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Family Circus, 7/7/15

I love that Dolly has a bible tucked under her arm as she announces that she’d rather chow down on endless Clark Bars in hell than rule in heaven. The implication is that she didn’t even go online to one of several convenient Bible websites to do a text search for “chocolate”; no, she read through the whole thing looking for evidence of her favorite foodstuff and failed to find it, almost as if it had been written by people who lived in the Old World in the time before the Columbian Exchange began. Mostly I’m impressed that she got through an entire book that vividly describes, among other things, gang rape, genocide, incest, and bear magic, and she decided that the absence of chocolate was the hill she was going to die on.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/7/15

I was going to go off on a rant about how dumb and unrealistic this was — did they not put down a deposit? did they not read this guy’s Yelp reviews? does nobody have an iPhone’s worth of music they can just put on shuffle? — but then I got distracted by that link cleverly tucked between the first and second panels. There are a bunch of Funkyverse books, guys! All published by Kent State, a public university, presumably as part of its education mission! There’s one that collects the Crankshaft storylines about Alzheimer’s, and it’s called Roses in December: A Story of Love and Alzheimer’s, even though it actually contains two distinct stories! This is the greatest discovery of my week so far!

Dennis the Menace, 7/7/15

I love the knowing look Henry is flashing the reader here. “Heh heh, it wasn’t a big cake that convinced her to marry me. It was something else big, if you know what I mean! I mean my penis. That something was my penis. I have a big penis.”

Apartment 3-G, 7/7/15

This Apartment 3-G plot may still not make any sense, but at least we get to enjoy Margo trying and failing to coin a sassy new catchphrase. “That’s a heck to the no, am I right, everybody? This is how cool people talk! Let me hear a shoutout from my fellow cool people on this!”

Momma, 7/7/15

OH MY GOD MOMMA MADE AN CULTURAL REFERENCE THAT IS ACCURATE FOR A YOUNG WOMAN MARYLOU’S AGE, MY MIND HAS EXPLODED EVERYWHERE

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Crock, 6/16/15

It’s true: if you’d been wandering in the desert since 2005, you might assume that e-mail was still the most important thing that you’d need to catch up on. Trooper Benson doesn’t know the extent to which texting has supplanted many other forms of communication, and he hasn’t even heard of Facebook Messenger, Twitter DMs, WeChat, WhatsApp, and any of the other bewildering things that have sprung up in the last decade. Sure, he’s a poor devil, all right — but maybe, in his own way, he’s the lucky one.

Family Circus, 6/16/15

Billy (7)’s reign of violent substitute cartooning terror continues! Today, Mommy Keane is about to be murdered by a nattily dressed old-timey gangster, who appears to be planning to use curtains as a sort of improvised garrote.

Pluggers, 6/16/15

The expressions on the faces of our characters here — disgust and contempt on the dog-lady waitress, horror and shame on the bear-man customer — are exquisite and evocative. “No! It was a joke. A joke! I don’t even know what it means, I swear. I hate France! Don’t — don’t make me go live in the big city, I beg of you!”

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Heathcliff, 6/15/15

If there’s one thing that distinguishes Heathcliff from another, more famous/relentlessly marketed orange comics cat, it’s his inability to produce recognizable language, even in thought balloon form. We as readers are not privy to whatever thoughts are going through his head; and to communicate with the fellow denizens of the Heathcliffverse, he must resort to crude, one-word messages written on helmets or flags. But now, at long last, Heathcliff’s latest project is coming to fruition: he’s mastered human speech, repurposing various parts of his digestive system to approximate the sounds. He’s already gotten to the end of the alphabet, so Heathcliff’s Owner-Grandpa’s attempt to put a stop to the madness will come far too late. After “Z”, Heathcliff will start issuing orders, and they will be terrifying.

The Lockhorns, 6/15/15

Congratulations, The Lockhorns, for finally producing a panel that can surpass Rhino-Man Hocks His TV for sheer horrifying depression! I’m kind of sorry we aren’t going to get to actually see Leroy awkwardly trying to remove his own fillings with a pair of pliers in this seedy cash-for-gold outlet’s parking lot, mostly because I’d like to watch Loretta’s facial expression of ennui mingled with contempt remain unchanged throughout all the screaming and the blood.

Family Circus, 6/15/15

Dolly forges ahead to some unknown destination, leaving Ruthie behind, lying on the floor in visible agony from her tumble from the wagon. Ruthless indeed, and only Billy (7) can see the true cold-hearted sociopath beneath his sister’s treacle-sweet exterior.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/15/15

Today’s Rex Morgan, M.D., doesn’t confirm the theory that “Sarah” is a 42-year-old little person pretending to be a child for inscrutable reasons of her own, with Kelly in on the game but eager to humiliate her at any opportunity, but it doesn’t exactly rule it out, either.

Mark Trail, 6/15/15

OH NO

THE DAY IS HERE

THE DAY FORETOLD IN PROPHECY

THE DAY THE CEPHALAPODS EMERGE FROM THE SEA TO DESTROY US

HUG YOUR LOVED ONES TIGHT AND PRAY FOR A SWIFT AND MERCIFUL DEATH