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Panels from Dennis the Menace, 1/30/11

In one of his most menacing acts in recent memory, Dennis taunts a snowman about its imminent demise.

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 1/30/11

Sunday’s A3G pretty much just rehashes the past week’s action, but I like this panel because it illustrates that Lu Ann has finally found someone to date who’s dumber than she is. “Now I’m not so sure. What do you think, Lu Ann? My thinks aren’t coming out of my think-place, for some reason. Maybe if I tap at it with my thumb? Come out, thinks! Come out!”

Panel from Beetle Bailey, 1/30/11

Is that … is that supposed to be a fax machine? Have the artists behind Beetle Bailey ever seen a fax machine, or any other object that occupies real physical space?

Panel from Dick Tracy, 1/30/11

The Crimestoppers Textbook makes it seem that not giving out your personal information is just a simple matter of, you know, not giving out your personal information, but the look of total devastation on this poor sap’s face tells a different story. “Oh no, they asked for my Social Security number! I guess I have no choice but to give it to them. Soon my credit rating will be destroyed! Curse you, clever identity thieves!”

Narration box from Mary Worth, 1/30/11

If you ever find it impossible to adequately describe the heart-pounding roller coaster ride that is Mary Worth, just refer to this narration box, which pretty much encapsulates this week’s thrills in a neat package.

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Welcome back, everybody! Did you enjoy your holiday week off? I did, but as ever I must submit to the siren song of the comics! How did our favorite characters spend the week?

Apartment 3-G, 12/27/10

Well, over at Apartment 3-G, Lu Ann realized with a sinking feeling that she never should have trampily exposed that shoulder if she expected to win the heart of his altar boy. Would she just burst into flames if she entered Paul’s church? Better not risk it!

Apartment 3-G, 12/29/10

Also, just FYI, never, ever speak ill of Margo’s building if you want to live.

Curtis, 12/29/10

Curtis’s annual Kwanztraavaganza is featuring less insane hallucinogenic ancient African magic and more depressing modern American unemployment, which is a bummer. But at least the protagonist has a horrifying jawless lamprey-dog as a pet. That counts for something, right?

Mark Trail, 12/29/10

Over in Mark Trail, our hero seems to be learning about this thing called “flirting.”

Funky Winkerbean, 1/1/11

And in Funky Winkerbean, Les’s two ladies finally realized that he’s in love with a dead woman, and now they will give up their fruitless and baffling pursuit of him. (Ha ha, just kidding, they still want to sex him up for reasons no sane person could ever comprehend.)

Mary Worth and Spider-Man, 1/1/11

2011 brought us not one but two wonderful weddings: one solemnized under the watchful glower of Mary Worth, and one made more festive by an endless river of silent, inhuman monsters. Happy New Year, everybody! The bestial fiends of Subterranea are coming to devour you!

Panel from Dick Tracy, 1/2/11

Back on the surface, Dick Tracy’s Crimestoppers Textbook seems to be really, really reaching for crimes to stop.

Anyway, expect 2011 here at the Comics Curmudgeon to bring you basically the same awesomeness that you’ve been getting for nearly seven years now, unless of course the newspaper comics industry completely collapses, in which case I’ll turn the whole thing into a Mary Worth fetish porn site. Happy New Year to you all! And check those receipts! ERRORS DO OCCUR.

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Dick Tracy, 12/8/10

Oh, hey, Dick Tracy has been happening! The new plot involves Dick taking an inhuman maniac mass murderer, who’s wearing a terrifying gimp mask that also kind of looks like a toaster, to his sentencing, for reasons too unrealistic and dumb to go into here. However, I thought today’s strip was worth mentioning because of Dick’s dialogue in panel one — “Doctor, or whatever you are.” “I mean, I didn’t look at your CV or anything before they put you, draped and shackles and fetish gear, in the back of my low-slung sedan. Are you a medical doctor? Should I call you ‘professor’? Alls I know is that a depraved monster like you had to come out of the so-called ‘higher education’ system.”

Judge Parker, 12/8/10

Sam being garden variety smug about his wealth and privilege is all good fun. But Sam being smug about how his friend Judge Parker wrote especially erotic sex scenes involving his fictional stand-in, “Hank Austin,” and a beautiful assassin? That’s … that’s kind of gross, actually.

Mary Worth, 12/8/10

Obviously Jill’s drunken tirade wasn’t going to end nicely, with her storming out in a huff. I think that we all should have realized that the only way she was going to leave this hideously decorated reception hall was by being dragged out bodily, raving like a lunatic, clinging to her precious, precious bottle of wine. As usual, Jill’s apparent emotional state is all over the map: in the first panel she’s all rage, but in panel two she looks genuinely terrified, convinced that Adrian is making a terrible, fatal mistake. She reminds me of nothing so much as the final scene in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers:

YOU’RE NEXT, ADRIAN! YOU’RE NEXT! Foolish Jill — did you not realize that you’re already in a room full of pod people?

Pluggers, 12/8/10

Dear Pluggers: If you’re trying to make a double entendre like this, keep in mind that we look at the cartoon before we read the caption, which kind of ruins the effect. Also: never, ever make a double entendre again, for reals.