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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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Crock, 10/17/11

It may demolish everything you hold dear to hear this, but, when I go on vacation, I often don’t catch up on many of the comics that otherwise make up my daily rotation. I mean, obviously I need to keep up to date on every bizarre moment in Gil Thorp (OMG THERE IS AN ASPERGER’S SYNDROME STORYLINE YOU GUYS FOOTBALL SEASON MAY GET GOOD/HORRIFYINGLY ILL-CONCEIVED YET), but, you know, I usually don’t feel like I really need to check in with all the Crocks I missed just for completeness’s sake. And yet today’s installment left me scrambling through the archives, desperate to figure out if, as the word “still” in the opening word balloon here implies, that there was some sort of ongoing plot involving the two hotbox prisoners finally going insane due to heat and isolation. But no, there’s no explanation, really, except maybe this, which only makes sense if the prisoners in the hotboxes are also vultures. Which seems insane, but, when you think about it, no more insane than the idea that one of the hotbox prisoners is having a psychotic break in which several cultural touchstones from the 1980s and 1990s merge together to form some kind of spectacularly unfunny punchline-like utterance. But focusing on the details here causes us to miss the important big picture, which is: don’t do drugs, kids, for serious.

Spider-Man, 10/17/11

I understand and respect those who simply cannot work up the energy to deal with newspaper Spider-Man on its incredibly inane terms, but really, panel two does remind me why I love it so. I’m trying to parse precisely what kind of dumb Spidey is supposed to be exhibiting here; my guess is that he truly believes that MJ has spontaneously acquired spider-sensing powers, which comes as an enormous shock to him because he knows better than anyone else that his supposed supposed spider-sense doesn’t actually exist.

Slylock Fox, 10/17/11

Fun fact for you: frogs and toads are no longer considered distinct groupings by biologists. The order Anura embraces all frogs and toads; any species of that order that lives most of its life on land is labelled a “toad,” but these species don’t have a single common ancestor distinct from the common ancestor of everything in Anura. I found this out while doing a bit of research to come up with a joke about this strip. Slylock Fox may call itself “Comics for Kids,” but I’m 37 years old and I still learned something from it! So I feel a little churlish pointing out that today’s puzzle’s solution hinges on something of a scientific inaccuracy, and furthermore that said solution focuses on the amphibian life cycle and yet the illustrative comic includes a frog with a belly button.

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Crock, 9/13/11

Usually it’s difficult to impossible to get more than basic plot information out of most of the squiggle-things that make up your average Crock, but I have to admit that the facial expression in panel two of today’s installment really sells the joke for me. Sigfried (side note: did you know that the librarian in Crock is named “Sigfried”? I didn’t! It’s always a joy to realize that the comics still has hidden gems like this to discover) looks genuinely stricken as he confesses his hatred of reading. His hypocrisy must really tear him up inside! It’s either that or, as near as I can tell from the relative heights of the characters in panel one, he’s in agony from standing on his knee-stumps.

Ziggy, 9/13/11

Hello, luddites across the world! Is there piece of modern-day technical wizardry that baffles and terrifies you? Don’t worry, the offending inscrutable character-sequence will be clumsily integrated into a Ziggy joke, for your amusement. Ha ha, take that, “http://,” whatever the hell you are!