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Family Circus, 6/15/19

God help me, but I laughed at today’s Family Circus. Not because of the lame golf joke — it will never cease to amaze me the extent to which syndicated cartoonists think golf is a infinite supply of relatable laffs — but because of the wary way that Jeffy is eyeing the head of that club that Billy has somehow managed to get his grubby little hands on. What will he damage, or destroy, with it? Will it be one of other Keane Kids’ skulls? Jeffy is resigned to finding out, possibly the hard way.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/15/19

The newspaper industry’s few remaining shreds of decency sadly precluded actually showing us Darrin and Jessica going at it once they were reunited earlier this week. But I appreciate today’s strip for letting us know, in as vivid terms as possible, how extremely gross it all was. What would a monkey do to a cupcake, exactly? I’m not sure, but we can all agree that we’re better off for not having seen it happen!

Gil Thorp, 6/15/19

Gil Thorp spring storylines often verge dangerously into the summer months, but I certainly hope that this one, which has been pretty boring, is just going to end here. Ha ha, we spent so much time on the “too cool for school” drama that we barely noticed that the softball team won the Valley Conference, and did the baseball team even play this year? What would be extremely funny would be if the last word on all this is Mudlark #2 saying “I bet no one noticed” and then next week we just start the summer storyline and the championship is never mentioned again in any way, thus proving her point.

Mark Trail, 6/15/19

“Plus he’s a human being with inherent worth so, if he’s dead … someone, somewhere will be sad? I guess?”

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Mark Trail, 6/10/19

This current Mark Trail plot is moving along at what I wouldn’t call … the fastest pace of all time. About a month ago Mark ran away from bees then a couple weeks after that the gang found Skull Mountain and that’s been about it! Up until this crazy flood, that is. You’d think a flash flood would definitely be a sign that the drama has officially been amped up, but the whole thing with the bees only lasted a couple of days, so I’m reserving my judgement. I do like how Leola’s word balloon ends in an interrobang, indicating that something truly surprising, more surprising than a flash flood, is happening just off panel! Maybe it’s Mark continuing to run away from her, leaving her to drown in the flood? Sorry, Leola, the fewer survivors there are in this expedition the fewer people there’ll be to split the gold!

Family Circus, 6/10/19

There are like a dozen little hints in virtually every Family Circus panel that they represent repurposed art, or at least repurposed jokes, from an earlier era, an era when parents felt that children needed to be able to explore and test their limits unsupervised by grown-ups even at a very young age, and if that meant that some of them didn’t survive to adulthood, well, that’s why you start off having four of them, you know? I particularly appreciate how shiny the countertop is, teasing us that Dolly’s slippered feet are going to lose their purchase at any moment.

Beetle Bailey, 6/10/19

I feel like having Beetle surrounded by sand, in a loose pile and in a bag and in a wheelbarrow, wasn’t strictly necessary to make this joke work? In fact, since the joke is a metaphor, it’s actually actively distracting. If you’re gonna do it, why not go all the way with it? Why not have Lt. Fuzz be dousing himself with oil while grinning maniacally and extolling the efficiency of our armed services? It would make Sarge’s world-weary expression all the more appropriate.

Mary Worth, 6/10/19

Folks, if Wilbur and Estelle are currently at Delicious Grill chowing down on some sandwiches and making romantic eyes at each other, I am going to 100% lose my shit

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Gil Thorp, 5/30/19

Words can’t even describe how boring Spring 2019 Gil Thorp has been; the only thing less compelling than the A plot (“The softball team is trapped in an endlessly escalating cycle of kids wanting their banal hobbies being acknowledged as ‘too cool for school’”) is the B plot (“one of the girls is good enough at volleyball to get a full college scholarship to play it but not so good that she feels personally fulfilled”). Still, maybe things are looking up today, as Couch Mrs. Coach Thorp suggests that everyone’s problem can be solved by imposing an totalitarian mass surveillance state, or maybe by putting the pigs in charge of the farm, because how much worse a job can they do, really.

Family Circus, 5/30/19

“Mommy! When will the airtight dome over the Kompound be complete, finally protecting us from this fallen world and its filthy impurities?”