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Family Circus, 4/30/14

We’ve seen the Keane kids watching anachronistic non-flat-screens before, as is to be expected in a strip that, like many legacies, is usually constructed from a comprehensive library of decades-old clip art. Today’s installment is interestingly post-modern, though, in that the very outdatedness of the art is transformed into a self-referential joke by the rewritten caption. What do you suppose the original joke here was? “Look at all those books grandma has! Is she a Communist?”

Funky Winkerbean, 4/30/14

Well, that didn’t take long at all! John Darling’s last words weren’t a defiant announcement of his devotion to his secret lover at all, but rather a weirdly phrased declaration of love for his daughter. Turns out he was secretly a good guy, to one (and only one) person, namely his infant child. I guess that solves the mystery that was bothering Jess, somehow! The rest of us can just be relieved for her sake that her father didn’t live long enough to inevitably use her beloved nickname in a cruel and degrading fashion (“Hey, whatever happened to my unrealistically proportioned little Barbie doll? Better lay off the deserts, sweetie!”).

Mary Worth, 4/30/14

Ooh, look at Wilbur, acting like a big shot, showing off his connections to Santa Royale’s rich and powerful! Meanwhile, in panel two, Jerry is practically going cross-eyed just imagining all the sandwich revenue Wilbur has generated for him over the years. What a wonderful, mutually beneficial relationship this has been!

Marvin, 4/30/14

Marvin thinks his friend’s house smells “strange” because the air isn’t thick with the stench of his own putrefying feces. That’s the entire joke of this comic strip, which is published in newspapers across the country!

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Apartment 3-G, 4/12/14

DEER DRAMA UPDATE: After being yelled at by the mean large animal vet for taking a baby deer out of the wild and raising it in a New York City apartment and leaving it completely unfit for life in its natural habitat, Tommie became convinced that the vet was going to kill the baby deer and so she and the deer fled, and now she’s preparing to do the only thing more insane than keeping a baby deer in a New York City apartment: keeping a baby deer in a motel where they probably won’t even let you keep a dog without paying a hefty deposit. “Deer? What deer? Why, this is my son, my hairy, hairy son, as you can tell because he’s saying ‘bleat’ aloud rather than actually bleating like a deer would. By the way, this room smelled like deer urine when I checked in, and I’ll be saying as much in my Tripadvisor review.”

Family Circus, 4/12/14

I was about to make some joke about how the shocked children look like they’re about to stone Billy to death for his anachro-technological heresy, but then I got a gander at the so-called “teacher” at this supposed Sunday School. Look at that shaggy haircut! The shirt unbuttoned almost all the way down to the breastbone! No wonder Billy thinks he can spout off this nonsense in the middle of class! What’s next? Popular music during services? The priest facing towards the congregation during the consecration of the host? Ecumenicalism? This is madness!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/12/14

Haha, don’t think June has let go of the fact that some extremely mild teen making out might have taken place under her roof, because she hasn’t! Obviously, it’s not about Niki, because he’s a boy and we all know it’s totally cool when teenage boys do sex things. No, it’s about Kelly, and figuring out just exactly how dirty a little tramp she is! This is important, doc … make the call!

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Family Circus, 4/11/14

This would be some Garden Variety Family Circus Treacle were not for a couple key details: the expressions on the faces of Kathy and Grandma. Kathy is nervous, unsure of herself: she’s heard about Grandmothers, knows vaguely that they’re older, friendly types, but has never met one in the flesh, doesn’t know what they’re really all about. And Grandma … well, Grandma looks coldly triumphant. This one will do, she thinks. We’ll have to shave her head and put her on bread and water for a few weeks, but she’ll soon adapt to the Program. Don’t worry, dear. You didn’t have a Grandmother before, but you sure have one now. Whether you like it or not.

Better Half, 4/11/14

Haha, that Stanley, taking his love for his wife and turning it into something vaguely unpleasant, as a little passive-aggressive joke! Seriously, though, his blood pressure situation is troubling. Look at his grotesquely swollen fingers! I think maybe he should see a doctor?

Crock, 4/11/14

Sometimes your comic includes characters whose individual personalities have been built up over years of strips, and the humor from each day’s installment comes from the interplay between those long-established characters. And then sometimes your comic is just an excuse to have random people in your strip tell jokes to each other! My advice in the latter scenario is that the joke should be funny in some way.