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Mary Worth, 4/14/10

Oh ho, compulsive shopping, everybody! That’s what this Mary Worth storyline is about! Compulsive shopping at comically misspelled stores like “Maisie’s” (which is totally not at all related to Macy★s Department Stores, a brand that would never encourage its customers to spend beyond their means, ha ha, please don’t sue us). When all is said and done here, Mary might look back on this shopping expedition with a bit of guilt, but probably won’t because she lacks self-awareness of any kind.

By the way, Bonnie, I recommend that you take Mary up on her offer and formulate your own ideas on how she can help you break out of your terrible shopoholism. Any treatment plan she designs on her own will involve gathering her friends to berate and insult you until you kill yourself out of shame.

Apartment 3-G, 4/14/10

Sad as I am that this plotline will apparently end without a single shot being fired, I do sort of like the casual way Martin has taken advantage of Bobbie’s distraction to disarm her, almost as if this is a scenario that played out dozens of times during their marriage. In fact, it would be extra hilarious if he went upstairs and informed Gabriella that he and his wife had rediscovered the spark in their relationship and that his proposal to her was hereby retracted.

Margo, meanwhile, has presumably dozed off on the floor, just as she did as a kid when Roberta would get all pill-happy and gun-crazy. Doesn’t hanging out with our parents always bring us back to our childhood behaviors?

Mark Trail, 4/14/10

So not only has former blond Adonis Buzz Miller been turned prematurely white-haired, but now Senator Pimphand, who once sported a dignified grey mane that belied his propensity for violence, has now subsequently rediscovered the russet locks of his youth! I think that we may be onto something very big here: Senator Slaps-a-Lot is actually stealing the life-energy of his constituents, like poor Ranger Miller. This vampiristic misdeed will make Senator Other Senator’s little Endangered Species Steakhouse operation look like small potatoes.

Crankshaft, 4/14/10

I have no idea what Jeff’s terrible lopsided facial expression in the final panel is supposed to denote. I’m guessing it’s “Oh my God, I am physically incapable of not making terrible unfunny puns, please, somebody stop me, I hate myself so much,” but it may also be “I am so high on prescription drugs — which were, uh, ‘in the water supply’ — that I cannot feel my face.”

Pluggers, 4/14/10

Deep down, pluggers know that they cannot replace their long-lost intimate life with their spouses with eating, endless eating, but that won’t stop them from trying.

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Funky Winkerbean, 4/6/10

A layperson might believe that Funky Winkerbean has already extracted the maximum amount of misery possible out of its characters and settings, but rest assured that the Pain Scientists over at Westview Industries are working hard at pushing the envelope of pure torture. It is of course pathetic that this grease-stained fast food subchain is the only place where FW characters can be happy (presumably they’re mistaking the sated albeit somewhat bloated feeling that comes from eating the pizza, combined with the absence of immediate physical pain, for “happiness”), but it’s all they’ve got. And now even that’s being taken away from them! Montoni’s will go bankrupt and all of you losers will be forced to morosely pick through dumpsters for sustenance! Ha ha ha!

One of the fascinating things about today’s strip is that it contains the structure of a joke without any even nominal humor content. It would have maybe worked if Funky (and yes, it took me a minute to work it out, but I’m pretty sure that’s Funky calling from the accountants’ office, and not some accountant placing a mafia-style phone call with no proper nouns and vague, unspecified threats) had claimed that Montoni’s was “guilty of insolvency” or something. As it is, it appears that Funky and Holly are each deploying a mismatched half of a desultory pun-couplet of the sort that marginally leavens the bleak horror of the Funkyverse, leaving them (and us) confused as well as depressed.

Crankshaft, 4/6/10

Meanwhile, over in the “fun” Funkyverse strip, suddenly single Crankshaft has decided to look for love online. The expression settling on his face in panel two as he realizes that nobody likes him is utterly priceless.

Judge Parker, 4/6/10

Speaking of priceless expressions of despair, check out Sam slowly morphing into a sad-eyed Margaret Keane painting in panel three. “He’s wearing the same color of minty green as I am … but he looks so much more attractive and carefree in it than I do! Damn you, you handsome, leonine-haired young buck!”

Hi and Lois, 4/6/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because they’re going to be sleeping in their car!

Pluggers, 4/6/10

Pluggers could die at any time, anywhere they park their lazy asses, and nobody would care much, or even notice.

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Hi everyone! Yes, I’m back, and Uncle Lumpy’s reign is over, as you can tell by this totally-posted-in-the-early-evening update to the site. As our good Uncle so aptly put it in the wee hours of yesterday morning: “Josh, amiright?” Anyway, thanks go to my illustrious pinch hitter, and HUGE thanks go to everyone who contributed in the pledge drive (though of course each and every one of you will be getting personal thank-yous in the next few days).

Part of what delays me, as ever, is my obsessive-compulsive need to read at least the high points of the strips I missed! Here’s one panel that jumped out at me, fairly aggressively:

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/27/10

“Garage painting” is of course a euphemism for oral pleasures of long standing in this strip, so what this panel is revealing is that Rex and June and planning on holding their dewy young layabout houseguests hostage, as sex slaves. Either that, or Nikki did a really, really bad job painting the garage, since that all happened, what, three weeks ago, in strip time?

Meanwhile, America’s Teen Sweethearts offered material of more philosophical interest:

Panel from Luann, 3/26/10

Here, Tiffany offers an intriguing analysis of the experience that staged drama brings to its audience; Brecht would be proud of this description of a play as both intensely real and transparently false.

But the most important thing that happened in the world of the comics last week didn’t happen in the funny pages, but in movie theaters, where the full-length Marmaduke trailer finally dropped:

That of course is Oscar nominee William H. Macy as the subject of not one but two getting-hit-in-the-nuts jokes. Perhaps this year he’ll finally take home that golden statue (in the newly created “most times hit in nuts by CGI dog” category). Just keep telling yourself “It’s only fake real.”

And now! There were also comics today! Let’s get on it!

Apartment 3-G, 3/29/10

While I usually find the art in this strip pretty blah, I actually think Ari’s stunned silence in the final panel is quite effectively executed. He’s probably supposed to be figuring out how exactly he can avoid the violent episode Bobbie’s about to perpetrate onto him, but I’d like to believe that he’s more concerned about all those scripts he wrote. “Wait, she’s not taking the pills? The beautiful, delicious pills I so thoughtfully prescribed for her? This relationship is nothing but a mountain of lies!”

Dennis the Menace, 3/29/10

When Dennis joined a new church, one whose services featured glossolalia and snake-handling, he finally found the immediate and ecstatic connection to God that he had been searching for his entire childhood. Still, the suit-clad WASP squares at his parents’ Episcopal congregation sure found it menacing.

Judge Parker, 3/29/10

Oh, this battle for Neddy’s love/purity is going to be delightful! I can’t wait to see what sort of snide comment her fashion-world boyfriend has in store for Sam’s epically minty argyle sweater.

Luann, 3/29/10

Back to the fake real! Turns out that theater prodigies Luann and Quill were only capable of creating on-stage romantic chemistry because of their mutual lust for their shared pale good looks. Now that they’ve been transformed into non-Aryans via stagecraft wizardry, they’re no longer attracted to one another, and the play will bomb.

Crankshaft, 3/29/10

I may have missed the thrill-o-coaster that was last week’s “Mary returns a blouse,” but by God I will be here for each and every delicious minute of “Crankshaft gets dumped.”