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Family Circus, 6/30/09

Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that Billy is too young to have a job and, assuming the real-life and Family Circus calendars line up, is on summer vacation, and therefore has every right in the world to lounge about lazily. Ignore too the fact that “nothing” is surely preferable to other things Billy could be doing — rotting his mind with TV, bullying his siblings, breaking things, or, God forbid, making adorable malapropisms. I think we should actually be impressed by Billy’s total commitment to doing nothing. He’s so intent on non-action that he’s gone into a room with no furniture and unadorned walls, and is just leaning there, his hands tucked behind him that so he doesn’t do something even accidentally. If he does any less, he’ll transcend to a higher plane of existence, which all of us should be hoping for, as then we won’t have to deal with him.

Gasoline Alley, 6/30/09

The current Gasoline Alley plot is stupid and irritating, so I’ll only waste four words on it — “improvised fake clergyman grift” — but today’s strip is noteworthy for what may be the most gratuitous drawing of a young lady’s rear end in short shorts that the comics page has ever seen. If this and this are any indication, beneath the family-friendly surface of this ancient legacy strip is a cauldron of randiness on the verge of boiling over.

Marvin, 6/30/09

Can Marvin not go 48 hours without updating us on the titular hell-infant’s habit of letting loose the contents of his bowels and/or bladder? Anyway, here’s today’s strip, in which Marvin urinates all over his mother, again. If there’s any integrity to this strip’s use of dialogue balloons, Jenny can’t hear her son’s little mental quip, so that look of horror must be a result of the piss she feels pooling on her back.

B.C., 6/30/09

I’m not sure why, but the revelation that the turtle half of B.C.’s turtle-bird pairing is named “John” is even more disconcerting to me than the discovery that the bird is named “Dookey.”

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/28/09

I find it kind of strange that Loweezy doesn’t specify what the “big, round number” in question is. Given the poor state of health care in this isolated, rural hamlet, I’m guessing it’s 15, which is approximately middle age for the average denizen of Hootin’ Holler.

Dennis the Menace, 6/28/09

Usually saying his prayers is among the least threatening things Dennis does, but in today’s strip he appears for the most part to be praying for evil things. Presumably he’s beseeching not our loving God but his Dark Lord, Satan himself.

Family Circus, 6/28/09

Fun fact! According to the never-wrong Wikipedia, “if a film uses ‘one of the harsher sexually derived words’ (such as ‘fuck’) one to four times, it is routine today for the film to receive a PG-13 rating, provided that the word is used as an expletive and not with a sexual meaning.” In other words, Dolly, you can go ahead and drop that F-bomb on your little brother, as long as you only want to use it three more times over the remainder of your life.

Marvin, 6/28/09

We all knew that Marvin was a repugnant fountain of excrement, but who knew that he was a record-breaking fountain of excrement? I don’t usually praise the art in Marvin, but I do think Jenny’s expression has been skillfully done here. It wordlessly conveys the sense of “Huh, so it’s come to this. I thought I’d feel more pain at reaching this point, but it seems that I’m not feeling … anything at all. Probably for the best, really.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/28/09

I’m not really sure what June means by “more than try” here, nor am I sure that I want to know. “I HAVE DETERMINED THAT I HAVE REACHED THE FERTILITY OPTIMUM FOR BOY-CHILD CREATION! GIVE ME YOUR SEED AT ONCE, DR. MORGAN!”

Spider-Man, 6/28/09

Despite the implication in this week’s NEXT box, I’m hoping we follow Spidey’s path in this branching storyline, and get to see the relative money-returning skills … of a spider! “Wow, who knew there’d be so much paperwork involved?” (NEXT! Black or blue ink only!)

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Funky Winkerbean, 6/26/09

“You see, Kayla, eventually, like everything I touch, you will die, in pain. The question is, will you have made enough of an emotional impression on me to leave me wistful and emotionally bruised for the next decade? Will your brave but ultimately doomed fight against mortality bring a wistful, noble tear to my eye, and to the eyes of millions of readers across the country? Will you have finally broken through Summer’s shell of reserve, leaving her shattered at the knowledge that she might have had the mother figure in her life that she’s always needed? In short, we need time to build up that kind of emotional baggage, and frankly I don’t think we’re going to get there by enjoying ourselves, with sex.”

Family Circus, 6/26/09

It’s kind of true: since Billy isn’t allowed to wander outside the compound walls or to watch the devil’s “television” box, his only guide to appropriate behavior is the Old Testament, which, for all of its merits, has relatively little information on children’s leisure activities.

Baldo, 6/26/09

Tia Carmen and Baldo have a shared interest in very specific kinds of fetish pornography, a bond that draws them closer but that they very rarely acknowledge.