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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/30/08

While Rex does his best to wriggle out of any obligation he might have to fight MRSA, June, it goes without saying, knows what has to be done. Specifically, she’s preparing to protect herself and the clinic from the coming Great Plague by insulating herself behind a wall of hand sanitizer and latex. I look forward to the climax of this story, when the hideous Infected, their flesh falling off in great chunks thanks to MRSA’s ravages, are desperately clawing at the gates to June’s hermetically sealed clinic. June herself, having taken on position of God-Priestess and absolute ruler of the Surviving Clean Ones huddling inside, will be on the ramparts, clad in a hazmat suit and wielding a very large shotgun.

Shoe, 3/30/08

The Elderly, Angry Bird-Man With The Big Beak is quickly becoming my favorite Shoe character. (Admittedly, the competition for this title is not particularly intense.) Earlier this week, we saw him berate a child with nonsense in a vaguely threatening matter; today, beer in hand, he snorts derisively at the delicate sensibilities of us young folks, allowing himself to ruminate fondly on his youth, when he perpetrated acts of unspeakable carnage against the Nazis or striking Wobblies or whoever he fought Back In The Day. The throwaway panels prove that he’s still got it: he probably viciously bludgeoned that poor sap to death with the TV because he talked during Matlock or wore his hair too long or something, and Roz and the Perfersser are too terrified of him to say anything about it.

Spider-Man, 3/30/08

As I’ve frequently noted, the Spider-Man comic strip is some kind of elaborate literary experiment in narrative frustration, carefully designed to prevent anyone from drawing any kind of enjoyment from it on any level whatsoever. Its gamesmanship is all the crueler because it occasionally looks like it might become slightly engrossing, only to dash those hopes soon thereafter. For instance, you might be excited because today’s strip seems to imply that all of the major players in this painful storyline, including Spider-Man himself, are about to be killed by electrocution, thus ending the strip forever. But don’t worry: by Tuesday, the drama will have been resolved in the least interesting way imaginable, probably due to someone tripping and falling.

Family Circus, 3/30/08

Ha ha! Today’s Family Circus proves that Jeffy is dumber than a dog — dumber than a dog named Barfy.

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Today’s comics contained something that we all should have expected, but that was nevertheless shocking and, to some, horrifying. Certainly everyone who loves newspaper comics strip is buzzing about it. I’m talking, of course, about today’s Snuffy Smith.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/13/08

Fellas! Of course, we all long to see our inamoratas in the super-classy see-through nighties of the kind found in mail-order catalogs and the Fredrick’s of Hollywood store. They’re hot because you can see your partner’s boobies but she’s still wearing clothes! But isn’t there something that isn’t quite perfect about those garments? Of course there is! They’ve been stitched together from some kind of non-edible artificial fiber, when they could be made out of delicious meat!

Seriously, this is one of the vilest things I’ve ever seen or read.

For Better Or For Worse, 3/13/08

Oh, also, Liz and Anthony are going to get married or whatever. You might think that this foobrosal (in the lovely formulation of faithful reader Gabe) is a bit lackluster; indeed the first three panels seem to merely depict two numb characters recognizing that the machinations of their universe are pushing them inexorably together, and that no free will they exercise could possibly change their preordained fate. But in panel four, said Foobiverse suddenly remembers that Liz is supposed to be happy about this, and you see her eyes glowing with some kind of creepy, supernatural illumination. Then she desperately tries to get Anthony to nuzzle her breasts. It won’t be the first time she fails.

Mary Worth, 3/13/08

Mary Worth’s flashback is finally underway, and we learn that Mary is totally OK with throwing around terms like “broken home” in 2008. We also learn that she was a hungry, hungry little urchin with a terrible haircut. Will this sequence end with young Mary in a back alley somewhere, desperately chewing on the bones of a stray dog that she killed with her bare hands? We can only hope!

Mark Trail, 3/13/08

Speaking of eating dogs, Mark Trail has apparently travelled to the big bad city with an agenda of handing out free puppies to eight-year-olds. I’m guessing that the sort of little kid who would write a passionate entry about pet ownership for a contest is exactly the sort of little kid whose parents won’t let have a dog. I sure can’t see anything going wrong this this plan! Also, since the magazine Mark writes for is named Woods and Wildlife and not Domesticated Animals, I’m hoping the “puppy” will actually be a wolf cub, or maybe a coyote pup.

Luann, 3/13/08

Ha ha! It turns out that when Brad heard his captain say he was bringing Toni to the ball, he meant that he was bringing Tony to the ball! Oh, the Three’s Company-style misunderstanding-derived hilarity!

This could be some sort of vaguely daring attempt to make a totally colorless supporting character in this comic gay; on the other hand, since he’s using the vague term “friend” and the battalion captain is bringing his sister, I suppose Tony really could be just his friend because, hey, they’re modern, sensitive new-age guys, and Tony always wanted to see what a real firefighter’s ball was like (and who wouldn’t)? Or, since Brad couldn’t tell “i” from “y” in speech, Tony Gale could really be Toni Gale anyway. I could get further into this, but I just realized that no matter how much I think about it, it isn’t going to get any more interesting, so I’ll stop.

Family Circus, 3/13/08

For those of you not up on the Shakespearean family drama beneath the surface of the Family Circus (and really, why would you be), Billy is actually based on strip creator Bil Keane’s son Glen, who is in fact an animator at Disney today; Jeffy is based on Jeff Keane, who has taken over the Family Circus from his dad. You could see this is some sort of dig at Glen for being a moron, but really a better way to go about that would have been something like, “Someday when I’m an animator at Disney, I’m going to help make a movie that will lose more than $100 million!”

UPDATE: Going over comments from the last thread, I see that the Spectacular Spider-Brick beat me to the “Foobocalypse now” joke … so a hat tip to the SSB as well!

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Mary Worth, 3/7/08

Let’s not read too much into Toby’s use of “compulsion” in panel one — I’m pretty confident we’re not going to go much deeper into Mary’s psychology than “my true religion is kindness” or some such claptrap. Some backstory would be a refreshing change, though, full of sailing vessels, crinolines, “prithee”, witch trials, a narrow escape from the stake, a stark struggle for survival through the icy New England winter, and encounters with wolves that prove to be more than they seem. . . .

Funky Winkerbean, 3/6/08 and 3/7/08

If I’m not mistaken, this is the first post-jump Funky with a focus on the kids instead of their sad sack elders. Nice start! So let’s overlook the apparent continuity error on Opponent McHeadband’s jersey for now. Instead, look at scrappy Summer Moore there, giving as good as she gets! I gotta ask — where’d she get that from? Surely not everybody’s favorite Utility Victims, Les ‘n’ Lisa! Whose kid is she — I mean, really? Let’s watch as the dark secret emerges, only to grind the last particle of joy from Les’s trudge to the grave.

Family Circus, 3/7/08

On March 7, 2008, Jeff and Bil Keane finally decided that phoning it in was just too damn much work.

– Uncle Lumpy