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Family Circus, 5/12/11

I suppose the joke here is supposed to be kind of the flipside of the Mother’s Day installment; both have at their core the sad fact that the Keane Kids are semi-feral slobs who would, if not for Mommy’s constant attention, live in their own filth. But I’d like to believe that we’re seeing a progression here from Sunday’s episode: after the unseen fiasco of her very special dinner, during the course of which every single meticulously arranged outfit was in short order coated with a viscous layer of ketchup and boogers, she just decided to give up entirely. What we’re seeing here is the nicest outfit that Billy has left only a few days after his mother stopped grooming him. Soon the kids will be lurching around the house in gunny sacks (lurching because nobody will bother cutting out arm or leg holes for them).

Herb and Jamaal, 5/12/11

Ha ha, Herb, your daughter has no time for your weak and ancient Semitic sky deity! She will only offer prayers to her awesome and majestic insect god!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/2/11

Ack! I haven’t been keeping you up to date on the doings in Rex Morgan, M.D.! Long story short: the evil strip club owners lured Dex to a hotel where they’re holding him captive, and now they’re planning to hire a safecracker to break into the Morgans’ clinic and steal the winning lottery ticket. Dex has the bad fortune of being held in the only hotel in America where the doors to the room can only be locked and unlocked from the outside; fortunately, though, his captors made the mistake of locking him in the only room in the hotel with a window.

Slylock Fox, 5/2/11

Those tiny prey mammals are right to look nervous. Once the predators find them guilty of trumped-up charges based on circumstantial evidence, they’ll be sentenced to immediate death by devouring. All the while, Max Mouse stands guard at the door, the Uncle Tom.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/2/11

The antique that Jamaal is holding panel three is a perfect metaphor for both Herb and Jamaal, since it’s bizarrely shaped and serves no apparent purpose.

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Phantom, 4/27/11

I’ll say this for the Phantom: Whatever its questionable history of depictions of Africans decades ago (a little digging will find you some howlers), the current version of the strip makes a reasonable attempt to accurately depict a post-colonial African state. Today’s strips neatly encapsulates the tension between the multiple sources of identity that can compete for the loyalty of citizens of such nations. Most residents of Bangalla probably aren’t more than a generation or two removed from their ancestral villages, where ties of clan and tribe are paramount; yet many of the young have moved to the modern capital of Mawitaan, where they’ve mingled with people from other parts of their country, and have perhaps begun to see themselves more as citizens of Bangalla than anything else. Which I imagine might cause problems for this whole Chatu-wrangling thing. “Wait, you want us to come home and do what now? Uh, yeah, see, we have this nice construction gig thing going here … cool shared apartment down on the lower East side, near some decent Bandar restaurants … why are you guys running a prison anyway? Don’t we pay taxes to the Bangallan government to run a prison system? Oh yeah, that’s right, you don’t participate in the whole monetary economy thing. Well, anyway, I think we’re going to stick around in the city for a while, but thanks for asking! Say hi to Grandpa for us!”

Herb and Jamaal, 4/27/11

Oh, that wacky Herb and Jamaal, unable to bring itself to use such specific terms as “GI Joe” or “soldier”! But this zaniness masks the important issue here: If the information I’m getting from Funky Winkerbean is correct, Herb’s GI Dude will be suffering from PTSD after years left abandoned in that box.

Family Circus, 4/27/11

“Just like all the messages we send to Mommy on Twitter begging her to love us! They never work either.”