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Mark Trail, 2/2/13

Usually Mark Trail flashback fashion takes us to the depths of the Eisenhower administration, which is why I am 100% amazed and flabbergasted (in a good way) by “Catfish” here. Now, none of us like to stereotype, but admit it: you probably imagined Catfish would be would be an angry, beefy guy with a mullet or perhaps a chubby fellow with a big white beard; either way, he’d be wearing overalls, obviously. BUT NO! No, Catfish is a bald sprite of a man who went back in time to 1987 and stole a sweet Ocean Pacific t-shirt out of my bedroom. He is such an odd bird in the sartorial world of Mark Trail that I am pretty much willing to forgive whatever crimes against competitive fishing ethics are going on in that van.

Herb and Jamaal, 2/2/13

Meanwhile, today’s unannounced “Classic Herb and Jamaal” is a repeat from barely two years ago! Although maybe even that appearance was itself a repeat from back when someone might have actually said “online talk rooms” and believed himself a vaguely with-it human being.

Archie, 2/2/13

I’m going to pass over the ostensible action of this strip — is Mr. Lodge’s “antique doo-dad” the table itself? How does one break a table? Wouldn’t even gluing a broken table-chunk back onto the table leave a visible seam? Does Jughead not know the world “table”? — and just point out that Archie really can pull off those skinny plaid yellow pants, though pairing them with the baggy sea-foam sweater is a bit suspect.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/2/13

Oh hi there, would you like a little secret illegitimate daughter in your grueling stroke recovery storyline?

Family Circus, 2/2/13

I genuinely love how unimpressed Jeffy is by Dolly’s dramatic theological musings. “I don’t know much about celestial courtesy, girl, all I know is that I just ran out of clean tissues and your shirt looks awfully inviting.”

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Herb and Jamaal, 1/31/13

So, when does a comic make the jump from “funny little joke about life’s foibles” to “horribly depressing”? In the case of today’s Herb and Jamaal, that moment came when the artist decided to add such vivid emotion to Sarah’s face in panel one, as she briefly mistakes Herb’s clumsy reach for the lamp as an attempt to touch her affectionately. Is he going to hug me? Could this actually lead to sex? Haha, don’t be silly, Sarah, you’ve reached a “comfortable” point in your marriage, if you define “comfort” as “a cold, numbing absence of strong feelings of any kind.”

Dick Tracy, 1/31/13

I think traditionally Dick Tracy has used arrow-box-labels to identify the bits of gee-whiz technology the strip’s law-enforcement characters usually deploy. But since things like two-way wrist radios have now been superseded by boring, ordinary cell phones, I guess they’re just now going to be pointing out random objects. Architectural details in early 20th century mausoleums? Skeletons inside said mausoleums, which is exactly the sort of place you’d expect a skeleton to be? Sure, why not!

Spider-Man, 1/31/13

Say, what’s our good friend the Amazing Newspaper Spider-Man been up to since he was physically present when Kraven’s plot was foiled? Well, after finding out that one of his old nemeses was up to his old tricks in San Francisco, he decided to hitchhike from Las Vegas to San Francisco, because of poverty. (Isn’t MJ making decent money as a Broadway actress, enough to subsidize a bus trip or perhaps even coach-class plane travel? Maybe she quite wisely refuses to give him access to her bank account.) Then the guy who picked him up tried to rob him at gunpoint, and then he crushed the barrel of the gun with his bare hands, without the usual seven strips of agonizing about “oh, no, my secret identity,” presumably because whatever happens on I-15 several hours outside of Vegas stays on I-15 several hours outside of Vegas. Today’s strip made me laugh because of how devastated our ne’er-do-well is at the prospect of spending a few minutes looking for his keys in a roadside ditch. I’m thinking if you threaten someone with a gun and he turns out to have superhuman strength, this is probably one of the better possible outcomes?

Slylock Fox, 1/31/13

“So, what’re you doing, bro? I’m just gettin’ baked, makin’ calls on my fuzzy phone, and taking a bath in a tub full of pancake batter.”

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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.