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Funky Winkerbean, 3/29/15

This isn’t the first time Funky Winkerbean has used “Nordic” as a euphemism for “clinically depressed.” “I think following that couple through those movies is a lot of fun.” “Yeah, you know what else is a lot of fun? Thinking about how everybody dies and none of us escape.”

Panel from Slylock Fox, 3/29/15

“Slylock helped the bird cough it up.” Haha, how much of Slylock’s job consists of him rooting around the gullets of semi-sapient animals who’ve accidentally eaten some valuable object or piece of evidence? “I’ll just, uh, be over here holding this nice lady’s purse,” says Max.

Rex Morgan, M.D. 3/29/15

Oh hey I haven’t talked about it at all but there’s been this whole other non-Sarah non-mob storyline about Nurse Becka who got a black eye from maybe falling into a dresser in the middle of an argument with her cheating husband and then abruptly quit her job and left town, so now we’ve got her replacement … Nurse Carter! Nurse Carter is here to clean up this operation. Literally. This operation is covered with mayonnaise. It’s pretty disgusting.

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 3/29/15

“In my day, during the long, anarchic regency for the child Emperor Of All Space Glorbax IX, we didn’t need a video game to raid the galaxy! We just went down to the Star Docks, found the most disreputable ship’s captain we could spot, swore a blood oath to defend his ship’s honor, and then launched into the lightly guarded Outer Rim systems! The Galactic Peacekeepers were thin on the ground out there, so we could bomb whole cities into submission, load up our cargo bay with the valuables we salvaged from the smoking ruins, and then headed to the Market Zone, where nobody asked any questions. Sometimes we’d even ensl — er, wait, no, I mean, uh, we played some dumb kangaroo game, here on Earth, where I’ve lived my whole life, yeah, that’s it.”

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Mary Worth, 3/23/15

OH SNAP IT’S THE TRIUMPHANT (?) RETURN OF A BELOVED (?) ANCILLARY MARY WORTH CHARACTER! You might remember Terry Bryson as the Internet fraud expert who gently explained to Toby how to not get ripped off on the online, back in 2008. Since then she’s been lying low at Charterstone, apparently hoping against hope that Adam wouldn’t find her here. Did Terry once long ago teach Adam how to avoid Internet fraud, only she did a bad job and he got Internet defrauded real bad, and now he’s out for revenge? Or is Terry herself the one thing Adam can never let go of, romantically? Probably the second one, since over the weekend Adam seems to have dyed the greying hair around his temples, so as to look younger and more vigorous. Can’t wait to see the upbeat wedding denouement of this story, which has began in unsettling stalkertastic fashion!

Judge Parker, 3/23/15

Oh, goody: we’ve returned to Sam and Abbey’s RV, which is large enough to have both a main salon and, presumably, several secondary salons, just in time for them to wax rhapsodic about the greatness of Judge Parker Senior’s unfilmable script adaptation of his unreadable book! Abbey’s going to need some coffee for this. All this sycophancy takes a lot out of you.

Funky Winkerbean, 3/23/15

Ha ha, “I have a meeting with your father,” definitely a normal thing a human would say upon meeting an unidentified young person in an office setting. In this case, of course, a more reasonably response would be “I have a meeting with the mad scientist who grafted your tiny head onto your mismatched body.”

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/4/15

Here’s a confession: despite my boldly assuming the title “the Comics Curmudgeon” back in 2004, I got into this gig entirely from reading newspaper comics and haven’t read the much more popular genre of comic books with any regularity since I was about 10 or so. Nevertheless, I feel like I’ve absorbed a certain amount of information about the business by cultural osmosis, and thus I feel confident in saying that it’s completely believable that some comics publisher would want to take a zany character from the ’60s or ’70s called “The Amazing Mister Sponge” and do a “dark,” “gritty,” “edgy,” “relevant” reboot of him, with the hope of convincing a studio to turn it into a murky movie where everyone is sad all the time. I draw the line at Doctor Centipede, though. You don’t get to call yourself “Doctor Centipede” unless you’re actually a freakish being with dozens of legs protruding from your multiple body segments (and also have either a medical degree or a PhD in one of the hard sciences). Just being a hundred times smarter and stronger than usual? Not okay. The “pede” stands for foot, buddy. How much of this guy’s time is spent snippily justifying his nom de supervillainy? “No, see, the hundred limbs in this conceit are metaphors for the power I wield thanks to my enhanced str–” [is absorbed by The Amazing Mister Sponge]

Spider-Man, 3/4/15

In even dumber superhero news, Spider-Man has been saved by a timely faked Skype call! That’s the best way to get a hold of your wife on a movie set, straight-up Skype-calling some random laptop that you hope is vaguely nearby, probably. You certainly wouldn’t want to call her on, say, the cell phone she’s holding in panel three. While this cheap trick obviously hasn’t fooled Mysterio, it will probably fool everyone else, because they’re morons, which I kind of love. Everyone will just be all like, “Welp, I guess we’ll never know who Spider-Man really is” and Mysterio will shout “You fools! I just told you! It’s Peter Parker!” and everyone will say “Ha ha, but there was a Skype call!” I also love that even in his entirely justified rage, Mysterio stays on-brand and keeps referring to himself in the third person.

Mary Worth, 3/4/15

“Kids adapt and trust the flow of life more than grown-ups do! Why, the thought of having to baby-sit on short notice makes me fly into a rage, but Gordon is totally fine with suddenly having two new men in his life that he’s been ordered to address as ‘dad’ and ‘granddad!'”

Judge Parker, 3/4/15

Were you worried that this strip wasn’t spending enough time on Neddy Spencer’s burgeoning sexuality and what older, volatile men think of her? Well, the next six to eight uncomfortable weeks are for you, my friend!