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Lockhorns, 1/7/14

For too long, the Lockhorns has offered us a fairly static view of the title characters’ squat, oblong bodies. Today represents a new artistic direction for this feature, akin to the first-person shooter genre that dominates the video game market. Why just stare at Leroy and Loretta making passive-aggressive remarks to each other or to their hapless acquaintances, when you can ride along on their shoulders and experience those whinges as if you were making them! Thrill as Loretta digs years back into the very earliest days of her marital disappointments and unloads her still shockingly raw pain on … some lady! Watch that lady’s face freeze into a carefully composed mask, to keep from bursting out laughing or bursting into tears! Can you live one panel a day as a Lockhorn and emerge with your sanity intact?

Mary Worth, 1/7/14

Ha ha, whoops, it seems that Mary has been so busy besotting Broadwayman Ken Kensington without any intention of reciprocating his feelings that she’s forgotten that she already has a handsome suitor whose feelings she has no intention of reciprocating! And now he’s back from Vietnam and wants to talk dirty. “What do you have on, Mary? Is every inch of you covered in loose-fitting dusty grape? Tell me everything.”

Crankshaft, 1/7/14

“It will cover our town with a toxic chemical layer that will induce convulsions in most any living thing it touches — pets, children, the elderly and infirm. Even the young and strong who escape its immediate effects will carry the terrible poison in their bodies, shaving years off their miserable lives. The question is, ladies, how serious are you about getting rid of weeds? Do you have the guts to follow this through to its logical conclusion? We must die so our perfect lawns might live!”

Apartment 3-G, 1/7/14

“Because if a woman’s sad, you know what she needs? A man! A man named Roy. Three cheers for men named Roy!”

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Family Circus, 12/19/13

I’m really enjoying Big Daddy Keane’s facial expression in this panel. That’s the look of a man who could not possibly give fewer shits about elves. He was willing to play along and list all the reindeer — that was a tradition, after all — but if this kid thinks the two of them are going to sit around and try to remember the names of, like, Legolas’s brothers or whatever, he’s got another thing coming. This explains his awkward hand placement as well: originally he was planning on picking Jeffy up and carrying him around, but if the kid’s on another one of his damn elf kicks, Daddy will be gingerly putting him down and slowly backing away.

Crankshaft, 12/19/13

Traumatized by the looming prospect of genuine emotional intimacy with another human being, Crankshaft sits alone, getting blotto. Did you know when a character in a comic strip gets super drunk not from drinking alcohol but rather from eating rum-soaked cookies, it’s hilarious, not sad? Crankshaft knows this!

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Crankshaft, 12/14/12

Hey, all, have you been curious about why exactly Crankshaft has introduced a new character, who is cheerful and competent and thus hated by Crankshaft but also sad and lonely and abandoned by her family, into the strip? Well, now you know: she’s Crankshaft’s new love interest. that’s right, they’re going to make sex to each other, probably still wearing their Santa outfits. Happy holidays! (I took the Christ out of Christmas there because the whole scenario would make Baby Jesus cry.)

Apartment 3-G, 12/14/13

I haven’t really been able to figure out what the deal is with Cole’s doctor in Apartment 3-G, beyond the fact that he’s a creep with inconsistent character design. (Ha ha, it’s kind of funny that when I see two wildly different people presented as doctors in this strip, my assumption is not “there are multiple physicians working on the same case” but rather “jeez, Apartment 3-G artist and colorists, get it together.”) Anyway, Doctor “Doc” Whoever continues to be vaguely off-putting today, and also continues to deal with Lu Ann as if she has some relationship to his patient beyond “former art teacher of daughter.” What could this mysterious Christmas gift be? “Surprise! It’s a new brain for Cole, your not-boyfriend! A brain is what he needs, right? I sure hope so, it’s been out of the fridge for a while and it’s gonna go bad soon.”

Wizard of Id, 12/14/13

There’s obviously a lot to object to in this cartoon, but the one thing I can’t get past is the idea that Id is somehow one of the 20 most economically powerful nations in the faux-medieval hell dimension where it exists.