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Curtis, 4/12/10

I’ve been wondering for the last couple weeks where the “Flyspeck Island peanuts give you psychic powers” plotline in Curtis was going, and now I know: fulsome praise for a terrifying Orwellian police state where one isn’t even safe in the confines of one’s own skull.

Marvin, 4/12/10

Marvin is taking a break from the poop jokes to bring us hilarious gags about old people in sad, loveless marriages, to which I say: bring back the poop jokes.

Family Circus, 4/12/10

“But until then, we’re letting Barfy crap all over the lawn.”

(See, Marvin? It’s so easy!)

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Panel from Mark Trail, 2/21/10

Mark Trail has offered us few sights more adorable of late than this vision of a drunken lorikeet, the universal comics symbols for inebriation swirling about its befeathered head, woozily flying back to its companions after drinking up all the palm wine it can find. Mark himself of course does not drink, and only allows himself to be intoxicated by the sweeping vistas of America’s natural landscape; however, he seems more amused than judgmental over alcoholism among our animal friends.

Panel from Curtis, 2/21/10

Meanwhile, in Curtis, Gunk has taken an ill-advised trip to a factory farm, the horror of which has shocked his eye-sockets into the horizontal arrangement normally favored by humans. But at what cost? The pain of the reconfiguration appears to have been excruciating. If I ever see his puffy eyelids and pinkish irises again, it will be too soon.

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Shoe, 2/1/10

Say what you will about Funky Winkerbean, but at least it’s totally upfront with its non-stop cavalcade of misery. Some strips hide a core of intense gloom that occasionally peeks out from underneath the cheery front end of a gag-a-day strip. Take today’s Shoe, for instance. The Perfesser thought-balloons that “mama said there’d be days like this” as his morning alarm goes off. In other words, he’s already written the day off as terrible in his first few seconds of wakefulness. “Oh, look, I didn’t die painlessly in my sleep. Yep, it looks like it’s gonna be one of those days!”

It’s also possible that the alarm has been going off for hours now, and the Perfesser is simply unable to move close enough to the clock to turn it off, due to some combination of obesity and decrepitude.

Gil Thorp, 2/1/10

Like many an angry, aimless dropout of his generation, Steve Luhm uses sarcasm to get in little digs at his elders that they’re too irony-deficient to catch. “My dad taught me there’s honor in any job if you work at hard at it … even coaching! And you know what’s a good sign that someone’s a hard worker? When they just hand off part of their workload to some other random person at the first opportunity! Anyway, I’ll be sure to thank my dad for that pearl of wisdom.”

Judge Parker, 2/1/10

Speaking of sarcasm, the Judge Parker narration box’s is particularly transparent today. At breakfast, Sam is still talking about Neddy’s live-in boyfriend! Still! The guy just will not shut up about it! Come on, dude, move on into the 21st century with the rest of us, OK?

Curtis, 2/1/10

I admit to being charmed by the enormous unblinking eye on Michelle’s t-shirt today. Curtis’s romantic ardor must be intense indeed, as it would instill a major case of the heebie-jeebies in the soul of a lesser suitor.

Luann, 2/1/10

Wait, they wish they had more time together? Every time we see them in this God-damned strip, they’re endless hashing out the terms of their perfectly gross relationship. Admittedly, each panel featuring Brand and/or Toni is one that doesn’t feature Luann and/or Gunther, but one shouldn’t have to settle for the lesser evil. Why not just retool the strip around Knute, Puddles the dog, Shannon, and Mr. Fogarty, and do everyone a favor?

Mary Worth, 2/1/10

Dear young people everywhere: do not ask either of your parents why he or she cannot forget a past lover unless you want to hear things about his or her past sexytimes that will shake you to your core. Fortunately, Wilbur is such a negative nelly that he goes straight to the arguments while meaningfully adjusting his glasses, though this may only presage tomorrow’s vivid recounting of the mind-blowing post-argument make-up sex. The description will blow Dawn’s socks off, assuming that purple bands of gauze wrapped around the middle of one’s feet can be said to constitute “socks.”