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YOU GUYS, every year when I come back from my Christmastime voyage I’m all like “I’m just going to quickly look over the continuity strips from the past week to make sure I didn’t miss the 45 seconds of Judge Parker strip-time in which something happens,” but then every year I end up finding a slate of delightful nonsense that I feel compelled to share with you all. So before I get to today’s strips (in another post), here’s what you might have missed if, like me, you took a comics vacation over the past ten days or so.

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 12/24/12

Greg Cooper, the next actor to play James Bond and thus one of the most visible and famous movie stars in the world, got dissed on Christmas by his own mom.

Family Circus, 12/25/12

Over at the Keane Kompound, unto us an extremely smug savior was born.

Panel from Mark Trail, 12/26/12

Otto decided not to take Mark and Bill Ellis’s ransom money, but will instead force Mark to lobby on his pirate kingdom’s behalf, in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Panel from Spider-Man, 12/26/12

Spider-Man, a superhero with powers beyond those of ordinary mortals, was disabled with a quick blow to the back of the head, something that’s happened to him on multiple occasions.

Panels from Gil Thorp, 12/28/12

Oh, yeah, there’s a Gil Thorp basketball-season plot happening, I guess! It involves this basketball player, Scott, who is sad (and therefore not as good at basketball as he should be, which is the most important thing, obviously) because his little brother “Jay-Bird” died of leukemia. I had a brief hope that the horrible noise in this final panel was little Jay-Bird bursting out of his grave to feast on living flesh, but instead it was just a mysterious peacock that only Scott can see, which may in fact be Jay-Bird’s soul, which has come back to this mortal realm in bird form to feast on living flesh.

Panels from Funky Winkerbean, 12/29/12

Cayla and Les are already pretty sick of each other’s company, to nobody’s surprise.

Panels from Judge Parker, 12/30/12

In Judge Parker, Sam Driver shows that he knows the golden rule of lawyering: snitches get stitches.

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 12/31/12

Back in Apartment 3-G, Evan has finally revealed himself for what he truly is! …which appears to be a member of some kind of medieval craft guild, I guess?

Panel from Mary Worth, 12/31/12

John Dill’s entry has been accepted into the Santa Royale cake contest, and the excitement appears to have caused a massive stroke event.

Curtis, 1/1/13

Oh, right, Kwanzaa! This year’s nutty Curtis Kwanzaa tale involves an African village where an evil never-seen witch makes all the handsome young men mysteriously disappear when they reach marriageable age. Our hero, Maya, awakes in her lair only to discover that, despite evil witch stereotypes, she’s actually pretty sexy. “Well, uh, you’re not rich!” says Maya, but then she demonstrates that she has piles of gold and an elephant servant. “Hmm, tell me more,” says Maya.

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Family Circus, 12/6/12

Meanwhile, at the North Pole: “Hmm, what’s this? Why, I see … a little boy who’s drawn a bell at school. Let’s take a closer look! Hmmm that … that’s the crappiest bell I’ve ever seen. Look at how weird and lumpy it is on the right side! And it’s colored a boring silver, not a festive gold. This little brat has desecrated the very concept of a bell, and bells are of course the 17th most important symbol of my holiday, Christmas. Nothing but socks and books under the tree for you this year, young man!”

Spider-Man, 12/6/12

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to our irregular series, How To Be An Unlikeable Douchebag Nobody Wants To Spend Time With! Today’s lesson: “Celebrate with grotesque theatricality whenever you’re right about anything.” To keep your technique up, it’s important to do this even if nobody else is around!

Blondie, 12/6/12

I give the people who color the daily strips crap all the time for ignoring explicit in-strip cues when picking what colors to dump in via the Photoshop paintcan tool, so I have to give minor props for someone’s slightly on-the-nose decision to slather Dagwood in pine-tree green for this.

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Apartment 3-G, 12/3/12

I feel like this is a perfect opportunity to emphasize one of the most unbelievable A3G plot developments in years: namely, that Greg, a vaguely handsome American actor who not only hired Margo Magee as his publicist but also bought a co-op apartment in her so-so building — is the new James Bond. Today’s strip will disabuse everyone of any notions they might have about top-tier actors living a “glamorous lifestyle” or whatever. Nope, here’s Greg late at night, rambling around his apartment, still wearing his electric blue suit jacket, his yellow tie still knotted tight. On his nightstand: a pile of books, a framed picture of his publicist, and an empty jar of protein supplements. He wanders into the next room, wondering, not for the first time, who talked him into the mauve curtains, and what exactly this piece of furniture was that came up all the way to his armpits. Ah, well, it’s a good place to keep heaping glasses of scotch, just waiting for a moment of melancholy.

Family Circus, 12/3/12

I really wish that the joke in this Family Circus panel had made a bit more sense, because then I wouldn’t have stared at it as long as I have. And if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have noticed some unsettling things. Like how Mommy Keane’s hands, shoulders, and bosom seem freakishly large compared to her tiny, reed-like neck and (surprisingly, considering the anatomy of her offspring) smallish head. Or the window, which looks not out onto some soothing winter scene but just into empty, featureless blackness, with a green Christmas wreath/portal floating in the void, beckoning the unwary to pass through into yuletide nothingness. “How ’bout you tell me what you want for Christmas,” says Jeffy, “and then I’ll tell you what I want. And then you tell me what you want.” [Mommy’s head gets smaller] “And then I’ll tell you what I want.” [The wreath begins to spin, emitting a thrum just below the lowest register of human hearing that you can feel in your guts] “Tell me what you want.” [Mommy’s hands are the size of dinner plates now, and her head is no bigger than a golf ball, her tiny mouth moving and squeaking incomprehensibly] “Me want you want.” [madness madness madness CHRISTMAS IS COMING CHRISTMAS IS COMING]