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Family Circus, 8/14/08

If you asked me what my favorite Family Circus character is, I’d say, “Aarrgh, what are you talking about? I hate all of those hideous melonheads with a burning white-hot passion!” But if you held a gun to my head and said, “Look, pick a favorite Family Circus character or I’ll blow your brains out”, I’d have to go with Angry Billy, and today’s strip is a good demonstration of why. I love his petulant, contemptuous facial expression. And he’s right to be bitter: he alone among the Keane Kids is old enough to realize that this is just more education disguised as “fun,” and yet he’s still at least four years too young to go boozing and whoring with dad after Mommy falls asleep.

Mary Worth, 8/14/08

Bad: Toby referring to this boring, mass-produced DVD that she purchased on the Internet as “the fruits of my search.”

Worse: The strip letterers putting “the fruits of my search” in bold italics, so there’s no human way not to fixate on it and realize how awkward and horrible it is. “The fruits of my search!” Aarrrrgh.

Pluggers, 8/14/08

If this is a plugger lifeguard, you’re probably wondering, who exactly saves you from drowning on a plugger beach? What, do you expect some taxpayer-subsidized elitist swimmer to haul you out of the water just because you’re about to sink into the ocean and die? Why don’t they just drive out there in a limo and serve you champagne while you’re at it?

Wizard of Id, 8/14/08

I like how this strip starts off being about soul-scraping loneliness, and yet only two panels later finishes up with a terrible, corny pun about lily pads.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/10/08

Tarnation, look at the logo on that bag o’ grain on the porch in the final panel! It looks like Target, having saturated the suburbs with its big box stores, has decided to expand into America’s rural hollers and rustic shack-based communities.

Family Circus, 8/10/08

Oh, man, Mom, you do not want to look too closely at the front seat of that little car.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/10/08

I think it’s intriguing that what Summer took away from her mother’s message was not “Don’t get knocked up when you’re sixteen” but rather “Your dad has a good track record when it comes to dealing with teen pregnancy, so make sure he doesn’t die of prostate cancer before you inevitably get knocked up when you’re sixteen.” Nevertheless, in the first panel of the bottom row she does look appropriately horrified at the thought of her mom going at it with some dude in the back of a van.

Mark Trail, 8/10/08

OKAY, MARK, I’LL BE SURE TO INSPECT MY CAT FOR FLEAS! NOW CAN YOU PLEASE STOP SHOUTING?

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Momma, 8/4/08

Whoa there, Francis! Unless “cheese I can serve my buds” is code for “bud I can serve whatever cheep floozy I bring home tonight” and the gentleman behind the counter is the nattiest drug dealer outside of Apartment 3-G, you have officially lost your spot as the comics’ number one “bad boy” — I don’t care how cheap you are about it. Of course, everything else about this comic is puzzling as well. For instance, even the elitists at Whole Foods will sell you cheese for less than $14 a pound that would be wholly acceptable for a party with your loser friends in your filthy apartment. Then there’s the question of why the deli man offered you the cheapest kind in the first place, and … oh, wait, what was that? I’m sorry I’ve just been informed that the amount of time it’s considered healthy to think about Momma in any given 24-hour-period has long since elapsed. We’ll be moving on now.

For Better Or For Worse, 8/4/08

Just FYI, the long, turbulence-ridden, nausea-inducing flight towards the Lizthony union of souls is beginning its final descent. Do you like weddings? Do you like it when people realize that adventure is for other people and the best thing to do is be exactly like their boring parents? Do you like passive-aggressive emotional adulterers with clammy hands? Then the next three to eight weeks are for you, my friends.

Family Circus, 8/4/08

“And the brown liquors are best for numbing the humiliation you feel every time your freakish melon-headed grandchildren open their fool mouths!”