Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 3/28/14

God bless Lu Ann Powers and her willingness to embrace the utter ontological uncertainty of existence that most of us desperately try to keep at bay at all times. Are there towns up the Hudson from New York that sometimes exist, but then sometimes don’t? Maybe! It’s a crazy world! Object permanence is an illusion our minds create so the constant quantum flux of our universe doesn’t drive us insane! Will somebody find a “home” for a baby deer, even though nobody keeps deer as pets, because they’re wild animals who live in the woods? It could happen! She’s a very pretty deer! Or at least she seems so to me! We cannot trust the evidence of our senses!

Dennis the Menace, 3/28/14

Oh, come now, Dennis, don’t be coy! God revels in tales of carnage! Have you read the Old Testament? It’s all smiting this and plagues that and turning temples of rival gods into mass graves/public toilets. Tell him everything and spare no details!

Family Circus, 3/28/14

That’s some pretty sassy talk from an eight-year-old wearing a dress shirt and tie under a powder blue sweater, Billy.

Gil Thorp, 3/28/14

Well, it looks like we’ve hit our Spring Storyline Meet-Cute, where Lucky Haskins and Amy Lange will find true love if they don’t accidentally stab each other in the throat first. Also, did you know that wealthy people with very specific fetishes — languorous noodle-slurping, say — will pay good money to artists to “hide” images they find erotic in plain sight in newspapers across America? I brought that fact up for no particular reason.

Marvin, 3/28/14

don’t think about Marvin doing “number three” don’t think about Marvin doing “number three” DON’T THINK ABOUT MARVIN DOING “NUMBER THREE”

Post Content

Heathcliff, 3/11/14

One of my favorite Heathcliff running gags is “Heathcliff hangs suspended in midair, about to land on his victim and slash at their tender, exposed flesh, but in that terrible moment a member of Heathcliff’s family takes the opportunity to drolly explain what’s about to go down.” We saw it before when some visitors made the mistake of revealing their canine sympathies, which seems like the sort of thing that would piss Heathcliff off, and thus I assumed his attack was self-directed. However, I doubt Heathcliff has much by way of cultural-linguistic peeves; instead, it’s his cranky old owner who seems smug that this young bro-sayer is about to get a faceful of claws. Is it possible that Heathcliff’s access to the family finances comes at a price, and that price is the willingness to do awful violence to the family’s enemies?

Family Circus, 3/11/14

I was going to go on this long riff about how the answer to this question depends on how far artificial intelligence will advance and your opinion on the likelihood of a coming Singularity, but then I realized this is Dolly we’re talking about, so: no, sorry Dolly, the phone will still be smarter. Much, much smarter.

Post Content

Family Circus, 3/5/14

Haha, look at Dolly panic! She’s only beginning to grapple with the plight of the fictional character, who, despite the promise of “Happily Ever After” at the end of their tale, has no existence outside the narrative written for them, and is forced to relive it, ignorant of what awaits them, every time someone picks up the book. “Time is a flat circle,” as Rust Cohle said on True Detective. Dolly’s real fear is not for Snow White, who is barely real for her, but for herself, and that fear is fully justified.

Apartment 3-G, 3/5/14

Whoops, looks like we’ve gone from “Tommie has a fiancé” to “Tommie’s fiancé died in a plane crash” in a mere nine weeks! And since Tommie delayed Jim with “love-drowsiness” and caused him to miss his plane in the first place, there’ll be some nice guilt to motivate her character into epic fits of maudlin ennui for months and months! First up: Tommie’s story shifts from “My fiancé is a real human who exists” to “My fiancé died in a plane crash that was definitely not made up boo hoo hoo I’m so sad I can’t possibly do my share of apartment chores for the next several weeks.”

Beetle Bailey, 3/5/14

Right you are to “?”, Beetle! This is the focus for the strip today? Isn’t there something even vaguely zany happening anywhere else?

Hagar the Horrible, 3/5/14

Do you think Hagar had to kill everybody in the waiting room in order to get in to see the doctor? Or did he only murder a few, at which point his intentions were clear and everyone else just fled in terror?

Crankshaft, 3/5/14

Funky Winkerbean is spending the week focusing on the collapse of a longtime character’s dreams and sense of self. Crankshaft, Funky’s zanier sister strip, is more into physical comedy, like this gag, where the strip’s main character’s bad back is causing him so much physical agony that he’s reduced to crawling on the floor.