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Judge Parker, 2/14/12

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody! Did you ask for a sexy, sinister assassitrix from your Valentine, the syndicated continuity strip Judge Parker? Well, you got it! Monique Zatari will almost certainly be the villain in the current confusing Judge Parker whodunnit; her character exists not only to stir America’s most erotic fears about Middle Easterners, but also to right a four-year-old wrong. Remember the last time the good white people of Spencer-Parkerburg were menaced by a lady of Islamic extraction? Remember how we never got a sense of the size or shapeliness of her breasts? Well, you won’t be able to say that about Monique Zatari, by God.

Crankshaft, 2/14/12

I know I’m on the record as publicly not caring about the chronological inconsistencies that arise from the various time jump shenanigans in the Funkyverse, i.e., why did everyone in Funky Winkerbean discontinuously get 10 years older but their world is still contemporary with ours, did Crankshaft jump forward with Funky Winkerbean, etc. But I do find a different kind of time-problem interesting: namely, when a strip’s essentially timeless nature (i.e., it’s always happening now, no matter how long it’s been running with the characters the same age) runs up against decisions to fix important bits of character development to real points in history. If Crankshaft really was a minor league player in 1940 whose career was cut short by the outbreak of World War II, that makes him at minimum 88 years old now. Which means he … probably shouldn’t be working as a school bus driver? I’m sure that there are 88-year-olds out there now who do a fine job of driving large commercial vehicles, but they’re few and far between. Kudos to the strip for sticking to its guns, I guess, but maybe a quiet retrofitting of Crankshaft’s service to Korea might be in order?

Mary Worth, 2/14/12

Soooo … much as I’ve enjoyed Mary’s Dinner With The Moral Abyss That Is Nola so far, it is starting to get a bit repetitive! And Mary’s offer of advice reminds us that Nola arranged this meeting to get Mary’s thoughts on whether her boyfriend is cheating on her; of course, Mary would have no real way to offer an informed opinion on the matter, since Nola hasn’t supplied any details but instead has gone off on a long discursis on how awesome it is to have sex with other people’s husbands and not care about anybody’s opinions about anything. I’m beginning to think that maybe Nola is just stalling Mary while her accomplices are kidnapping Dr. Jeff or clearing out Mary’s safe deposit box or something. You might not approve of that, but Nola only has it all because she’s determined not to let anything stop her!

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Mary Worth, 1/28/11

Oh, man, why is this hilarious “I [heart] Santa Royale” mug not available for purchase at the Mary Worth CafePress store right now? Since the action here is happening in Mary’s condo, I’m assuming that’s her mug, which seems to be rubbing it in the face of the Smith family a bit. “Just showing my civic pride, new friends! Santa Royale is great, unlike your hometown of Goleta, which is of course lousy with kidnappers.”

Crankshaft, 1/28/11

Nobody in the Funkyverse in general and in Crankshaft’s orbit in particular is ever allowed to experience joy of any sort, so, yes, he has every right to be suspicious.

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Gil Thorp, 1/4/12

So far this basketball season storyline has been all about the epidemic of tattoo-getting among Milford’s student-athletes at a sketchy tattoo parlor that occupies the extremely small part of the Venn diagram where “Pays rent on a downtown storefront” and “Will tattoo minors without parental permission” overlap! It promises to be the most laughably ham-handed look at serious teen issues since The Great Sexting Hilarity Of Ought-Nine. Today, Coach Kaz makes a desperate plea for sanity by pointing out that his own barbed wire tattoo is a constant embarrassment to him and everyone around him. The biggest tragedy about it is that its presence makes him conflicted about rolling up his sleeves to show off his awesome biceps, so he only does that about 60 percent of the time! But anyway, he’s neglecting an important point, which is that barbed wire tattoos are tacky and gross, while getting a tattoo of your high school’s old-school sports logo is cool. Sorry, Kaz, you’re just humiliated yourself for nothing!

Crankshaft, 1/4/12

I’m pretty sure that Rose (mother of Jeff) was introduced to Crankshaft when Crankshaft (father of Pam) accidentally became marginally likable, thus offending the strip’s core anti-old-people fanbase. I’m not sure how exactly her complaining about her new bedroom smothers out anyone’s joy, but maybe Jeff just hears “something something your mother is terrible something” and goes into his rote, dead-eyed spiel.

Hi and Lois, 1/4/12

Oh, look, Lois the Realtor was just about to close a sale — not an easy task in the wake of the housing bubble bursting — when Ditto just had to talk to her about, I don’t know, his homework or his feelings or whatever. Hope you enjoy generic mac and cheese and community college, Ditto! His sister is much more practical and cold-blooded. The sight of her narrowing her eyes and muttering “She has business to do” ought to terrify you.

Ziggy, 1/4/12

Uh oh, looks like the Ziggy’s fish is finally launching his long–awaited war against the wretched air-breathers that he hates so much! I thought we had a chance, but that was before today, when we learned that the tentacled and terrible Great Old Ones were on his side.

Dick Tracy, 1/4/12

Ever since the Dick Tracy reboot, we’ve been forced to contemplate whether it’s been true to the spirit of the strip’s history, and today we have our answer. The Dick Tracy I know would never follow up “Spike Jr.’s different from most” with anything other than “and that makes him a dangerous subversive who must be neutralized.”

Archie, 1/4/12

As Archie Andrews awoke one morning after disturbing dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.