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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.

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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”

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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.