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Spider-Man, 10/8/12

I know there are like thirty-seven wildly differing versions of the Spider-Man mythos occurring across various forms of media at any particular moment, but in the newspaper strip (surely the iteration that’s earning the least for Marvel Entertainment, LLC, and its corporate parent, The Walt Disney Corporation), this is the deal with Spidey and MJ’s living situation: they have an apartment in New York, probably Manhattan, which is implied to be small and crappy even though of course as drawn it’s significantly larger than any New York City apartment not owned by a hedge fund manager. I’ve assumed that this is all they can afford because MJ’s mid-range movie/Broadway star money and whatever spare change Peter earns as a freelance newspaper photographer pretty much cancel each other out.

But! Apparently I’ve been wrong and MJ’s painfully unfunny play made her tons of money and they’re leaving the overcrowded hellhole of New York behind them for some ghastly neo-neo-Georgian mansion just off the LIE, where Peter can wander around the corridors in his tatty bathrobe, complaining not just about how much less he makes than his wife but also about how long it takes for him to commute into the city to get yelled at by J. Jonah Jameson. Really, getting eaten by a tiger would probably be a blessing for both of them at this point.

Hi and Lois, 10/8/12

“We can get totally blotto in front of the kids and they’ll be none the wiser! I mean, I’m high all the time and you don’t ever notice, so it should be easy to fool them. Wait, did I say that last part out loud?”

Funky Winkerbean, 10/8/12

Oh, were you worried that, what with his impending remarriage, Les was no longer haunted by the spectre of his dead wife? Don’t worry, he is super duper extra haunted by the spectre of his dead wife.

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Funky Winkerbean, 9/30/12

So there’s a dismal, pouring rain, and the daughters upon whom Les and Cayla have lavished all their energy over the past 18 years have moved away, and even the things that should be joyful to look forward to are just looming, anxiety-inducing projects that must be tackled with grim determination and will inevitably fail in some meaningful way. Cayla begs for death. (“No, Josh, don’t be silly, ‘just shoot me’ is an over-the-top way of acknowledging life’s little difficulties, if we just look at her face we’ll be able to tell that she’s jokOH DEAR GOD THERE ISN’T ENOUGH PROZAC IN THE WORLD FOR THIS POOR POOR WOMAN”)

Blondie, 9/30/12

I guess this is supposed to be making fun of Facebook users, but I think a sure-fire way to get more people to sign up would be an ad that said “Facebook: For when you need to minimize awkward in-person interactions with jackasses like Iggy Sorenson.”

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Crankshaft, 9/18/12

One of my favorite things about Crankshaft (sorry, don’t have time to figure out all the levels of irony involved in my spontaneous decision to apply the word “favorite” to Crankshaft there) is that even when its characters are just bandying dumb puns back and forth, their facial expressions make it look like they’re the last survivors of a genocidal assault that took their entire families. Normally this is just a result of the vague sense of anxiety and unease that pervades the Funkyverse, but in this case Jeff is probably worried, with some justification, that his wife’s mind is going, and she’ll soon be an irritated, malaprop-spouting shell of her former self, just like her father.

Hagar the Horrible, 9/18/12

We often see the same situations over and over again in Hagar the Horrible, and as I’ve said before, I’ve come to believe that this is because events in the strip are playing out in a nonlinear narrative. Thus, every castle raid shown is really just a different moment in a single castle raid, every strip that features Hagar and Eddie in the dungeon is a different moment in the same stretch of imprisonment, etc. “Hagar and Eddie on a desert island” is another repeating trope, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the rest of the crew of Hagar’s ship similarly marooned with them. Still, I’m going to assume that this is again the same shipwreck, and what we’re seeing here is the early days of their time as castaways, before the turn to cannibalism.

Archie, 9/18/12

The silent, expressionless way Archie’s mom is staring at her son is pretty harrowing. Don’t complain about static cling, Arch; you’re lucky she can operate the dryer at all, as she appears to have taken many, many quaaludes.

Family Circus, 9/18/12

“Either that or the house is on fire, and the two of us will soon sizzle and cook like bacon in a pan. We’ll just have to wait and see! Have I mentioned that my home life is so oppressive that I don’t care whether I live or die?”

Funky Winkerbean, 9/18/12

“And then, once the paralytic drugs we’ve laced the wedding cake with kick in, we’ll laminate everybody and hang them on walls all over the house! We’ll never be lonely again!”

Mary Worth, 9/18/12

“Take you, for instance! You’re terribly crippled emotionally. I can tell by the way you dress. Which, admittedly, is visible. All too visible, frankly.”

Mark Trail, 9/18/12

HA HA RUSTY YES CRY BITTER, FLESH-COLORED TEARS