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Wizard of Id, 5/8/12

It’s really kind of sad that this fearsome, powerful wizard, heir to a long tradition of human beings who have managed to pierce through the barrier separating our mundane world from the realm of magic, having just used his unspeakable powers to bring a poor mortal back from the brink of death, feels a need to make a terrible and barely coherent joke relating to Apple’s electronic gizmos. It ought to be just as sad that cartoonists working on long-established strips that run in hundreds of newspapers around the world also feel the need to make terrible and barely coherent jokes relating to Apple’s electronic gizmos, but, you know, that ship sailed long ago, so it’s hard to feel more than just mild disgust about it at this point.

Family Circus, 5/8/12

Aw, look at that, the name of the mall the Keanes have descended upon sounds like “Bless ’em all,” isn’t that nice? For my money there are not nearly enough mall/all puns out there in the world. For a while, when I lived in Oakland, there was this truck from Lavine’s Heating & Cooling that was often parked near my apartment that featured prominently the company’s URL, kingofthemall.com, meant, I assumed, to indicate that Lavine’s was King of Them All, with “them all” referring to all the HVAC contractors out there (or who knows, maybe it meant all of humanity, but the on-truck marketing copy didn’t seem that grandiose otherwise). I always saw that and thought “Boy, the King of the Mall must be pissed that he didn’t grab that URL when he had the chance.” Anyway, I’m curious as to whether an encounter with the horror of a litter of Keane Kids will make Blessem Mall’s management regret being so universal with their blessings.

Apartment 3-G, 5/8/12

Haha, this some high-quality amateur Freudianism going on right here! Nina’s mother died giving birth to her, so now she’s ambivalent about having a baby because she … never had a mother to love her? Or maybe because she did have a mother, and then that mother died horribly while giving birth to a baby. Just a thought!

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Mark Trail, 4/30/12

I would like to hereby apologize for disparaging the quality of the violence in the current Mark Trail storyline last week. The lackluster bludgeoning on Friday was clearly just a set-up for this fully awesome scene of Andy suddenly transforming from a cheerful, happy companion to a slavering vicious attack hound at Mark’s command. Do you think Mark saw that the marijuana grower was growing marijuana with a gun in his hand? If so, we must assume that he knows that any bullet fired from such a feeble pistol would simply bounce harmlessly off Andy’s massive skull. It’s not like he would ever put his best friend in danger, after all!

Family Circus, 4/30/12

The key to understanding this panel is Jeffy’s expression of heavy-lidded boredom. “Mommy always looks great, and yet society’s crushingly unrealistic expectations about female body types can cause her to spiral into an emotional tailspin when that cheap scale tells here she’s gained only a few pounds. I’d rage against the patriarchy, but I’m just too exhausted by the efforts I make to comfort her, efforts that always fall short.”

Apartment 3-G, 4/30/12

Kudos to Apartment 3-G for being so sensitive as to keep all intimate, interesting details about the death of Nina’s mother off-panel. Sure, letting us in on this information would have made the storyline more engaging, but at what emotional cost to its fictional characters?

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Family Circus, 4/20/12

Aww, isn’t that sweet? Ma Keane can’t stand physical contact with Dolly, for obvious reasons, but instead of just letting her wither and die without affectionate touch, she’s convinced her that the seatbelts are some kind of wire mother. The car will hug you even though Mommy can’t, Dolly!

Most repurposed car cartoons from the ’60s and ’70s, of which this Family Circus is almost certainly one, feature seatbelts that were pretty obviously drawn in later (i.e., they attach to nothing in particular at the ceiling, they tuck weirdly under characters’ turtlenecks, etc.) in order to make Americans forget about the glorious former age when gas was 50 cents a gallon and cars were gorgeously designed high-powered death traps and we didn’t care whether we or our children lived or died. Still, it’s kind of weird to take an altered cartoon like this and make it actually about seatbelts. One wonders what the original caption was. “I almost broke through the windshield that time, Mommy! Next time slam on the brakes a little harder!”

Judge Parker, 4/20/12

Aw, not only do Randy and April get wealth and power without any effort or merit, but they also get true love, the kind that ordinary people like you will never experience! I’m intrigued/disgusted by April’s claim that she wanted to marry Randy from the day she met him, which seems to lend credence to the idea that she’s a CIA superagent detailed to protect him at all costs, because really, who’d fall in love at first sight with Randy, gross. The earliest example of Randy-April romance I could find in my archives is from six and a half years and two artists ago; I don’t think it’s supposed to be the day they met, but it’s instructive nonetheless, as it features skilled marksperson/all-around badass April feigning incompetence, because that’s what boys like; later, Randy makes a crude sexual demand.