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Spider-Man, 7/11/15

The usual marital dynamic in Spider-Man involves Peter being unreasonably and dickishly jealous about MJ’s financial success and/or interactions with other dudes, so it’s been refreshing (?) this time around to have the dynamic reversed and MJ jealous of the Black Widow. But now the two women have had a heart-to-heart, and the Black Widow revealed that she knew Spider-Man’s secret identity — and marital status — all along! This will make the coming conflagration, in which a helpless, spread-eagled, humiliated, and conspicuously unmasked Spider-Man slams into the movie set and explodes, all the more hilarious.

Heathcliff, 7/11/15

GOD DAMN IT HEATHCLIFF DOESN’T RIDE A MOTORCYCLE

HE ALSO DOESN’T GO TO CHURCH

AND THOSE EARS BUILT INTO HIS HELMET PROBABLY MAKE IT LESS SAFE

AND THE WHOLE THING LOOKS MORE LIKE A SPACESUIT THAN MOTORCYCLE SAFETY GEAR

GOD DAMN IT HEATHCLIFF

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Pluggers, 7/10/15

I had a little difficulty parsing the text of today’s Pluggers — it’s actually a pretty good example of why I’m O.C. (Oxford comma) for lyfe. There was a brief moment where I thought maybe “Beltone and the Scooter Store” were a wacky morning DJ duo on the most old-person-friendly radio station around. In fact, they are, respectively, an apparently perfectly respectable hearing aid manufacturer and a company that manufactures mobility scooters that went out of business in 2013 after being having perpetrated upwards of $50 million in Medicare and Medicaid fraud. In other words, even Pluggers’ old-people cultural references are several years out of date! But the overall theme of today’s panel still stands: the U.S. Postal Service largely exists as a marketing tool for companies that try to make money off the elderly.

Mark Trail, 7/10/15

“Yes, we can afford this expensive office in a Manhattan high-rise because unlike literally every other print publication on the planet, Woods & Wildlife Magazine is insanely profitable, thanks to one thing: boat explosions. Our readers can’t get enough of them! So I don’t care what that wife of yours says, you’re going out on that boat, and if it doesn’t explode on its own, you make it explode, do you hear me?”

Heathcliff, 7/10/15

I spent a lot of time trying to relate this joke to the octopus having eight tentacles and Heathcliff having two feet and that adds up to ten, but then I realized that two of the octopus’s tentacles are being held aloft like arms and then also I checked with my perennial beginner surfer wife and she told me that the whole point of “hanging ten” is that all your toes are off the board, which is exactly what we’re not seeing here, so you know what? Screw you, Heathcliff. Screw you.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/10/15

“The reunion…! The one … foretold … in prophecy!” I have no idea where this is going but I’ll bet it’s gonna be pretty grim!

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Hi and Lois, 6/29/15

As Hi and Lois slowly retreats to its retro roots, the Thurstons are also starting to fulfill their role from a less genteel age: not only is Thirsty an unpleasant drunk once again, but the childless couple are also depicted as being just a little less classy overall than the Flagstons, and I mean “classy” as in economic class. Sure, they live in an identical suburban house next door, but there are hints. That patch on the chair, for instance: Lois would never permit anything so shabby in her home! The family dynamic that has Irma doing yoga in the living room of what I assume to be a multi-bedroom house specifically to annoy her husband is another issue altogether, as is the fact that Hi immediately says “that’s good, right?” to Thirsty’s announcement.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/29/15

Ah, let’s check back in with Cindy’s story, which it’s my understanding is about … how young people are terrible to old people? Hmmm, something seems off here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Heathcliff, 6/29/15

Ooh! Ooh! I know! He got them from a genie! Man, I’m really enjoying Heathcliff’s new arc-driven storytelling style.

Pluggers, 6/29/15

“Wow, this section is full of misdirected lower-middle-class cultural resentment! Wouldn’t want you reading any of that.”

Crankshaft, 6/29/15

Don’t you miss the good ol’ days, when a soldier could be violently beat up day after day in the comics and no meddling politicians would disapprove?