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Family Circus, 3/28/18

So all week Family Circus has been doing a “Daddy’s boss is coming to visit!” storyline, which has featured Ma Keane in particular in just a state of constant anxiety about, I guess, the state of the house and the presence of four unruly and (let’s be honest) unattractive children. Her level of freakout seems WILDLY out of proportion to the actual situation, and today’s panel — which would make next to no sense if you didn’t know the context — even more so. Like, can Ma Keane even hear what Dolly is saying from this distance? Does she really think her husband’s boss is going to insist that, now that a five-year-old child has invited her to stay for dinner, the Keanes are honor-bound to feed her? Honestly the only way this all fits together is if Thel has been suspecting for years that Big Daddy Keane was having an affair with his boss, and in this panel he’s just gotten finished telling her that they’re running off together, tonight.

Judge Parker, 3/28/18

Hey, remember Toni Bowen, the network news’s main reporter on the Spencer-Driver beat, who brought America both the “Neddy has violated OSHA rules in so many ways” story and the “April is a international criminal, just not the way everyone thinks” story? And then she got fired? Well, she and Sam have bumped into each other down at the supermarket, and the sexual tension is palpable! The only question remaining is how exactly April, who’s still Randy’s wife and is keeping remote tabs on him via his own security systems and is also a literal assassin, is going to assassinate Toni, to death, until she’s dead.

Dennis the Menace, 3/28/18

I mean … I guess I’m not married to the Dennis the Menace brand, but I still think it’s a little late to pivot to an “old people do the darndest things” model, even if the readership is like 90% old people at this point.

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Mary Worth, 3/19/18

Hmm, how does Mary Worth fare on the suddenly very relevant Soap Opera Comic Museum Verisimilitude Test? Well, significantly worse than The Phantom, which meticulously reconstructed a room at the Met for its protagonist to ruminate sourly in. It turns out that Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is in the Uffizi just to the left of the same artist’s Pallas and the Centaur, and not, as today’s Mary Worth would have you believe, next to Some Trees Or Whatever.

Spider-Man, 3/19/18

Oh, man, remember the tense drama that arose in this strip when, for for reasons that were explained in only the sketchiest of ways, Bruce Banner could no longer turn into the Hulk? Well, good news: now he can turn into the Hulk again, with no attempt to explain it at all.

Crankshaft, 3/19/18

Don’t get your hopes up, people. Last year’s Funky Winkerbean strip where we finally had it confirmed that Crankshaft’s moldering husk is still technically alive in the ten-years-ahead section of the Funkyverse’s fractured chronology wasn’t just weird and distasteful; it also robbed us of even fleeting moments of anticipation that Crankshaft might actually die in his own title strip.

Dennis the Menace, 3/19/18

The vision of a child stuffing cookie after cookie into his mouth from a trash can infested with chittering vermin as he mutters “Still clean enough, still clean enough for me,” is … uh, menacing, yes, let’s say that.

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Blondie, 3/11/18

I was going to say that this reads like someone who’s never worked in an office making jokes about what working in an office is like based on things they’ve read or seen on TV, but then I thought about “Yeah, this water won’t drink itself!” and now I think it’s someone who’s never spoken to another human being making jokes about things human beings say based on what they’ve read or seen on TV.

Mary Worth, 3/11/18

Soooo, this strip has the distinct vibe of wrapping up this storyline, and if that’s the case all I can say is wow. If there’s a lesson we’re supposed to learn here, I guess it’s that if you try to use your skills for profit, you’re a whore and you’ll be treated like one, so the best course of action is to dedicate yourself to God and His representatives on Earth, and also not ever tell anybody about the time some guy tried to rape you because who’d be interested anyhow?

Dennis the Menace, 3/11/18

Not sure what’s more menacing: that Mr. Wilson is going to teach Dennis phrases that signal solidarity with bigots without being overtly racist, or that he’s going to trick him into summoning a vast pack of hungry dogs who will devour him.