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Spider-Man, 9/17/13

Haha, so, wait, Tarantula … doesn’t have spider-powers? He just picked the name “Tarantula” and dresses up in a costume because it seems cool and bad-ass and vaguely theatrical, I guess. He does have the power to perfectly imitate a non-Spanish-speaking American, though, and that’s nothing to sneeze at!

This story seems destined to end in pleasingly farcical fashion, with the despot’s MPs having their heads mutually konkked by the only quasi-capable Spider-Man. Just to add to the air of general low-stakes incompetence, I’d like to point out that the Condor had sent for his marksmen because he apparently doesn’t trust his regular soldiers to successfully shoot a bound man standing only a few feet away.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/17/13

NEW FUNKY WINKERBEAN CHARACTER, EVERYBODY! Meet Jarod, with his oversized trenchcoat and black shirt and cigarette and sneer and screw-the-man attitude. He’s definitely bad news, though it’s unclear yet whether he’s the “will bedevil the viewpoint characters and demonstrate how the Kids Today are terrible” kind of bad news or the “we’ll learn each and every trauma heaped upon him in his life that made him the twisted man you see before you” kind of bad news. In the short term, though, I question whether Bull can really get him into any kind of trouble for smoking, because based on that retreating hairline I’m assuming he’s at least 30.

Family Circus, 9/17/13

Boy, Dolly and Jeffy sure seem awfully sweaty and tired considering they’ve only gotten maybe three or four inches into the ground. C’mon, kids, it’ll take all day for you to dig your own graves at this rate!

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Family Circus, 9/16/13

Check out the conversation happening in the background of this panel. Big Daddy Keane is gesticulating and going on and on in deadly earnest; his female guest has carefully composed her face and placed her hands in her lap, trying to look attentive; his male guest is settling into an ever-deepening slouch, hoping the talking will stop, soon. Is Daddy extolling the virtues of his favored candidate for the local state senate district? Pitching them on joining his Amway downline? Just not shutting up about how things were better in his day, and if we just whipped society into shape we wouldn’t have all these problems? Whatever the case, both those poor souls look like they would be seriously cheered up by a little kid walking in there and cramming more potato chips into his mouth than anyone would’ve though humanly possible.

Heathcliff, 9/16/13

These cowardly birds are giving up their greatest chance to overthrow their cat oppressor! Look at him, lying there, immobile, defenseless, the tender flesh of his face and limbs and tail exposed to attacks from revenging beaks.

Slylock Fox, 9/16/13

Enjoy your minor victory of ratiocination now, Slylock! When the newly arrived UFO aliens begin processing all of Earth’s organic matter — sapient animals, remnant humans, and plants and fungi alike — into a high-grade food slurry that will be shipped to the Proletarian Caloric Dispensaries on the capital planet of their intergalactic empire, it will all very much not matter.

Momma, 9/16/13

Relaxing and snoozing? Do the Hobbs kids know how to party or what?

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Mark Trail, 9/15/13

Did this little plant get its name from the past? That may be the case. It’s possible, sure. But isn’t it just as possible that it got its name from the future? After all, the Indian Pipe bears a strong resemblance to the 60-mile-high towers that were built in the southern foothills of the Himalayas in the late 21st century, which harvested charged particles from the ionosphere and provided the cheap energy that catapulted India’s economy to #1 in the world by 2110. Add in the successful time travel experiments conducted at the Indian Institute of Technology in the mid 2090s, and this theory is sounding more and more probable.

Family Circus, 9/15/13

Today’s Family Circus is a commentary on modern American affluence: the Keane Kids have never once in their lives had empty bellies, and can’t even conceive of anyone going hungry involuntarily, thus forcing them to recontextualize the ancient nursery rhyme. But there’s one Keane family member who knows all about want, and that’s Sam the dog. Presumably Sam’s care has been placed in the hands of the children, in an misguided attempt to teach them “responsibility,” and meals have been pretty irregular ever since. Sam would chew off all of PJ’s toes without a second thought. Sam would eat all the Keane Kids, if they would just hold still for long enough.

Shoe, 9/15/13

The comics pages that Skyler is so ostentatiously reading add a real note of poignancy to this strip. Skyler is trapped in comics time, an eternal present. He’s never going to get past the opening salvos of the sexual awakening he’s experiencing right now; and, as long as the syndicate can find artists who can more or less approximate Jeff MacNelly’s style, he will never die.

Panel from Better Half, 9/15/13

HERE IT IS EVERYBODY, THE MOST DEPRESSING BETTER HALF EVER, LET’S JUST GO HAVE A NICE LIE DOWN NOW FOR THE REST OF THE DAY