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Gil Thorp, 6/4/13

The dreary Gil Thorp spring storyline continues to plod along, with lawyer-spawn/aspiring lawyer Knox Foley (aka “Foley Knox,” aka “How am I supposed to keep track of which is your first name and which is your last name when they both look like last names”) still at the fore. His latest legal shenanigan: trying to convince his aspirational lady love that she should sue the grocery store where she fell and broke her wrist and UGH I can’t even work up the energy to make a joke about this. Mostly I want to point out Foley’s huge hand flopping around in the middle of panel three, like we’re playing in a first-person shooter video game except it’s not a first-person shooter, it’s a first-person poker or grabber or something. Giant meaty freak-hands have been the defining visual element of Gil Thorp since artist Rod Whigham took over in 2008, so it’s great to see a Thorp-flipper literally front and center here, and I wouldn’t be sad if every subsequent panel followed suit.

Beetle Bailey, 6/4/13

Less well known to Beetle Bailey regulars than “Miss Buxley Wednesday” is “The Halftracks loathe each other Saturday,” which today seems to be happening on Tuesday for some reason, maybe because we’ve crossed some sort of nuclear threshold of mutual hatred. Haha, it’s funny because General Halftrack is at the bar drunkenly boasting to his friends that he’s going to leave his wife! His wife is back home, stone cold sober, boasting to nobody in particular that she’s going to leave her husband, and it’s terrifying.

Family Circus, 6/4/13

Oh, man, just look at this guy! Billy’s pretty good at being smug, but this kid’s the master. “Teach me how to be like you, Eric! If I exude epic levels of self-satisfaction, will the ‘law of attraction’ bring me all the tooth-related revenues I deserve?”

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Mary Worth, 5/23/13

Uh oh! Looks like our Worthian lovebirds, who were going to get around to telling Elinor about their hot sexing any day now, are about to find out that the coverup is always worse than the crime, now that Elinor has been clued in by Random Charterstone Nosey Old Lady #4. I am 100% in love with the shouty orthography in Marie’s word balloon in panel one, as she throws elder solidarity to the wind and assumes Elinor must be deaf, not betrayed.

Gil Thorp, 5/23/13

Oh, wow, I take back what I said about Gil Thorp not being nuts anymore, since Gil has apparently decided to convene a kangaroo court right here on the bleachers and impose Coach Law on his charges. Even if Jimmy’s dad loses everything in the lawsuit in the so-called courts of the so-called United States and Jimmy becomes poor and homeless, Coach doesn’t want to hear any jawing about it, because we already settled this in the gym, guys.

Family Circus, 5/23/13

Ha ha, for once I find Billy’s smug, sullen little slouch is perfect. “Hey, sis, they’re called shoes, you might want to look into ’em.”

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Gil Thorp, 5/22/13

Guys, remember when Gil Thorp plots used to be bonkers crazy insane? Well, those days seem to be long past, which is why I have been studiously ignoring the spring plotline for months. Here it is, in a nutshell: baseball player Foley Knox is the son of a lawyer and an aspiring lawyer himself, and his lawyer dad is suing the gas station owner father of another player because some guy fell down while pumping gas there, and Foley is being a dick to the other kid about it, the end. The other kid and his dad are Chaldean Christians from Iraq, and it briefly looked like that was going to be a plot point somehow, but it was dropped in favor of a B plot involving Foley’s delusional romantic pursuit of Darby, the softball team’s star pitcher who has a toddler because she was previously teen pregnant, which was briefly controversial last spring. Anyway, today at last these plots collide when Foley decides to win the heart of his fair beloved by defeating her tortfeasor in judicial combat! This will also fail.

Wizard of Id, 5/22/13

So Wizard of Id, which is usually not funny on any level, actually made me laugh in two distinct ways today? WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? I appreciate the fact that the joke hinges on grammatical ambiguity — haha, you think “[a]re protesting” is a verb in the progressive aspect, but in fact “protesting” is a deverbal adjective modifying “drones”! But what really made me laugh was the sign that just says “NOT COOL”. It’s a sign that you can use at any protest and one that lets everyone know that, yeah, you’re politically engaged, but you’re also pretty chill.

Mark Trail, 5/22/13

Meanwhile, the AMAZING FOREST BEAR INFERNO is still going on in Mark Trail! I’m a little confused by the positions of everybody/thing in this comic, but, comparing the perspective in the two panels, if Cherry and Shelly are looking at the water and the tree is directly behind them, won’t they have to run sort of towards the bears in order to get to the tree? I mean, I get that they’re right on the shore and their options are limited. This is like the time my wife and I were in Stanley Park in Vancouver, and these raccoons emerged from the trees and wanted to go drink from the pond we were standing at the edge of, and they were heading right for us and didn’t seem scared of us at all, and we were in their way but there was no way for us to go that didn’t involve getting closer to them at least to start. Sure, they were raccoons, not bears, and nothing was on fire, but I don’t believe I ever pretended to be a brave man.

Heathcliff, 5/22/13

One of the things I didn’t expect when I recently worked Heathcliff into my comics rotation was the feature’s not infrequent expeditions into the inscrutable. I like this one, even if I don’t really understand it. Ha ha, Heathcliff is voyaging home via hot air balloon! It’s whimsical!

Pluggers, 5/22/13

Yes, I’m sure the automated recording that delivered this platitude really feels bad after this sick burn! Basically, pluggers have very little control over their own lives and will sullenly lash out at anybody about it, whether they can hear them lashing out or not.

Family Circus, 5/22/13

“Billy and Dolly and Daddy and PJ are in the basement, right, Mommy? With all the sand? And time’s up for them? They won’t bother us ever again? Oh, also, this hourglass ran out, I guess.”

Spider-Man, 5/22/13

Spider-Man’s high school science teacher always hoped he’d kill or terribly injure himself in a lab accident.