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Gil Thorp, 5/25/10

I’ve read Gil Thorp for many years with three different artists at the helm, and I’ve sort of grown fond of the strip’s tendency to cut away from the sports action just as something exciting’s going to happen, showing us only someone reacting to it. But sometimes it would be nice to see actual events occurring; in this case, for instance, perhaps we could see not just the (unsettlingly pinheaded) shortstop crouching as the ball heads his way, but his bobbling of the play as well, or maybe the runners crossing home plate. Though perhaps it’s for our own good: Marty’s eyeball is a milky white, indicating that the play was so exciting that it was like looking directly into a blinding nuclear explosion.

Apartment 3-G, 5/25/10

OH SNAP LU ANN JUST ADMITTED SHE’S A BOYFRIEND-STEALING STRUMPET (in the safety of her mind, where Margo can’t hear her, or so she thinks). I’m a bit puzzled by the “maybe twice” line, which sort of implies that she steals so many boyfriends from so many people that she can’t keep track of them all, though it’s just as likely that she can’t remember because of her oxygen-deprivation-induced brain damage. Anyway, the last boyfriend I remember Lu Ann stealing from Margo was FBI Pete, with all the betrayal happening even before I started the blog, so who even knows how far back the other shenanigans happened.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/25/10

Every five and a half years or so, Herb and Jamaal tests the waters to see if the world of newspaper comics is ready for a joke about hiding corpses. We’ll see if they’ll print it in November of 2015, assuming that newspapers still exist then!

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Mary Worth, 5/18/10

I have yet to read any of the comments you fine people have put up about today’s comics, but I look forward to any number of angry diatribes from mental health professionals about how Mary’s crockpot 30-second visualization exercises are in fact not an adequate treatment regimen for hoarding and other obsessive-compulsive disorders, and that she should instead seek help from a trained therapist who specializes in these issues. Or, who knows? Maybe there’ll be comments from people who say that, yes, this is exactly the way to break out of addictive behavior, hooray for Mary! I kind of doubt it, though.

One thing I’m not looking forward to is the inevitable crass suggestion that Mary is attempting to force Bonnie to her knees in panel two so that our poor shopping addict might sexually service her. Please! Mary simply wants Bonnie to prostrate herself and offer her the worship that she deserves, for her heroic meddling efforts. The feelings of pleasure Mary will derive from this go far beyond the sordid enjoyments of the flesh.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/18/10

Wow, this went very quickly, and with a lot of leaps of linguistic logic, from “You will rest your head on a needlessly uncomfortable object” to “God, my domestic life is SUFFOCATING ME.” But, hey, I’m not in a position to argue with whatever these two guys need to do to lay the groundwork for a camping trip full of on-the-down-low gay sex, I guess.

Six Chix, 5/18/10

This comic would have worked a lot better if the waitress had a pair of cooked human babies on her plate.

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Herb and Jamaal, 5/8/10

This strip, which consists entirely of Herb sitting around silently ruminating about his own inadequacies, would have been depressing enough if it had run, as you might expect from its set-up, on Monday. Had it appeared at the week’s beginning, we could at least console ourselves with the thought that perhaps Herb was being too hard on himself, and that he might find to his own surprise that this week would see some triumphs, large or small. But as it instead appears on Saturday, there’s really no other interpretation other than that he’s spending his weekend obsessively going over the wreckage of another failed week in his mind. The fact that all of this is in thought balloon form indicates that he feels that he can’t share these dark thoughts even with his closest friend; the next time we see our two title characters engaged in light-hearted banter or wacky antics, I for one will assume that Herb is putting on a brave face and secretly contemplating suicide.

Mary Worth, 5/8/10

“Easy for me to come here and criticize you? Bonnie, let me put it this way. When you’re tired, do you find it easy to fall asleep? When you’re thirsty, do you find it easy to drink? Do you find it easy to breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide?”