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Apartment 3-G, 5/29/08

Bless you, Margo! Bless your foul mouth and shriveled little heart! Whenever I find myself feeling down, or wishing that my life was different, I can now always cheer myself up by imagining you looking down in stunned disbelief at your naked, ringless fingers, wiggling them in mid-air as if that will magically generate a token that says you’re taken out of the ether. Bless you!

I like the fact that Lu Ann and Tommie are standing around in glum silence while Margo rants. I’m imagining that we’re coming into this diatribe at about hour three. In panel two, note that Tommie is cunningly positioning Lu Ann between Margo and herself so she can slowly back away and sneak off to the bathroom without being disemboweled.

Archie, 5/29/08

I think Archie’s interlocutor is supposed to be … Reggie, maybe? I don’t recall Reggie having any sort of characterization established other than “Reggie is an asshole,” so presumably Jennifer looks so comprehensibly miserable in the first panel because her relationship with Reggie mostly consisted of his unpleasant boasts and grabby hands, and she still feels kind of dirty. Or maybe she’s just depressed because her parents force her to dress like a waitress at all times.

Funky Winkerbean, 5/29/08

I’m not even going to hazard a guess as to what the “joke” is supposed to be in today’s Funky Winkerbean. I’m too busy being traumatized by the look of near-physical ecstasy on Bull’s face in the third panel. It’s like he’s having a chairgasm, with Les just standing right there talking to him.

Hagar the Horrible, 5/29/08

Ah, I see the legacy comics are engaging in a little UNSPEAKABLE FILTH oneupsmanship. In this case, its the addition of the duck to the scenario that really pegs the old squick-o-meter.

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Archie, 5/22/08

Oh, Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000! You’ve been doing so well for a while, almost convincing me that you were a biological life form of some sort, until I encountered today’s panel two, in which you demonstrate that you understand neither bipedal locomotion nor three-dimensional space. Don’t let your vacuum tubes overheat in despair, though: if you ever do a strip where Archie is doing some kind of ridiculous vaudeville-style dance, you’re all set.

(Hey, kids, cheer up the AJGLU 3000 by buying a shirt with its picture on it!)

Mark Trail, 5/22/08

Ah, first comes the kicking, and now comes the screaming, or at least the shouting, and of course the punching as well. Mark and Ponytailed Dognapper Guy spend panels two and three delighting us with a veritable ballet of pugilism, with Mark nimbly dodging his antagonist’s punch and then sending the ne’er-do-well artfully flying with a right cross of his own. But still, it’s panel one that really sets the mood here. Look at that big, easy grin on Mark’s face. Is there anything in this world he likes better than punching people in the jaw? He doesn’t really seem to enjoy spending time with his family, so I’m going to say no.

Mary Worth, 5/22/08

If Mary Worth is going to be the apex of some kind of doughy, pasty, late-middle-aged love triangle, I will rescind every mean thing I said about the boring and interminable flashback storyline. Yesterday Jeff was acting all big about Mary’s emotional mission of mercy with some other man, but that was before he found out she was canceling on him for the Bum Boat. You do not break a date with Jeff Corey when the Bum Boat is involved. Drag him back from Vietnam, humiliate his son, whatever, but the Bum Boat is the line that you do not cross.

Hi and Lois, 5/22/08

Get ready for a very special storyline, “Ditto gets rabies,” in next week’s Hi and Lois.

Pluggers, 5/22/08

The advantage of marrying a plugger is that you can be pretty sure that nobody else will try to have sex with your spouse. The downside is that you probably won’t want to either.

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Apartment 3-G, 5/20/08

Things Haley might have said that could have been even dorkier than “Wow. This dope is super — I feel great!”:

• Nothing. There is absolutely nothing anyone could say or do that would make this hard-hitting drug use storyline any squarer than it is right now. Alan and Haley’s dope binge is making Mary Worth’s Tommy the Tweaker storyline (which, I might remind you ended with “Yeah, parents … what are you going to do?” and “UHHHHHHHHHHH” and “I hate drug dealers!” and “Groan!”) look like the unrated director’s cut of Trainspotting.

Can someone who’s an expert in drug paraphernalia and/or fluid dynamics explain to me what the deal is with Alan’s “pipe”? It looks less like something you’d use to smoke dope (of whatever flavor) and more like one of those jumbo straws for drinking bubble tea. Perhaps the syndicate would agree to greenlight this drug-fueled storyline only if nothing in the art remotely resembled anything someone could actually use to ingest illegal narcotics, and all the characters talked like utter dweebs.

Gil Thorp, 5/20/08

Panel three is a good example of why visually-oriented media like the comics don’t build storylines around lawyers very often. “Will the Vargases’ attorney manage to keep Elmer in the U.S. legally? Thrill as he plumbs the depths of Title 8 of the U.S. code! Gasp as he makes a few phone calls to some friends over at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services! Can his secretary make enough copies of his notes for everyone at his 4:30 meeting? Does he have time to step out for coffee? How many billable hours will he put in today?” Judge Parker, take note.

Archie, 5/20/08

“Also, what Jughead had thought for the past eight years was his ‘dog’ turns out to be a short guy in a fursuit. We’re both pretty freaked out about it, honestly.”