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Family Circus, 1/28/13

Ma and Pa Keane — and, for that matter, Billy — are suspiciously absent in this filthy, ill-mannered breakfast scene, in which Jeffy is balancing his toast on his knee, Dolly is emitting some kind of fluid from her left arm, and PJ is just stone cold rubbing his ass on the table. Where are the elders? Have they and their tyranny finally been overthrown bloodily by the younger half of the Keane Kompound’s population? Is the “morning” on which this breakfast is being eaten actually a metaphorical new dawn of freedom, and it’s really 5:30 p.m., because now nobody can stop Dolly, Jeffy, and PJ from eating whatever they want whenever they want?

Herb and Jamaal, 1/28/13

Oh, Herb and Jamaal, you’ve had more than eight years to think about what you’ve done wrong, and still haven’t figured it out.

Pluggers, 1/28/13

You know, I live only a few blocks form one of the U.S.’s most competitive universities and see smart, upscale young students going to the store or to restaurants in their pajamas pretty much daily, so this isn’t just a plugger thing. It is true that pluggers are incapable of figuring out how to set up Netflix, though.

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Marvin, 1/5/13

Marvin is still going all-out with the poop jokes in 2013, in case you’re wondering! Though I think that this might be a first (or at least rare) instance of the strip actually using a variation of the word “poop” in the strip itself. (I was going to go back through my archives looking for varyingly explicit words for feces in the nationally syndicated comic strip Marvin, but then I remembered that I had this last shred of dignity that I was planning on hanging on to for at least another few weeks.)

Anyway, this week’s Marvin has involved Marvin and Bitsy getting stuck outside in a snowstorm, presumably while Marvin’s family celebrates his absence at a fancy restaurant. I’ve been rooting all along for this plot to reach its seemingly obvious dog-eats-baby conclusion, but the crafty Marvin has bought himself some time by making the prospect as disgusting as possible.

Herb and Jamaal and Shoe, 1/5/13

Sorry, Shoe! Herb and Jamaal has won today’s “Hey, I heard a corny old joke from a friend or maybe had it forwarded to me via e-mail, let’s see how awkward it would be turned into comic strip dialogue” contest, and by a substantial margin.

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Mary Worth, 12/17/12

Oh boy oh boy pool party pool party POOL PARTY, everybody! This is great because (a) it means that the long, eternal slog of Dawn’s Quest For Meaning And Love (But Not Love Like That, Just Friendship-Love) is finally over (I mean, it will only really end with Dawn’s mopey death, but at least we won’t have to look at it for a while) and (b) we get to see a pool party, and those are always awesome. In today’s strip, Mary doesn’t even bother coming up with a specific reason for why she skipped her neighbor’s wife’s funeral. “I had a … thing, you understand, it was more important than your grief. Why don’t you cheer yourself up by gawking at that weird cake over there with everyone else?”

Funky Winkerbean, 12/17/12

To give those of you who don’t subject yourself to Funky Winkerbean daily a vaguely succinct summary of what led to this: Crazy got laid off from the Post Office, and in a desperate attempt to not starve to death decided to sell off his beloved collection of comic books and sci-fi novels to Comic Book Store John, and then Comic Book Store John decided to hire Crazy, to sell his own stuff. Thus “It wasn’t about greed, it was about need,” makes sense if we read it as “He needs an income to live on,” but I think we’re supposed to understand it as “It’s really the emotional satisfaction he’ll get out of seeing his beautiful collection dismembered, that’s why I hired him.” Although maybe it’s more about John’s need to see the citizens of this hell-town that’s always hated him debase themselves for minimum wage, for his amusement.

Apartment 3-G, 12/17/12

Oh man, the story of Evan the Sexual Spy is just getting weirder and weirder! Remember, Evan got Margo to summarily reject Skyler by making her believe that the young starlet was a rival for his affections. So he’s going to send Greg over to Aunt Cathy … how? “No, it isn’t above my skill level! I can do the bisexual jealousy grift! I’m ready for this!”

Hagar the Horrible, 12/17/12

Hagar and his Viking band seem to engage in no productive economic activity of any kind, and instead subsist entirely on the violent looting of a hapless late-Carolingian Europe. Will the fact that this castle is inhabited only by children and an old woman stop their awful depredations? Enh, probably not. Enjoy being sold into slavery to some monstrous Norse chieftain, kids!

Mark Trail, 12/17/12

Mark generally verbalizes literally every thought that passes through his square, immaculately Brylcreemed head, which makes his silent stare in the second panel here all the more hilarious. “Huh, so, cruel leader of a pirate band, kidnapping the innocent and holding them for ransom, ruling this tiny island by fear, tried to feed me to sharks … and ‘strange man,’ that’s all you got? Huh.”

Herb and Jamaal, 12/17/12

You probably think that today’s Herb and Jamaal is ripping off a joke from zany church signs everywhere, but in fact it’s just ripping off a joke from a Herb and Jamaal strip from 2007.