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Mary Worth, 8/18/06

The scariest thing about this strip is that, in panel two, Mary’s eyes actually do sort of seem to be saying … well, if not “Yes,” then at least “Maybe.” As in, “Maybe I should give this guy a chance. Jeff’s away, and I never really promised him anything … and Aldo really does seem like he’d be quite the devoted type … not always running off to crazy Oriental countries on barely a day’s notice … and it has been a while since I’ve had a good mustache ride…”

Uh. I’m stopping this rumination right here, in the name of all that is decent. Let us never speak of this again.

Mark Trail, 8/18/06

Well, this is certainly a disturbing surprise. I have to say that if you had asked me two weeks ago, “What Mark Trail character will cause a truck to fly off a cliff because she was trying to put her tongue in someone else’s mouth?” I would have had to have said Kelly. After the car wreck, I’m sure Molly will stare mournfully at the mortally wounded Buck for a few minutes before she starts eating him.

B.C., 8/18/06

No, you’ve got it backwards: Wal-Mart will be leveling this vista in order to build four new Wal-Marts.

Dick Tracy, 8/18/06

Blasted Al Kinda! He’s already violated the laws of the United States and human decency; now, even in death, he’s managed to violate the laws of physics. Seriously, I’d love for someone to explain to me how he ended up under that flag.

For Better Or For Worse, 8/18/06

Everyone who thinks that April is going to be experiencing “nature’s most amazing miracle” the hard way before she turns 18, raise your hand.

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B.C., 7/25/06

Greetings, citizens! Certain liberal agitators — greenies, communists, and other America-hating terrorist sympathizers — may have misled you to believe that dumping phosphate-containing detergents into rivers or oceans may somehow damage the so-called “environment.” In fact, the sea is a filthy, filthy place, and the beasts that swim within it essentially live in their own urine and feces. Thus, by allowing our used cleaning products to flow into the water supply, we’re doing the fish, crabs, sea urchins, and other watery creatures a big favor. Don’t withhold your life-giving detergent from our ocean-borne friends!

Also, a note to Jews, Muslims, atheists, and other non-Christians: YOU ARE ALL DOOMED TO HELLFIRE! TURN OR BURN, PEOPLE, TURN OR BURN!

Mary Worth, 7/25/06

Can’t … stop … staring … at … Mary’s … freakish … pinky finger! Seriously, what is the deal with her hand in panel one? It looks like her finger and a chunk of her palm was somehow hewn off (possibly in a “household ‘accident'”) and Dr. Jeff threw his medical ethics to the wind to attach a donor hand-piece to his beloved in an experimental and highly dangerous procedure.

Meanwhile, Toby’s tale of hearsay and spite continues along its merry way. Cunning use of scare quotes around “accident” there, Mrs. Cameron; because surely if two people are in a house together and one of them dies, there can be only one diagnosis: murder. Say, what fundamental aspect of U.S. law does Toby seem to be undermining here?

Good to have her back, isn’t it, folks?

Hagar the Horrible, 7/25/06

Yeah, but … you never … really answered the question … of … why … uh … actually, I don’t think I want to know.

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B.C., 7/22/06

See, this strip is actually a lot more clever than it might appear at first glance. By posing a series of incomprehensible humor-style elements — Do electronic components ever actually feature “charcoal” lettering? Wouldn’t black golf balls be easier to see than said lettering on said components? — it distracts from the central problem, which is, you’ve got cavemen talking about golf and electronics, what the hell.

Mark Trail, 7/22/06

I was going to say something to the effect of “The whole Kelly-Welly-as-Lost-Forest’s-official-tramp thing is getting old,” but then I realized that it wasn’t, and it never will. I particularly love the extreme closeup on Kelly’s dark, evil, seductive eyes in the third panel. I’m assuming that this is Ranger Rick’s point-of-view: in the world of Mark Trail, this is the last thing you see before you wake up with a nasty case of chlamydia.

Wizard of Id, 7/22/06

Ah, it’s Yet Another Lame Strip Written By An Old White Guy Featuring An Anachronistic Golf Joke (YALSWBAOWGFAAGJ™). You might not know this if you don’t have parents who watch the Golf Channel voluntarily, but all those beasts the Wiz is thought-ballooning about in the second panel are the nicknames of various professional golfers. That’s right: Id’s dwarfish despot is forcing his chief thaumaturgist to dismember the cream of the PGA’s crop just to shave a few strokes off his handicap, the sick bastard. Anyway, the reason this strip caught my eye is because the thought balloon in panel two has some shading on the bottom, which usually is a cartoon convention for anger, but this time around it appears to signify … nothing. Nothing at all. Wasted strokes. Wasted!

For Better Or For Worse, 7/22/06

Worst. Onomatopoeia. Ever.