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Pluggers and Dennis the Menace, 2/4/13

Yup, it’s true: somethings “just happen,” no matter how much you’d like them not to! Take nudity, for instance. Some people are just “born that way,” and by “some people” we mean “literally everybody, every single person ever is born completely naked, with their genitals just out there for anyone to look at.” So filthy! So disgusting! So hard to understand. Eventually, we get old enough to understand the concept of shame — “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” — and we look back at our early, exposed days in horror, but we can’t blot them out with a crayon, no matter how hard we try. The Fall of Man, Dennis: that’s the most menacing thing there is.

Apartment 3-G, 2/4/13

I had a good laugh over the idea of a generic “Manhattan General Hospital,” but it turns out it’s a real thing! Or was. Was a real thing. It merged with Beth Israel Medical Center, in 1964. So I’m assuming that these nurses in their archaic caps are looking for Tommie to warn her that she’s fallen victim to some kind of space-time wormhole and she needs to be very careful not to alter the course of history based on her future knowledge, lest she cause universe-destroying paradoxes.

Mark Trail, 2/4/13

Look, Rusty, you’ve finally gotten to go on a fishing trip with Mark! Too bad it’s a “working trip,” which means you’ve got to scramble around taking pictures for Mark’s article, in violation of all child labor laws! Also, you’re probably going to be kidnapped by “Catfish”, FYI.

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Mary Worth, 1/25/13

You guys, John and Mary aren’t just practicing baking a cake. That’s only a part of the elaborate stagecraft that goes into Santa Royale’s elite cake-baking contest! They also have to carry their cake from one place to another, and are thus quite sensibly going through a trial run of that as well. Probably in real life the reason this stack of tins is the exact same color as the practice cakes Mary and John have been making is because the colorists can’t be bothered to distinguish among the various cylindrical objects the strip’s been featuring over the past few weeks (additional data point: freestanding set of cookbooks, all the same dull steel grey), but I’d like to believe that John carefully painted each tin after filling them with odds and ends, for added verisimilitude.

Dennis the Menace, 1/25/13

Good lord, Dennis is one of those people who go around smugly informing everyone that they don’t watch TV. Menacing factor: Increased!

Pluggers, 1/25/13

COME ON PLUGGERS YOU HAVE MULTIPLE CHARACTERS THAT AREN’T DOG-MEN WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US

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Funky Winkerbean, 1/15/13

Funky Winkerbean Is The Most Depressing Long-Form Work Of Art Ever Created, Chapter 923: two happily married young people with no major current traumas (though plenty of traumas lurking in their past, obviously, not all of which I can remember right now, why is there not a specialized wiki online with articles for each Funkyverse character explaining the specific awfulness they’ve suffered) are having a pleasant evening at home, and express contentment, but that contentment is tempered by an overwhelming sense that any fleeting moment of happiness will immediately be destroyed by the hateful God of Sadness who rules over all. It’s a recurring theme in this strip! And lo, it has come true in panel three, with … a call from Darrin’s mother? Isn’t Darrin’s mother (his mother who adopted him as an infant, not his biological mother, who was LISA who DIED OF CANCER very soon after she and Darrin reconnected with one another) the nice lady who helped coach the girl’s basketball team last year? Why would they fear a phone call from her? Well, I’m sure there will be reasons. Terribly and arbitrarily depressing reasons. Get ready for a dramatic roller-coaster ride this week! (Is it still a roller-coaster ride when you only go down?)

Better Half, 1/15/13

In contrast, this shockingly frank panel is almost hopeful. Mental illness cannot be cured by mere aphorisms! Seek help from a licensed professional!

Mary Worth, 1/15/13

AT LAST, THE DRAMATIC CONFLICT IN MARY WORTH! Mary has been asked to help John design his cakes for his entry in the contest, but John is maybe deciding he’d rather do it on his own and will try passive-aggressively to extricate himself from Mary’s mentorship! Will their pairing end amicably, or will it be mildly socially awkward? Don’t miss a single panel of pulse-pounding action, be sure to order home delivery of every newspaper you can, just in case one gets lost!

Dennis the Menace, 1/15/13

Dad’s job is soul-killing grind, where he neither learns anything nor grows professionally.