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Apartment 3-G, 3/20/12

Ah, spring is here — and while Margo thinks it will take a brainload of potent lady-hormones to light up pregnant-but-not-feeling-it Nina, poor naïve Tommie thinks sunshine and blue skies alone will do the trick. I can’t wait to hear Lu Ann weigh in with a prescription for moonbeam sandwiches and unicorn juice.

Curtis, 3/20/12

Say, when is Nina due, anyway — and how will her pregnancy play out in strip time? With multiple plotlines, Apartment 3-G can at least dip in and out of the Nina ‘n’ Scott story — Rex Morgan, M.D. would be all-Nina-all-the-time until delivery or catatonic ennui sets in, whichever comes first. Let’s just all be thankful this isn’t Judge Parker, where time moves so slowly that pregnancy is effectively permanent, or Funky Winkerbean, where it’s invariably fatal.

Wait, did you hear something? I think I drifted off there for a minute.

Crankshaft, 3/20/12

Alas, no hormone, season, or diet can bring relief to Pam and Jeff Murdoch. No sooner do they acquire another noisy trinket to distract themselves from the gaping hole in their lives than the ‘hole opens his damn mouth to ruin it all again.

Gasoline Alley, 3/20/12

Kindhearted nitwit Rufus celebrates the equinox watching nightmare TV while starving himself to feed his clowder of ingrate cats.

Crock, 3/20/12

But it could be worse — it could be Crock. You can carve that in stone.

Just watch your fingers.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Apartment 3-G, 3/14/12

Hmm, Apartment 3-G, do remember that there was once a lady who didn’t want to have kids, but her husband browbeat her into it, and then, when she reacted to motherhood exactly the way you’d think someone who didn’t want kids but was browbeaten into having one would react, everyone she knew decided she was a monster and it was totally 100 percent OK that her husband made a pass at another woman, while they were married? She was named Thérèse, and she was in For Better Or For Worse, and she was, um, somewhat controversial, so perhaps we don’t want to be modeling anybody on her situation too closely? I expect rampant fetus worship from Tommie and her new found obsession with midwifery and Lu Ann and her love of all things tiny and (for the moment) dumber than her, but I have to say I’m kind of disappointed in Margo here. She’s about to bust out laughing and say, “Ha, no, I’m screwing with you, let’s take this six-pack over to Nina right now,” right?

Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft, 3/14/12

Meanwhile, over in the Funkyverse, the Lady Scapegoats have been permitted by their hitherto malevolent God to claim the state basketball championship. At least they overcame adversity and all that; hateful old Crankshaft appears to be on the verge of some other delight-generating golf triumph (a hole in one? I’m not looking at the last few days’ strips, you can’t make me) thanks to pure dumb luck. Presumably this means that the very fabric of Funky-reality is about to be torn apart from joy overload, so everyone involved needs to enjoy it while they can.

Six Chix, 3/14/12

When you contemplate newspaper comics, do you think to yourself, “Enh, I like the funny drawings and all, but there isn’t enough puking for my taste.” Well, consider their game STEPPED UP.

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Family Circus, 3/11/12

The Keane Kids’ responsibility-dodging spirits vie with the Billy’s dotted-line trails for the title of the Family Circus’s most iconic gag. Still, while Ida Know and Not Me are fairly well known, I don’t think Nobody shows up so often, which may explain why I was so surprised and horrified by his creepy mustache. I mean, the mustache and the hat already combine to make him look like your slightly skeevy uncle, if your slightly skeevy uncle were three feet tall and a ghost; but, since he has no visible nose or mouth, the mustache is just a stripe of hair across a mostly featureless face, which is completely terrifying to me.

On the other hand, I approve of the way that the children and their daemons have been lined up against the wall, since it appears that Mommy has finally had enough and is just going to have them executed by firing squad for their dish-breaking crimes.

Crankshaft, 3/11/12

Longtime readers of the Funkyverse strips know that one of that fictional universe’s most prominent characteristics is the relentless and omnipresent punning. Today, however, we see that this behavior may in fact have an evolutionary advantage. The first three panels of the strip feature Jeff getting increasingly angry at yet another instance of injustice, looking like he’s about to strangle someone or at least suffer a major coronary event. But in the final panel, Pam’s terrible bit of wordplay seems to have flummoxed him, knocking him out of his rage-cycle and leaving him in a state of slant-mouthed confusion. How many lives were saved by her quick, corny thinking?

Dennis the Menace, 3/11/12

We spend a lot of time worrying about whether Dennis has lost his menacing vibe, but what of Mr. Wilson? One might worry that the lack of a worthy antagonist has caused the old man to lose his edge. But fear not, as today he manages to implant in Dennis that special shiver of existential terror we all get when we first realize that we, too, will grow old and die. I dearly hope that the otherwise unexplained photo of Dennis in the opening throwaway panel represents a Portrait of Dorian Grey-style magical object, which will wither and age while Dennis stays young, until it comes time for the Devil to reap his soul; that would be menacing indeed.

Panel from Mary Worth, 3/11/12

Well, Nola, if you won’t listen to good advice from John Lennon, maybe Jesus will talk some sense into you, hmm? If nothing else, the relative efficacy of these two quotes may resolve some longstanding debates.