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Spider-Man, 6/18/13

True story: Once, when I was living in California, I got the time zone math backwards and called my dad and stepmother at 11 p.m. my time, thinking that it was 8 p.m. on the East Coast when of course it was 2 a.m., and naturally they were less than thrilled about this. I should add that this was after nearly four years of living on the West Coast, so it’s not like I had any kind of excuse. Anyway, what I’m saying is that MJ has been sitting by the phone with no doubt increasing amounts of irritation waiting for Peter call while he’s been screwing around on the beach or whatever, and maybe he shouldn’t sound quite so insufferably smug in panel two? I mean, MJ still probably wouldn’t want him to come back, seeing as she’s already changed the locks on the apartment and had his name taken off their bank accounts, but still, it’s poor form.

Crock, 6/18/13

I love that “HMO” is bolded in the last panel, just so we don’t miss the point. “Ha, this HMO is crueler than I am, and my notorious cruelty is central joke of the strip! HMO! Eh? Social commentary? Right?”

Beetle Bailey, 6/18/13

Specialist Chip Gizmo, the adorably nerdy character introduced to Beetle Bailey in 2002 to bring some techno-savvy to the strip, has built himself a sex robot with metal breasts and sharp, claw-like hands! If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to spend the rest of the day screaming now.

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Gil Thorp, 6/4/13

The dreary Gil Thorp spring storyline continues to plod along, with lawyer-spawn/aspiring lawyer Knox Foley (aka “Foley Knox,” aka “How am I supposed to keep track of which is your first name and which is your last name when they both look like last names”) still at the fore. His latest legal shenanigan: trying to convince his aspirational lady love that she should sue the grocery store where she fell and broke her wrist and UGH I can’t even work up the energy to make a joke about this. Mostly I want to point out Foley’s huge hand flopping around in the middle of panel three, like we’re playing in a first-person shooter video game except it’s not a first-person shooter, it’s a first-person poker or grabber or something. Giant meaty freak-hands have been the defining visual element of Gil Thorp since artist Rod Whigham took over in 2008, so it’s great to see a Thorp-flipper literally front and center here, and I wouldn’t be sad if every subsequent panel followed suit.

Beetle Bailey, 6/4/13

Less well known to Beetle Bailey regulars than “Miss Buxley Wednesday” is “The Halftracks loathe each other Saturday,” which today seems to be happening on Tuesday for some reason, maybe because we’ve crossed some sort of nuclear threshold of mutual hatred. Haha, it’s funny because General Halftrack is at the bar drunkenly boasting to his friends that he’s going to leave his wife! His wife is back home, stone cold sober, boasting to nobody in particular that she’s going to leave her husband, and it’s terrifying.

Family Circus, 6/4/13

Oh, man, just look at this guy! Billy’s pretty good at being smug, but this kid’s the master. “Teach me how to be like you, Eric! If I exude epic levels of self-satisfaction, will the ‘law of attraction’ bring me all the tooth-related revenues I deserve?”

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Mark Trail, 5/2/13

Sorry for not keeping you up to date on what’s up in Mark Trail! The short version is that Mark and Wes flew off to go look at some sheep but then they crashed and Wes broke his foot and now they’re trapped and will no doubt resort to cannibalism soon enough. That leaves the ladies to chill back at the campsite! Don’t panic, Shelly, those wolves are perfectly harmless, not like the villainous wolves of several storylines ago. You should be more concerned about this mysterious pink mist that’s rising out of the river and filling up your tent and campsite, quite honestly. Is a mid-’80s glam-metal concert about to break out?

Dick Tracy, 5/2/13

Sorry for not keeping you up to date on what’s up in Dick Tracy! The new creative team has been pretty relentless in bringing back characters and plotlines from the strip’s storied past, and are now apparently moving on to the extremely wacky late ’60s period where Dick went to the moon repeatedly and Mysta, the daughter of the Governor of the Moon (no, really), married Dick’s son. Later she was blown up by by a car bomb, but now has apparently been … “recreated”? Except for her face? Whatever, any excuse to have a character say “No! I’ve had enough of your world! I want to take my family to my real home. Back on the moon!” is a good excuse as far as I’m concerned.

Beetle Bailey, 5/2/13

I’m a pretty big dummy about military stuff but there isn’t a single vehicle in the U.S. arsenal, past or present, that looks remotely like whatever Beetle and Plato are driving, right? Like, a mid-sized hatchback with big tires and double gun turret on top and some other guns randomly sticking out windows? That’s not a thing, right? Also, this town probably doesn’t have any trouble with parking because it appears to be one vast, featureless parking lot, though predictably it does have a lot of trouble with traffic flow.

Heathcliff, 5/2/13

So Heathcliff’s “pickup lines” are so effective that he has nine lady cats following him around in a neat formation, waiting in still, eerie silence for him to sex them up, individually or perhaps together? I’m not sure what it would take to make this joke funny, but adding a whole bit where he asks a lawyer for intellectual property advice isn’t it.

Funky Winkerbean, 5/2/13

Just leaving this here to remind you that Les’s creative endeavors have failed humiliatingly before, so there’s hope that they will again! Actually, the success of Lisa’s Story must gall Jessica more than it does the rest of us. “Hey, sorry my book about your dead dad was a flop! Did you hear that my book about my dead wife was a big success? I guess we know whose dead relative is better, huh?”