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Archie, 4/26/16

I normally only mention the anonymous toilers who add color to the daily strips when they egregiously screw up, so let’s give big props to whoever had the job of dealing with today’s Archie. Not only did they notice the severed foot laying casually atop the debris that Jughead has layered on his floor to block his parents’ access to his room/slaughter chamber, but they chose the perfect off-pink color to represent human flesh that’s just begun to putrefy.

Shoe, 4/26/16

The city of Treetops consists of habitations scattered across the tops of trees, as the name and also just about every Shoe strip published in the last 39 years demonstrate. Rubber comes from trees, and Treetops is inhabited entirely by bird-people. Thus, this is a news item about a rapacious corporation that is going to stop destroying the townsfolk’s homes and will now move on to literally extracting profits from their bodies.

Mark Trail, 4/26/16

Mark and his fellow cave-captives have spent the last week wandering around this cavern marveling at the miracles of nature that created these gorgeous, enormous crystals. Today they figure they should get a mining corporation in here and make a quick buck. Everybody needs sheetrock!

Pluggers, 4/26/16

OH MY GOD

PLUGGER LINGERE IS ADULT DIAPERS

BECAUSE PLUGGERS DON’T DRESS SEXILY, AND ALSO ARE INCONTINENT

IF I HAD TRIED TO COME UP WITH A VICIOUSLY CRUEL PARODY OF PLUGGERS, I NEVER WOULD HAVE COME CLOSE TO THIS

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Archie, 4/18/16

Who says you can’t learn valuable historical and cultural data from Archie reruns from the early ’90s? Take today’s strip, for example. Archie and Jughead spend so much time together that they’ve exhausted just about every possible topic of conversation, leading Archie with nothing to ask Jughead about except dietary supplements, and this awkward conversational gambit reminds us that there was at one point a craze for shark cartilage pills as a cancer cure. This quackery was promoted by Sharks Don’t Get Cancer, a 1992 book whose Wikipedia page hilariously notes that “despite its title, the book does not claim that sharks never get cancer.” Anyway, shark cartilage does not in fact cure cancer, but the idea that it might is frankly more believable than the conceit that it might make you extra bitey.

Mary Worth, 4/18/16

If we ever needed proof that Dawn is Wilbur’s daughter, we wouldn’t have to get some fancy paternity test; we can just watch her rub her hands together in deranged anticipation of shoving that sandwich in front of her into her eager gullet, just like her dear old dad would. I’d find it a little dubious that Dawn is now openly eating lunch with her professorial crush object in front of her classmates, but clearly the only erotic stirrings she’s feeling at the moment are for what’s on the tray in front of her. “I, uh, think lunch is pretty awesome too!” says Harlan Jones, suddenly realizing Dawn will never look at him the way she looks at a cafeteria BLT.

Beetle Bailey, 4/18/16

I had a vague memory that Beetle Bailey’s resident psychologist had a hilariously shticky name, and I was right: It’s “Dr. Bonkus”! And I assume that, like all joke psychologist characters dreamed up in the 1950s, he’s a strict Freudian, which means he probably would have some pretty interesting things to say about Sarge’s subconscious life.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/17/16

At long last, the day we’ve all been waiting for: Sarah Morgan’s book is available in print! As near as I can tell this strip from May 2013 is the beginning of that saga, so the whole project from genesis to execution took … just short of three years? In the soap opera comics, which move at a notoriously glacial pace? And it took me, a real adult human who lives in the ordinary timestream three and a half years after my Kickstarter to get my book out? Ugggh. Anyway, come to my book tour April 26 in Washington, DC or April 28 in Baltimore or May 2 in Brooklyn or May 5 in Buffalo, so I can outsell this terrible sphere-headed child-golem, at least!

Archie, 4/17/16

I’m sorry, Mr. Lodge, but nobody wearing that red-and-yellow nightmare has the right to criticize anybody else’s clothing choices. It’s really too bad for him that having a servant entirely for the purpose of dressing the master of the house has apparently fallen out of favor amongst the ultra-rich.

Family Circus, 4/17/16

I absolutely love how furious Jeffy looks in the rightmost panel here. I know Billy’s statement is supposed to be a response to his sour face, but it looks like it’s the other way around and he’s just so mad about this dumb aphorism. “Grandma isn’t here, Billy. The best part about Grandma not being here is that we don’t have to listen to this shit.”

Pluggers, 4/17/16

Pluggers remember when they used to be able to guide their grandchildren away from Darwin’s Satanic lies, back before their damn daughter-in-law started pitching a fit because she and the public schools knew better than the Bible.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/17/16

Remember, If Your Strip Ends With Even The Vaguest Play On Words, That’s Technically A “Punchline,” Even If It’s Incredibly Depressing: The Funky Winkerbean Story