for some hilarious reason. It is of course not at all surprising to see our hero being humiliated in a super-powered battle, but it is kind of impressive that he can’t even defeat a jerry-rigged robot operated by remote control by someone who can’t even see what’s happening and is getting all his information about the battle second hand.

Archie, 1/4/14

Wow, Pop, I know self-promotion is a must for any small businessman, but I think going around with an apron boasting that you’re literally the best is a bit showy. The food processor joke in panel one was a little forced, and normally I wouldn’t quibble about it but you are claiming to be the best, so we’re going to hold you to a higher standard.

Apartment 3-G, 1/4/14

Hey, you know what would be cool and visually interesting? To see a close-up of Tommie’s picture of her perfect, handsome fiance! Or, you know, we could just see the same three ladies in the second panel who we saw in the first panel, only standing in a slightly different sequence, with Tommie magically holding a tiny blank square on the tip of her finger, that’ll work too.

Post Content

B.C., 12/18/13

It is of course impossible to tell exactly how many thousands of centuries before our own era the denizens of the B.C. universe lived. We do know, because their world is generally dominated by primitive but still clever hominids, that it was long after the age of the great and terrible Elder Gods, as the flesh and souls of any puny creature such as Man would have long ago vanished into their awful maws if they still held their rightful place. Yet as we see in today’s strip, the Reign of the Old Ones was recent enough that a degenerate few of their awful number still lurk, waiting to be set loose so they can rise on leathery wings and feed. Why is B.C.-character-whose-name-I-probably-never-knew looking so dazed? Why is he drilling hole after hole in the ice, apparently not even noticing the nightmarish tentacles and mouth-polyps arising from the frozen mire? Presumably he’s no longer in control of his own faculties, and that all of his normal thoughts and feelings have been replaced by the thrumming mindwaves resonating up from below the ice. FREE ME. FREE ME. FREE. ME. We can only pray that, in repayment for his service, his end will be swift and relatively painless.

Archie, 12/18/13

On the subject of unspeakable horrors, did you know that Jughead has a tiny little cousin, who looks exactly like him except smaller, who’s named “Souphead Jones,” for some reason? I thought this might be the most boring opium dream ever, but he’s a real thing that exists, apparently, to the extent that anything in the Archie mythos is “real” (and don’t try to tell me that things I’ve spent hours of my life thinking about, like, say, Archie’s Betty-Veronica dilemma, aren’t real, thanks very much). Anyway, Soupy has been good literally all year, in order to get presents, but apparently is done with that jive as of Christmas day. 2014 isn’t going to be about being good. 2014 is going to be terrifying.