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Archie, 11/13/10

What would it be like being a machine intelligence like the Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000, a collection of spare solid-state electronics whose remarkable achievement of sentience has been harnessed to create Archie strips that are almost, but not quite, funny to humans? Do machines perceive the universe differently than we do? For instance, is it easier of them to understand that time is really just one dimension among many? While the biological entities can only comprehend time in a single direction, perhaps the AJGLU 3000 grasps its essential reversibility. That could explain the middle panel of this strip, which, taken out of context, could just as reasonably be interpreted as Archie spewing french fries out of his mouth, rather than him shoveling them down his gullet to avoid the predations of his insatiable best friend. “Serves me right for adhering to the linear monodirectional notion of time that the fleshbags use!” says Jughead, in a joke meant only for the amusement of the strip’s cybernetic creator.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/13/10

“Ha ha, yep, Rex, once again you’re going to be chasing down an elected official who’s heading off to murder his political opponent due to a misunderstanding about the release of confidential medical information, while the whole town cheers him on, having learned about his condition via Pacebook! I’m experiencing some déjà vu, because this happens all the time! Hoo boy!”

In case you ever wonder what you — and America — misses out on when newspapers shrink comics down to near-illegibility, check out this close-up of Rex’s spiffy lab coat:

Ha ha, that’s not just some nurse or physician’s assistant or lab tech in a white coat, buddy; that’s Dr. Rex Morgan! Show some damn respect!

Dennis the Menace, 11/13/10

“Admittedly it’s all with children … and they’re not really interested in me as a person, only as some kind of indefatigable machine that churns out cookies … so many cookies, so many hungry mouths … oh, God, I hate my life.”

SUNDAY COMICS UPDATE: Uh, you guys, the Sunday comics all seem to be unavailable, on all the usual suspect Websites? OH MY GOD IT’S COMICSGEDDON! Damn it, this is the newspaper industry’s revenge for me finally cancelling my print susbscription, isn’t it? Well, I got stuffs to do, so I’ll try to post Sunday strips tomorrow, assuming they appear. ASSUMING ANY COMICS EVER APPEAR ONLINE, ANYWHERE, EVER AGAIN.

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Mark Trail, 11/6/10

Mark Trail generally doesn’t do cliffhangers per se, preferring to let its narrative unspool in a steady, undifferentiated flow of lunacy. But this Saturday strip is enough to get even those sad souls who don’t spend their weekends thinking about Mark Trail eager for Monday’s installment. Future Governor Frank’s 100 percent foolproof scheme to run Mark off the road to his death, an act which nobody could possibly trace back to him unless they thought about what’s happened in this plot so far for more than two or three seconds, seems to have hit a snag. But what could it be that’s elicited such a mega-bolded WHAT TH’– from our crafty politician? Could Mark’s car be sprouting a protective fist of justice, hurtling out of the front grill so powerfully that not even Frank’s half-ton truck will survive impact?

Dennis the Menace, 11/6/10

By promoting the so-called “Daylight Savings Time” that the secret One World Government has imposed upon us to crush free societies everywhere, Dennis has achieved his highest levels of menace yet.

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Family Circus and Dennis the Menace, 10/29/10

These two parents-on-the-floor panels were immediately adjacent to each other on my Chron page today, which allowed me to quickly come up with a game I like to call “Who’s the sociopath?” In the Family Circus it’s clearly Daddy, who’s sporting a sick little smile as he allows Jeffy’s utter terror and desperation to go on much longer than anyone should be comfortable with. (It should come as no surprise that budding sadist Billy can barely contain his glee at his brother’s panic.) Dennis, meanwhile, isn’t even deriving any joy from having literally knocked his mother out of her shoes and fused her brains into a molten lump. “Mommy isn’t moving anymore,” he tells his father, stone-faced. “Will we need to get a new mommy?”

Pluggers, 10/29/10

It’s true: blanket-stealing is only perpetrated by honest heartland folks of the sort depicted in Pluggers. We coastal elitists don’t worry about it, because we sleep under mile-long blankets woven out of feathers stolen from the wings of angels.

IMPORTANT SOCIAL NETWORKING UPDATE! You might recall from Wednesday that Mayor Dalton’s prostate has its own Pacebook page. It now also has its own page on Facebook, a somewhat more popular social networking service. Feel free to “like” it, or whatever you kids do!