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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/4/13

Guys, I need to apologize for having not at all covered the current Rex Morgan storyline, which if I had to guess will probably play out as “Sometimes Men Are Also Victims Of Domestic Violence, Like This Guy Rex Went To High School With Whose Wife Tried To Kill Him By ‘Accidentally’ Shooting Him In The Head With A Nail Gun, And Also General Practitioners Are On The Front Line In Spotting Possible Warning Signs Of Abuse.” But of course I couldn’t pass over Rex’s fantastic facial expression in panel three, which is much less “Hmm, wonder how this’ll play out, trying to limit the victim’s social life is a classic abuser move” and more “Ugh, why do they always think we’re friends just because I talk to them in a professional context, I knew I should’ve been a forensic pathologist, you get plenty of peace and quiet down in the morgue.”

Mary Worth, 10/4/13

Ugh, Mary Worth, can we get a little less Mary and Wilbur blah blah blahing about advice column writing and a little more badass meth dealer action? You’ve only got a few days to latch onto all the hardcore meth storyline addicts who have been left without a narrative supplier now that Breaking Bad is off the air, and you’re blowing it.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jeff had better brace himself, because now that Mary’s number one priority has been taken over by Wilbur, he’s been bumped back up to number four. Will he be able to handle the attention?

Family Circus, 10/4/13

The fact that omnipresent government surveillance has become such a natural part of our lives that even children joke about it is almost worse than this terrible, terrible bit of wordplay. Almost.

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Lockhorns, 9/27/13

This isn’t the first time that Loretta and Leroy have gone to see one of the Twilight films, but it’s always jarring and delightful when a smidgen of contemporary pop culture forces its way into the Lockhorns’ eternal 1962, isn’t it? I am also 100% in love with the fake Twilight poster hanging up at the Lockhorns’ local cinema. It reimagines Robert Pattinson’s dull, pasty visage as the brooding face of a proper Weimar-era expressionist vampire. And the graphic design! Doesn’t the striking image of the undead fiend’s face floating over the single word “TWILIGHT” have a million times more impact than, say, this piece of overbusy airbrushed garbage? Kudos, Lockhorns, for daring to imagine a better world than ours.

Mary Worth, 9/27/13

“The specific reason is that I have no friends and no life and writing advice to people desperate enough to send me letters is literally the only thing that gives my existence the barest shred of meaning! Uh, I guess I sort of covered that earlier, but that’s the much more specific version.”

Family Circus, 9/27/13

“I mean, he’s a competent adult and he could just learn how to cook properly, but I guess he figures that if he does, that’ll undermine the whole patriarchal structure that gives him power. So, your parents abandoned you at the world’s dullest mall kiosk too, huh?”

Shoe, 9/27/13

Huh, had it been established in this strip that the Perfesser’s mother is still alive? I guess it never hurts to introduce a new character in order to set up a hilarious joke! In this case, the joke is that an old man dropped dead during a social event for senior citizens, which probably cast a real pall over the rest of the evening.

Archie, 9/27/13

Meanwhile, the streets of Riverdale are haunted by roving packs of vicious feral dogs.

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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!