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Mary Worth, 1/20/15

Uh oh, looks like there’s trouble in flute-playing paradise for Hanna and Sean! Why doesn’t Sean want Hanna to tag along with him to the nearby medical center? Does he want to keep the details about the medical ailment for which he’s seeking treatment secret from his new beau, because they’re embarrassing (incurable VD) or emotionally traumatizing (incurable impending death)? Is “nearby medical center” actually a euphemism for “the retirement home where one of my other girlfriends lives”? Is Hanna just starting to cramp his style? Is he going to blurt out “STOP SMOTHERING ME,” shattering this fragile happiness forever?

Judge Parker, 1/20/15

Every decade or so the soap opera strips need to offer up their backstories to new readers (haha, the soap opera strips think they have “new” readers) so I guess we’re going to hear the true tale of Neddy and Sophie, Tragic Orphans! I like the phrase “while Sam and Abbey were figuring out what to do with us,” because it conjures up the image of the destitute hobo family, rounded up by Spencer Farms security and locked in the holding cell deep beneath the stables, while Sam and Abbey watch the panicked trio on a hidden camera. “What should we do with them?” asks Sam. “We can’t let them go. They’ve already seen too much.” Then the grandfather dies. As the terrified children wail, Abbey rubs her chin. “I think … I’m pretty sure they’re going to grow up sexy, Sam. I think we can keep them.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/20/15

Jughaid is beginning to realize that his socio-economic class is so widely despised that contempt for it is engrained in the English language itself.

Dick Tracy, 1/20/15

Good news! The Dick Tracy–Funky Winkerbean crossover is going great. In today’s strip, our cop heroes use the implied power they have to imprison and punish to make Funky feel awkward and scared over a harmless joke.

Mark Trail, 1/20/15

I admit that I don’t fully grasp all the nuances of the villains’ scheme in the current Mark Trail plot, though I think it’s a safe bet that they’re all extremely stupid. So I don’t know why exactly this boat blew up, but when a Mark Trail installment consists entirely of a single-panel boat explosion, you’d better believe I’m going to report that to you.

Herb and Jamaal, 1/20/15

This punchline would’ve been a lot more obvious if Herb were looking at a smartphone or one of the other “modern technological advancements” Jamaal name-checks (a fax machine, maybe?). But frankly I like it how it stands. Herb doesn’t need your fancy high-tech geegaws to be a dick.

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Apartment 3-G, 1/16/15

This is kind of a delicate subject, but: I feel like there’s been a marked decline in the quality of the Apartment 3-G art over the past year or so; artist Frank Bolle will be turning 91 this year and I wonder how much longer he’ll be up for doing the strip. Today Tommie has wandered so far off-model that it seems that even the syndicate colorists have failed to recognize her and given her the wrong hair color. Honestly, the strip could use the infusion of new energy from a younger artist like the ones who took over Judge Parker and Gil Thorp in the past decade. It would’ve been particularly nice to have someone new in place in time for the steamy shower lesbian three-way Apartment 3-G fans have been waiting for literally since the day the strip launched in 1961.

Mary Worth, 1/16/15

I honestly did not think I was going to see anything in today’s comics funnier than Hanna in panel two of today’s Mary Worth, her flute at the ready and her face demonstrating her grim determination to make beautiful music with it.

Spider-Man, 1/16/15

But then I saw panel three of today’s Spider-Man, in which Peter shows his steely resolve to not have sex with his wife like he wanted but instead show up for some publicity photos for her lucrative job that pays his bills, presumably sulking visibly the entire time.

Herb and Jamaal, 1/16/15

Hey, are you wondering what Herb’s mother-in-law is doing on this fine Friday? Well, she’s just sitting in an armchair, silently contemplating her own inevitable death!

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Gil Thorp, 12/23/14

Huh, so … Gil and Kaz really have been slacking in the basketball coaching department, huh? I suppose it’s because the football team’s championship season was occupying their energy as basketball ramped up, but my secret hope is that they’re just going to finally start admitting to each other that they try to do as little work as possible. “I mean, we could’ve gone to more practices, I guess, but then again isn’t it more fun to just hang out in the office and playfully tickle our football championship trophy?”

Herb and Jamaal, 12/23/14

I dunno, Jamaal, maybe because a legal prohibition on certain speech acts is different from social blowback and awkwardness arising from discussions on topics that people have strong opinions about? I mean, you seem to grasp it on the intuitive level, since you have the right to subject anyone within hearing distance to your inane musings but instead are playing it safe and just keeping them in thought-balloon form.