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Blondie, 1/29/12

It’s been well established established that Dagwood and Herb use aggressive, angry breakdancing as a way to express extreme negative emotion. But perhaps today’s instance of this odd display gives us insight into just what kind of concert Blondie and Tootsie are trying to drag their husbands to. “Damn it, we don’t want to see any of your pop-punk or indie rock or adult contemporary or modern mainstream country or what have you! For us, there’s old-school hip-hop and only old-school hip-hop!”

Family Circus, 1/29/12

I’m not an expert, but I think that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong with the perspective in this cartoon. Either that or the Keane Kids have suddenly grown to be twice the height of their parents while somehow maintaining their stumpy, gnomish proportions, in which case God help us all.

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Slylock Fox, 11/12/11

I agree wholly with the lady in this cartoon: when confronted with something that tears a hole in your conception of reality, something whose very existence makes it clear that either the universe is profoundly different from what you’ve been led to believe or that you’ve descended into howling madness and will probably never get out — something like, say, a grinning, tongue-wagging, seven-foot-tall bipedal bear-dog thing sitting on your couch — I would almost certainly ignore it and hope very much that it went away. Yep, just hangin’ out right here on the sofa, next to the fur-covered demon-nightmare, which isn’t really there, you’re just reading the paper and drinking your coffee, and sitting way over here on the end of the couch, by choice, certainly not because some horror-beast is sitting there with you, because it isn’t. When it jostles you in the back, even gently, that’s when this strategy fails. That’s when you have to turn it around and look it in the eyes. Those huge, happy, soulless eyes. God have mercy on your soul.

Blondie, 11/12/11

As far as most readers are concerned, Dagwood’s life is impossibly charmed: the doting and gorgeous wife, the low-impact 9 to 5 job that allows him to nap most of the day in exchange for a little mild physical abuse, the ability to eat as much unhealthy food as he wants without ever seeming to gain a pound. It’s only occasionally that we get glimpses of the fact that he has larger dreams, and that he’s too scared to chase after them, and that his own cowardice is slowly killing him inside.

Apartment 3-G, 11/12/11

I’m sorry, modest in every way? Look at all that damn clavicle! What the hell kind of half-assed oppressive chastity cult is this?

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Six Chix, 8/24/11

When I was a teenager, I saw a movie on the Lifetime Channel about the serious problem of bulimia, and the two scenes in it that have stuck with me are (a) one where two teenage girls are in a van in the woods, and one teenage girl, who is initiating the other in the joys of eating disorders, says “I call it scarf … and barf,” and (b) one where the mother of the second teenage girl opens a closet and finds all the jars of vomit the daughter’s been secretly hoarding, and immediately staggers back in shock and horror, which I found surprising because, really, could you honestly say that you’d be able to identify at first glance a jar filled with puke that resulted from a binge-and-purge cycle? Anyway, recently one of my nieces claimed that she was shown this film in a health class, which I found surprising because … squirreling away jars of vomit isn’t something actual bulimics do, is it? Please tell me that it isn’t.

Anyway, this comic brought up some memories of that film, for obvious reasons! Also, it made me feel like a cranky old person who mourns the coarseness of modern life. After all, if the actual comics are going to make baby-bird-food-is-vomit-even-for-anthropomorphized-birds jokes, how am I supposed to stay relevant making those exact same jokes on my “edgy” blog?

Apartment 3-G, 8/24/11

Oh, look, Apartment 3-G is proving that “Hoboken” is an inherently funny word as it coins its second Hoboken-themed catchphrase of the year. “He’s from Hoboken, Margo, not the moons of Jupiter!” isn’t quite at the same level as “Too fancy for Hoboken and too hot for church,” but it’s still pretty good.

Beyond the fine phrase-turning, though, I have some issues with the dynamics at play here. For one thing, we’re now more than 20 years into the marketing of the western shore of the Hudson as the “Gold Coast,” within a quick PATH or ferry commute to New York; a denizen of Hudson County is at least as likely to be a stockbroker as a piano mover, though I concede that Margo’s snobbery is probably pretty accurate in terms of how arch-Manhattanites feel about the place. More importantly, though, the idea that Lu Ann is some kind of urban sophisticate who could never find happiness with a simple working man from New Jersey is completely laughable to anyone who’s actually read the strip. Heck, even if this were the one and only Apartment 3-G you’d ever seen, you might still question the idea that the cowering blonde in the all-white shirt with the old-timey collar would be too cool to be romantically involved with anyone.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/24/11

Will this pair of lovelorn widows with unnaturally sharp features find love together? All signs point to yes, despite the clownish vibe that the couple will give off, due to their freakishly bright hair!

Blondie, 8/24/11

What if you developed a sexual obsession with a television personality, an obsession that occupied your every spare thought, an obession that, for obvious reasons, you could never discuss with your wife, the person with whom you shared all of your other most intimate secrets? That’s a dilemma that would manifest itself in some pretty weird ways, I’ll bet.