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Gil Thorp, 3/31/10

Oh, look, it’s another Milford team failing to win a title! Yes, there’s been a championship basketball game going on while the red-hot fisticuffs happen elsewhere. The Mudlarks losing again is of course utterly unremarkable at this point — presumably the whole loss exists just to set up the drama of faithless Cassie being shunned by her teammates for abandoning them — but today’s strip manages to offer an intriguing counterpoint to the concept of the uncanny valley — the slopes of the uncanny mountain, perhaps? Panel one disturbs and unsettles with the absence of details on the crowd in the background, as it appears that a tribe of identically black-garbed faceless, hairless automata have shown up to cheer on either Milford or Tilden; but panel three shows us that more detail isn’t necessarily any better, as we are confronted with more of Marty Moon than we ever wanted — the shine of his greasy goatee, the hollowness of his cheekbones, his glassy eyes, each and every one of his molars. We can practically smell his breath (Mr. Boston gin mingled with coffee from the AM/PM, not quite masked by the cloud of Axe Body Spray that hovers around him at all times).

Family Circus, 3/31/10

Ha ha, yes, this is a cartoon about how having four kids and a husband who doesn’t know how to iron would lead any woman to murder, but the thing I find most interesting is the fact that Billy is apparently dressed in a nice shirt and tie, for some reason. Perhaps Mommy can fashion Big Daddy Keane’s mushy, vaguely bunny-fur-like shirt into a makeshift rabbit costume and send him to school in it, and neatly dressed Billy can go into the office. Both problems solved, and we can move on to the question of why Dolly is attempting to brush her hair into the soup.

Herb and Jamaal, 3/31/10

It appears that Jamaal hasn’t quite gotten this “cruising for anonymous gay sex” thing down yet.

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Mary Worth, 3/22/10

Ladies and gentlemen, our long national frolic has ended, and just as we’d hoped — with a Charterstone pool party! Mary helpfully excuses Wilbur’s manic episode by reminding us his sensible lady friend Iris was out of town. But what can Mary mean by “returns”? Have her widows’ stocks declared dividends? Is Carlos Alora back on the job as groundskeeper? Dare we hope for Zombie Aldo? More likely, she just needs to get that copy of The Shorter Bartlett’s Quotations back to the library. Those fines add up.

9 Chickweed Lane, 3/22/10

One of the most annoying tendencies of serial strips is to sanctify characters until they lose all capacity for drama or comedy. Judge Parker‘s Sam Driver, Steve Roper, and Funky Winkerbean‘s bandleader Harry Dinkle has each in his turn been neutered, cast in plaster, and set up on a shelf for admiration in lieu of entertainment.

In its current story 9 Chickweed Lane — already in the running for most annoying strip in the history of ever — is going for a twofer. Mean-spirited bully Edna O’Malley (née Ernst) has already been recast as a dewy, chaste, ever-so-talented, misunderstood patriot. And here, in a single panel, her future husband is transformed from a lieutenant busted for a pointless and bungled espionage attempt into a noble set-upon war hero. Could we please have the cat back? I mean, if it’s not off in Africa curing malaria or something.

Herb and Jamaal, 3/21/10

Just when you think Herb and Jamaal has reached the top of its game, it breaks new ground. Generic dialogue? No dialogue at all! Bland characters? Unknown bland characters (Herb and Sarah’s flat-topped son Ezekiel, impy neighbor Willie, and Willie’s dad, um…)! Labored, arbitrary setups? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet! And icing on the cake, a heartwarming Mary Worth-style quotation from Malcolm X. ‘Cause if that man stood for anything, it’s that it’s OK to let yourself be victimized, as long as you can be smug about it.

Gil Thorp, 3/22/10

Underemployed dropout Steve Luhm here puts right his slightly icky will-they-or-won’t-they flirtation with Milford B-baller Cassie Corman. Cassie has a well-established taste for older boys — they don’t even have to be much older, and from the look of Ray Richey there, just about any boy will do. Well, Steve’s having none of it, and oh hey look Milford’s closing in on the point spread and Kinsella’s still on fire. Excuse me, I gotta call my bookie.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Herb and Jamaal, 3/11/10

Ha ha, this is without out a doubt the greatest Herb and Jamaal ever. Rev. Croom just wants to have a little lunch in peace — but no, this little creep, the one who only shows up at church at Christmas and Easter, and whose mother-in-law he wishes would only show up at Christmas and Easter, has to badger him about eternity and crap. Fine, there’s nobody else here, there’s plausible deniability. “Sorry, kid, you’re going to be tortured in Hell for all eternity with the other damned souls,” he says, just stone-cold sucking his tea through a straw. “Now are you going to bring me my lunch or what?”

Mark Trail, 3/11/10

If I didn’t already know that this Mark Trail storyline was essentially a repeat of one that ran thirty years ago, I’d say that we’re witnessing a quantum leap forward in Trailian storytelling. As a rule, the narrative is relentlessly linear, and thus I assumed that yesterday’s shameless flirting was going to lead inexorably to some major plot point. Instead, it may have just been a bit of throwaway color meant to provide Mark with a key piece of information. Mark, meanwhile, seems to have made the monumental discovery that not every firing of a neuron in side his hair-helmeted skull needs to result in the immediate verbalization of the resulting idea: note in panel two that he’s actually managed to muster a genuine thought balloon. This first feeble specimen only encapsulates the vague notion of questioning, but with effort Mark may discover that it’s possible to think whole words or even sentences without saying them aloud.

Momma, 3/11/10

I find the scenario depicted here rather puzzling. It’s not because Momma’s being hit on by some gnomish bow-tied individual — there’s a lid for every pot, as my father once said to me, though in this case it appears to be a gold-digging lid; rather, I just have no clear idea of where exactly the action is supposed to be taking place. What setting might include a Momma-sized easy chair and a potted plant, but also be open to the public so that strangers might wander in and harass her? Is he cruising for babes down at the senior center?

Family Circus, 3/11/10

Little known fact: Grandma appears in the strip only occasionally because she spends most of her time — and most of her grandchildren’s’ inheritance — following ’80s glam-rock band Cinderella around the country. When Cinderella isn’t touring, she keeps busy jamming with her Cinderella tribute band, Glass Slipper.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/11/10

They’re still cousins, though, so this may make Thanksgiving dinner awkward.