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Heathcliff, 12/22/14

The idea of Santa as an immortal being who’s been delivering Christmas presents for centuries is ridiculous, of course, but the truth behind the legend is much darker than most people can imagine. In fact, “Santa” has been a whole succession of different individuals down through the centuries. In this way “he” is kind of like the Phantom; but whereas the Phantom’s identity passes down peacefully from father to son over the generations, Santa-ness must be taken, with each new Santa defeating his predecessor in single combat to the death. And now notorious asshole and megalomaniac Heathcliff has come to violently insert himself into this ancient tradition.

Pluggers, 12/22/14

There’s been a lot of dilution of what exactly a plugger is over the years, but I refuse to accept a definition under which just being born in the three-week span from December 15 to January 5 makes you a plugger. D’ya hear me, Pluggers? This is bullshit. How about this: you’re a plugger if you’re cheap and lazy enough to get excited when it turns out your friends and loved were born around Christmas, because that means you only have to buy them one gift a year.

Spider-Man, 12/22/14

In the wake of Sony’s decision to pull The Interview from theaters after threats from (probably?) North Korea, look for a lot more deranged supervillains to get involved in the movie business. Today it’s just a question of whether a movie should get distribution or not, but soon these despotic maniacs will demand control over casting decisions as well!

Apartment 3-G, 12/22/14

I can barely maintain interest in what’s going on in Apartment 3-G these days, but it looks like Margo has managed to alienate yet another personal assistant, requiring Lu Ann to put on a pair of glasses and pretend to be “Clara” again.

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Hi and Lois, 12/20/14

You know I’m 100% in favor of this strip reviving Thirsty’s traditional characterization as an unpleasant drunk. The Flagstons forcing their middle-school-aged daughter to act as a humorless narc seems like a more modern innovation, but I’ll endorse that too.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/20/14

“Wait, is ‘negative’ the one where you don’t have the thing we tested for or is it the one where the test results are real real bad? You’re gonna be dead within a month, is what I’m trying to say.”

Heathcliff, 12/20/14

Heathcliff has “decorated” the tree in his neighbors’ yard with the severed heads and forepaws of his enemies! MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY

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Hi and Lois, 12/16/14

I’ve never been entirely clear on how we’re supposed to understand the Thurstons’ class position relative to the Flagstons. I mean, they live in identical houses next door to each other and Hi and Thirsty work in the same office but Thirsty and Irma’s lives just always seem a little shabbier, somehow. Anyway, I own a number of thrift-store clothing items and feel that nobody should be ashamed of shopping at such places, so I’m pretty resentful about Lois’s super-smug facial expression in panel two. “Haha, guess you wouldn’t have to wear my grubby hand-me-downs like a poor person if your husband weren’t a drunk, eh, Irma? We’re ostensibly best friends!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/16/14

Oh my God, you guys, Rex Morgan is finally following through on a plot it set up literally five and a half years ago: Becka’s husband Peter worked with a sexy nutritionist, and Becka was jealous! Her suspicions were apparently fully justified despite Peter’s attempt to convince her otherwise. So see, she never particularly cared about academic independence over at the old community college or whatever the dumb faculty intrigue plot was about; she just had her heart broken! Also, in case you’re not reading along at home, Becka is telling all this to June as a way of explaining why she’s quitting her job at the clinic. A good thing to do when you’re emotionally devastated and restructuring your financial life after separating from your spouse is to give up your main source of income!

Funky Winkerbean, 12/16/14

Let’s say that, years ago you named someone in your comic “Funky Winkerbean,” to denote the happy-go-lucky nature of the character and the strip. It was the ’70s, so maybe drugs were involved. I’m not gonna judge! And then say that over the decades your strip became a charnel house of sadness and your character became a bloated, angry jerk. I think it’d probably be a bad idea to have anyone in the strip refer to him by a nickname like, for instance, “The Funk Man.” It’d just make everyone think about the name more, you know? You don’t want people thinking about the name.

Mark Trail, 12/16/14

“Say, Justin, this gives me an idea: what if you still built your titanium mine near the swamp, but then once you got the titanium out of the ground, you just admired it for a bit and then put it back? That’s a reasonable centrist compromise we could all agree on!”

Momma, 12/16/14

So Santa is an immortal magical being whose lifespan lies outside of time as we know it, and Momma is … roughly forty years younger than him? Sounds about right.

Heathcliff, 12/16/14

I like that, even in the iconography of his terrifying cult of personality, Heathcliff looks pretty bored.

Six Chix, 12/16/14

Ha ha, it’s funny because her mother died from melting, and they’re never going to hear from her again!