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Gil Thorp, 8/8/08

If there was a terrifying malformed human feature that defined the Frank McLaughlin era of Gil Thorp, it was the hair. The Rod Whigham era has just begun, but it’s pretty clear that in the new regime, it’s the hands that are most likely to make you feel queasy and uncomfortable. Whether we’re talking about malformed flippers or severed forearms attached to nothing particular, from the elbow down everything in the modern-day Gil Thorp is a little dodgy. Today’s panel three seems to be a direct response to criticism on this point. “You want well-drawn hands?” it practically shouts. “Well, here they are, by God, straight out of an anatomy textbook, disproportionally huge, and held up at an angle that nobody would ever actually use when clapping. Are you happy? Are you happy now?”

Hagar the Horrible, 8/8/08

That sly look on Helga’s face in panel two makes me think that “rock-a-bye, baby, in the tree top” is some incredibly filthy Viking sex act, possibly involving an actual tree and the sacrifice of a dozen virgins to Freya.

Mary Worth, 8/8/08

Hey, everybody! You can follow along with Toby’s amazing phishing journey at the newly updated Enormoushop.com! Be sure to give it a few moments so as to get the full-on identity-stealing experience. (UPDATE: And by “give it a few moments” I mean “wait about 10 seconds for the redirect, then wait again for another redirect, all three screens are funny, you won’t regret it.”)

Shoe, 8/8/08

Sexual affairs? I’m much more concerned about the emotional affairs. What with all the suppressed longing and daydreaming, the ostensibly “platonic” outings crackling with sexual tension, the long, tortured e-mails about why anything more is impossible — why, it doesn’t leave any time for the important work of the elected official, like meeting with lobbyists and raising money for re-election.

I’ve long been on the record as opposing Shoe’s depiction of birds with human-lady-style breasts, since actual birds do not have such things and they look creepy and weird. Well, do you know what else birds don’t have? Teeth. You hear me, panel three? Teeth.

Marmaduke, 8/8/08

With the back yard now essentially one vast mass grave, Marmaduke has begun storing the decomposing bodies of his victims in the house.

Ziggy, 8/8/08

Ha ha! Those angry little birds are going to feast on Ziggy’s flesh!

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Gil Thorp, 8/5/08

Could Gil Thorp’s summer insanity at last be belatedly getting underway? That crazed look in Jimmy Hughes’s eyes in panel two is strangely reminiscent of what you’d see in the origin story of every supervillain ever. Are we about to learn that the cult hero status that comes with being on an extremely minor league baseball team is too much power for any man with legal permanent U.S. residence to handle? Will the prospect of toiling in the Tigers’ farm system for the next six years instead of getting a college education and a job with a 401K drive young Mr. Hughes mad with glory-lust? Will Gil step in to set Jimmy on the straight and narrow path back to humdrum normalcy, or does the five-minute walk to “Java Jive” represent the limit of how much he’s willing to care about his students during the off-season? Hopefully we’ll get answers, before football practice starts!

Gasoline Alley, 8/5/08

I’m quite proud of myself for successfully ignoring the Gasoline Alley storyline that just wrapped up, which featured painful hillbilly stereotype Rufus tangling with a painful French stereotype during the filming of a cat food commercial. I’m looking forward to the upcoming plot, though, as it appears to be ripped right from today’s headlines. Four dollar gas has driven our rustic protagonists to desperate measures! Perhaps Rover will be able to tweak his Eisenhower-era pickup so that it gets an incredible eight miles per gallon.

For Better Or For Worse, 8/5/08

John has obviously been spending way, way too much time hanging around his teenage daughter. For one thing, he’s slipping into adolescent Canadianisms like “hafta”. For another, he’s squirming and whining about putting on nice clothes like a fucking twelve-year-old.

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Mary Worth, 7/31/08

See, this is the sort of strip that people try to confront me with when I refuse to acknowledge that soap opera comics maybe might be a little bit boring. And yet how can you deny the tension that crackles out of these panels? Thrill as Mary and Toby half-heartedly argue over who will pick up the check! Shudder in anticipation as you try to imagine just what kind of paperwork awaits Mary back at her empty, lonely apartment! Gaze in wonder at a restaurant bill that contains only line items for “salad,” “stew,” and “dessert,” perhaps indicating that our ladies have lunched at the restaurant owned by Herb and Jamaal! It’s more exciting than taking a roller-coaster ride through a hail of gunfire while tweaking on crystal meth!

Gil Thorp, 7/31/08

It’s been repeatedly established that Elmer’s Spanish is no better than that of any other American-raised native English speaker who paid little or no attention in his high school Spanish class, so Kings manager Fran Riordan’s “let’s put all the brown guys in one hotel room” is mildly troubling. More troubling, though, is the gang sign he’s flashing in panel one, which may indicate that this so-called “minor-league baseball team” is really a violent organization dedicated to the sale of illegal narcotics. “WEST SIDE, BOYEEE!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/31/08

Taken in isolation, the second panel looks like Rex asking if a concerned citizen’s cellar could be used as a makeshift quarantine ward where the MRSA-infected youth could be locked up until the crisis is solved, possibly by their deaths. But since this is Rex Morgan, M.D., we know from the larger context that he actually just likes having a lot of teenage boys available in one easy-to-find location.

Marmaduke, 7/31/08

Today’s Marmaduke is funnier — by which I mean that it’s actually kind of funny — if you read it in light of the theory that Marmaduke’s owner is actually Hitler on the lam. “Argh, electoral democracy is a degenerate failure! When will these dummkopfs learn that the Volk’s will is best expressed through a single party headed by a single, unquestioned leader?” This scenario still doesn’t explain why he’s only sitting three feet away from his television, though.