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Sunday serials mostly summarize the preceding week — apparently newspapers put the interests of decent Sunday-only and weekday-only subscribers over those of degenerate free-rider Internet obsessives. Thanks a lot, newspapers! Here we go:

Apartment 3-G, 3/25/12

This week’s Apartment 3-G “action” consists of Tommie asking Nina Gaines if she wants to take a walk. While we wait for her answer (give it a month or so), consider that poor Nina is trying to balance her commitment to a career with loyalty to her insensitive clod of a husband amid a storm of powerful lady-hormones that make her weep uncontrollably over every little thing.

Compared to the motivations that drive principal characters Lu Ann (“Shiny!”), Margo (“Blood!”), and Tommie (“What?”), this makes Nina the most complex, nuanced character in Apartment 3-G — its Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, and Hedda Gabler. She really deserves her own strip, maybe teamed up with Professor Papagoras fighting crime or rescuing pets.

Mary Worth, 3/25/12

Whoa, here’s an unexpected development! Long months after their encounter in the shopping district, Nola remains rooted to her park bench, paralyzed by shame. Smithers — now sober and wiser, his tear-stained tie traded for a snappy cap, and CEO of his own environmental-services startup — returns to help her move on: “Nola, my life as Sales VP was a desperate, lonely wasteland until your lies led me to a greater truth. Because of you I have found enlightenment and peace, so thank you, thank you, my sweet, wonderful *&@#%$!”

Dick Tracy, 3/25/12

Aww, we’ve been neglecting this strip since its conversion to representational art and narrative coherence. Here, criminal gargoyle Blackjack takes a break from his crime spree for some strategic Dick Tracy-related product placement.

Judge Parker, 3/25/12

Hey, remember that story in Judge Parker? The one about the black sedan tailing Li’l Judge Randy and his Walther PPK and the botched murder attempt and how April Bower was implicated and that showdown with the mysterious lady assassin? The story that’s been going on since September, 2010? You do remember it? Well, forget it.

That’s it for me — Josh will be back Monday with a frothy mix of comics, COTW, and all the rich Joshy goodness we’ve come to know and love. Thanks for a fun week!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Dick Tracy, 1/17/12

Hey, everybody, the Dick Tracy gang is on the case, going undercover in a hip (?) nightclub to track down an actual gang, of the drug-smuggling variety, who something something son of old friend of Dick yadda yadda guy named Cueball blah blah cocaine hidden in instrument cases. (Hint to the cops: There are two Cueballs, or Cueball has a twin, or something!) Anyhoo, I mainly want to bring your attention to the little explanatory label in the first panel. Normally these kinds of boxes-with-arrows in Dick Tracy are used to identify bits of improbable high-tech crime-fighting gear, but today’s example mostly seems to be all about assuring us that our law enforcement officers aren’t having even the slightest bit of fun on their mission, so please let’s not have Internal Affairs auditing our expenses, please.

Luann, 1/17/12

Oh snap Ann Eiffel just outed TJ! Or maybe she just intended to insult him in a somewhat homophobic and mildly actionable manner? Either way, even though we’re only like two days into it, I think Ann vs. TJ is going to be less fun than I’d hoped, like everything else that ever happened in Luann ever.

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Gil Thorp, 1/4/12

So far this basketball season storyline has been all about the epidemic of tattoo-getting among Milford’s student-athletes at a sketchy tattoo parlor that occupies the extremely small part of the Venn diagram where “Pays rent on a downtown storefront” and “Will tattoo minors without parental permission” overlap! It promises to be the most laughably ham-handed look at serious teen issues since The Great Sexting Hilarity Of Ought-Nine. Today, Coach Kaz makes a desperate plea for sanity by pointing out that his own barbed wire tattoo is a constant embarrassment to him and everyone around him. The biggest tragedy about it is that its presence makes him conflicted about rolling up his sleeves to show off his awesome biceps, so he only does that about 60 percent of the time! But anyway, he’s neglecting an important point, which is that barbed wire tattoos are tacky and gross, while getting a tattoo of your high school’s old-school sports logo is cool. Sorry, Kaz, you’re just humiliated yourself for nothing!

Crankshaft, 1/4/12

I’m pretty sure that Rose (mother of Jeff) was introduced to Crankshaft when Crankshaft (father of Pam) accidentally became marginally likable, thus offending the strip’s core anti-old-people fanbase. I’m not sure how exactly her complaining about her new bedroom smothers out anyone’s joy, but maybe Jeff just hears “something something your mother is terrible something” and goes into his rote, dead-eyed spiel.

Hi and Lois, 1/4/12

Oh, look, Lois the Realtor was just about to close a sale — not an easy task in the wake of the housing bubble bursting — when Ditto just had to talk to her about, I don’t know, his homework or his feelings or whatever. Hope you enjoy generic mac and cheese and community college, Ditto! His sister is much more practical and cold-blooded. The sight of her narrowing her eyes and muttering “She has business to do” ought to terrify you.

Ziggy, 1/4/12

Uh oh, looks like the Ziggy’s fish is finally launching his long–awaited war against the wretched air-breathers that he hates so much! I thought we had a chance, but that was before today, when we learned that the tentacled and terrible Great Old Ones were on his side.

Dick Tracy, 1/4/12

Ever since the Dick Tracy reboot, we’ve been forced to contemplate whether it’s been true to the spirit of the strip’s history, and today we have our answer. The Dick Tracy I know would never follow up “Spike Jr.’s different from most” with anything other than “and that makes him a dangerous subversive who must be neutralized.”

Archie, 1/4/12

As Archie Andrews awoke one morning after disturbing dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.