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Heathcliff, 12/20/13

Why did humanity learn to fly? “To expand our knowledge,” you might say, or “For the joy of exploration, or the visceral thrill of taking to the air.” And maybe you’re right, when it comes to the early inventors and tinkerers who built the first primitive aircraft. But forgive me for being a cynical materialist and pointing out that the infrastructure of flight we have today was built for less noble reasons. Investors and entrepreneurs knew that travelling at hundreds of miles an hour to get to far-off desinations in hours instead of days is something that many of us would pay for, and so all those airliners and airports were built to separate us from our money, money that buys nice things for the families of the pilots and the executives and the stockholders. Then there are the military applications of flight, and while of course we always trump up some noble reason for war, when it comes right down to it we fight and kill and die to better control various resources. And so the once miraculous power of flight is commonplace today thanks to capitalism’s alternately charming and remorseless logic, because it’s making money for people, and if we follow the hierarchy of needs down to their base, what is “making money” other than an effort to make sure that one is well fed?

The question of how exactly we should think about an anthropomorphic animal in comic strip is a tricky one, and varies from comic to comic and from character to character, but I think one thing that’s common to all of them is that they’re closer to their animalistic nature than we are, even if they walk on two legs and wear safety helmets when they’re hang-gliding. So, the answer to the question “Why did Heathcliff learn to fly” also involves food. But there are fewer steps you have to take to get to that point.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/20/13

Based on previous signs, we’re meant to presume that Doris has been getting increasingly blotto over the course of this meal and finally just passed out drunk, but I appreciate the fact that everyone is tiptoeing around it and claiming she “fell asleep,” like that’s a totally normal thing that happens in the middle of dinner conversation. Still, I guess we can’t rule out the possibility that June is a super boring conversationalist and Doris was in the middle of listening to one of her dull long-ass sentences and thought, “You know what? I don’t see the point of holding on for the end of this.”

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Mary Worth, 12/16/13

Oh goodie, Mary is hitting the “NEW YORK IS THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD” fugue state many visitors achieve when they’ve been there for a few days, assuming they haven’t been permanently turned off by the density or the people or the smell. Look at how blissfully happy she is shoving that delicious cheese ’n’ grease triangle into her grinning teeth in panel one! We all know she won’t have the nerve to actually up and move to New York, but look for her to sigh theatrically and talk about how everything in Santa Royale is so lame compared to New York for weeks after she gets back. (She’ll be right.)

Marvin, 12/16/13

I guess “Elf Marvy” is supposed to be Marvin’s dream elf name, à la Hermey the Elf from the Rankin-Bass Rudolph special? Or maybe “Marvy” is just the cool nickname that he’s always wanted but nobody will give him, because it has the same number of syllables as “Marvin” and also nobody likes him enough to give him a nickname. Anyway, Marvin this week will be relentlessly hammering home some dumb joke where Santa Claus becomes one of the Duck Dynasty people, so brace yourself for that.

Heathcliff, 12/16/13

I’m not sure what possible interpretation of this cartoon is more unsettling: that Heathcliff is going to fuck this cupcake, or that he’s going to eat it, with the visual tropes of romance being a metaphorical lead-in to eating it.

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Mark Trail, 12/12/13

So Jeff and Jared’s Sinister Artifact-Napping Plan is going something like this: they woke Mark up at gunpoint and Jeff took him off with the artifacts by canoe, with Jared left behind fake-tied-up claiming that Mark is the one doing the kidnapping! I have literally no idea why they think this will work out any better for them than just fleeing with the artifacts — wouldn’t the police have a bit more urgency in tracking down a kidnapping victim than they would in looking for some stolen property? — but I’m super glad things are playing out like this, because we finally get to see Cherry explode into the violent rage that we all knew was lurking just below her placid/heavily medicated surface.

Judge Parker, 12/12/13

Say, remember when Judge Parker Senior’s terrible airport-bookstore thriller got a bad review from a snooty academic, and he raged about it for days and days in a way that reaffirmed that he was thin-skinned and unpleasant, and then by crazy coincidence he and Katherine were seated with said snooty academic at dinner, and he lied about his name so he could glower at her in secret? Kind of the sort of behavior that might make you think, “This man is an awful person and not a strip protagonist that we want to see rewarded,” right? Well, screw you, loser. Judge Parker Senior has now revealed his identity to this lady and has publicly humiliated her and prompted her husband to do so as well! So all’s well that ends well, for assholes!

Heathcliff, 12/12/13

Soooo … is Heathcliff driving off to get more milk, or abandoning these non-milk-having chumps in a huff and finding a new family that knows the importance of keeping the refrigerator properly stocked? I’m guessing the latter, based on the don’t-give-a-damn vibe radiated by the cat and the car, which are both wearing sunglasses, in the middle of the night.