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Gil Thorp, 3/31/12

Sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date on the spring storyline in Gil Thorp! (Or, for you Thorpophobes: Sorry I’m about to bring you up to date on the spring storyline in Gil Thorp!) The softball team has been roiled by a standoffish new girl who’s only standoffish to protect a mysterious secret (HER SECRET: she is a teen mom), which I’m sure will be wacky at some point in the future but right now it’s kind of enh. What drew my eye to today’s strip was the second panel. Most of us probably wouldn’t deem five vultures hovering menacingly over the baseball field a “good sign” for the season. My guess is that, having failed at coaching via conventional means, Gil and Coach Kaz have decided to study the ancient art of augury, which the Romans used to divine the future by studying the flight patterns of birds, in order to defeat their enemies and gain the favor of the gods. This will go great, up until the inevitable lawsuit from Americans United for the Separation of Pagan Temple and State.

Mary Worth, 3/31/12

Now here’s an interesting plot twist! This scene of Nola weeping disconsolately in public, pleasing though it is, surely isn’t the last we’re going to see of her; so why the sudden shift to Mary and Jeff (the latter in his sweet letterman jacket), sitting at home watching This Week In Disgraced Televangelists on the Schadenfreude Channel? Perhaps there’s a link between weeping Nola and her biblical-esque parable, failed monogamist Johnny Thomas, and these helpful words from Jesus from earlier this month? My guess: Nola and Johnny will find their way back to righteousness together, after they have illicit sex.

Dennis the Menace, 3/31/12

Mr. Wilson has finally decided to kill Dennis, with insecticide.

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Dennis the Menace, 3/13/12

Hmm, Dennis boasts about being completely uninterested in loving, magical bonding moments with his father, and also convinces the presumably illiterate Joey that books are a load of dull crap? +5 menacing points! (This total would be higher if I knew for sure that his dad was within earshot, weeping.)

Six Chix, 3/13/12

Does anyone else remember the episode of Facts of Life where Tootie almost decides to lose her virginity in the backseat of a car with some dude, but then changes her mind at the last minute? And she gets into the car wearing a trenchcoat over some ostensibly sexy but actually off-putting frill-and-bow covered ’80s lingerie-harness? Anyway, I certainly hope that this far-too-media-savvy child eventually encounters this episode on YouTube and learns a thing or two.

Spider-Man, 3/13/12

So, the past few — days? it seems like so much longer — of the Thor portion of the current Spider-Man storyline can now be summed up like this:

Thor: Forsooth, Heimdall, this faire lady is dying, and to save her I must prithee ask thee in bullshit fake-o historically/geographically/culturally inappropriate Old Timey English to let me pass!

Heimdall: Nay, my brother, Odin hast charged me with preventing you from re-entering Asgard.

Thor: But the lady! Let me pass!

Heimdall: Nay!

[repeat this way too many times]

Thor: No, but seriously dude, let me in.

Heimdall: Enh, fine, whatever.

ACTION! ADVENTURE! EXCITEMENT!!!

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Family Circus, 3/11/12

The Keane Kids’ responsibility-dodging spirits vie with the Billy’s dotted-line trails for the title of the Family Circus’s most iconic gag. Still, while Ida Know and Not Me are fairly well known, I don’t think Nobody shows up so often, which may explain why I was so surprised and horrified by his creepy mustache. I mean, the mustache and the hat already combine to make him look like your slightly skeevy uncle, if your slightly skeevy uncle were three feet tall and a ghost; but, since he has no visible nose or mouth, the mustache is just a stripe of hair across a mostly featureless face, which is completely terrifying to me.

On the other hand, I approve of the way that the children and their daemons have been lined up against the wall, since it appears that Mommy has finally had enough and is just going to have them executed by firing squad for their dish-breaking crimes.

Crankshaft, 3/11/12

Longtime readers of the Funkyverse strips know that one of that fictional universe’s most prominent characteristics is the relentless and omnipresent punning. Today, however, we see that this behavior may in fact have an evolutionary advantage. The first three panels of the strip feature Jeff getting increasingly angry at yet another instance of injustice, looking like he’s about to strangle someone or at least suffer a major coronary event. But in the final panel, Pam’s terrible bit of wordplay seems to have flummoxed him, knocking him out of his rage-cycle and leaving him in a state of slant-mouthed confusion. How many lives were saved by her quick, corny thinking?

Dennis the Menace, 3/11/12

We spend a lot of time worrying about whether Dennis has lost his menacing vibe, but what of Mr. Wilson? One might worry that the lack of a worthy antagonist has caused the old man to lose his edge. But fear not, as today he manages to implant in Dennis that special shiver of existential terror we all get when we first realize that we, too, will grow old and die. I dearly hope that the otherwise unexplained photo of Dennis in the opening throwaway panel represents a Portrait of Dorian Grey-style magical object, which will wither and age while Dennis stays young, until it comes time for the Devil to reap his soul; that would be menacing indeed.

Panel from Mary Worth, 3/11/12

Well, Nola, if you won’t listen to good advice from John Lennon, maybe Jesus will talk some sense into you, hmm? If nothing else, the relative efficacy of these two quotes may resolve some longstanding debates.