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Hi and Lois, 9/25/12

Children, acting as canary consumers in our nation’s media landscape coal mine, stopped reading newspapers long ago, so syndicated comics artists are free to run out the clock on the remainder of the newspaper industry’s lifespan without having to cater to the delicate sensibilities of sheltered, modern-day youth. This means, among other things, that “Thirsty” Thurston is being reclaimed as the lovable drunk that he was originally conceived of being, back in the day when alcoholism was a quirky affectation rather than a terrible disease and crippling social problem. Having already filled his garage with beer and gotten bombed at lunch right in front of a co-worker, Thirsty is now just drunkenly stumbling around first thing in the morning, wearing a filthy shirt (no doubt befouled by his own sick) and scattering his empties around the neighborhood so as not to further humiliate his wife.

Archie, 9/25/12

There’s a lot I don’t understand about the set-up to this strip — is “downtown” not considered part of Riverdale? wasn’t the Interstate Highway pretty much built out years ago, especially in dense city centers? — but the punchline makes total sense to me. Ha ha, Archie is hated by the inhabitants of his home town, who pelt him with rocks whenever they see him!

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Mary Worth, 9/16/12

The “Dawn gets dumped and mopes and goes to Italy and is in a shipwreck but is rescued” storyline sure has had a lot of twists and turns and so far, but now we are truly seeing the 100% amazing payoff: Dawn is comparing an admittedly traumatic incident from which she emerged completely unscathed physically with a traumatic incident in which a young man whom she just met lost an arm. Her adventures over the past few weeks sure have provided her with some much-needed perspective about her troubles! Nevertheless, we already know that this will somehow work as a pickup technique, since an epigram from Anaïs Nin surely portends incipient sexytimes.

Mark Trail, 9/16/12

Mark, for a so-called naturalist, you have some funny ideas about our relationship with phylum Arthopoda! Nature is a rich, vibrant tapestry, and the idea that humans and spiders are allies in some kind of “war” against insects is simplistic and reductive. No, clearly both spiders and insects are mankind’s implacable enemies, seeing as they are gross disgusting creepy-crawlies; but their mutual hostility is a boon to us, and we must pit each against each other in order to keep both groups weak. A spider-insect alliance, particularly one with support from their centipede and millipede relatives, would surely overwhelm us, so must surreptitiously encourage intra-arthropod hostility at all costs.

Hi and Lois, 9/16/12

The most disturbing thing about Trixie’s school fantasy is that she apparently assumes that by the time she’s of school age there will be two of her. This may be the way her infant mind processes the existence of her twin siblings — perhaps she believes that Dot and Ditto were born as a single person but then split into two before the age of five. On the other hand, Trixie also seems to believe that she’ll be reading Tolstoy in kindergarten, which shows a certain degree of intellectual precocity.

Panels from Slylock Fox, 9/16/12

I love how upset the two construction workers at the bottom left of today’s Six Differences look. “Noooo, what are you doing? Your blundering, amateurish excavation techniques are ruining the integrity of the dig site! This is a priceless paleontological find, but we’re losing so much data as you drag the fossils out of the ground willy-nilly!”

Luann, 9/16/12

Mr. Fogarty would gladly give up the burdens of sentience if doing so meant that he’d never have to deal with any of the morons in this strip ever again.

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Funky Winkerbean, 9/12/12

In accordance with Funky Winkerbean’s long tradition of making unbearably big deals out of low-level life problems, Mopey Pete the comics artist is behind deadline on the Superman book he’s working on, which is being portrayed metaphorically by him being bedeviled by a sinister supervillain called “The Lord of Late.” This was easy enough to ignore until today, when it was revealed that Mopey Pete is writing a series about Superman walking across America. Does Mopey Pete not know that Superman can fly?? Then I found out that this was actually a real thing, which just made me madder. Does DC Comics not know that Superman can fly??

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/12/12

Oh my goodness, Rex’s look of weary disgust in panel three is priceless. “Ugh, the worst part of my highly-compensated medical work is that sometimes you repair a dumb meatsack and then it thinks you have some kind of emotional connection to it or something. Looks like it’s time to starting having all patients anesthetized before I come into the room!”

Hi and Lois, 9/12/12

Poor Trixie has been used as an unwilling tool in the seduction of more innocent girls than she can count, with her pre-verbal status leaving her unable to warn Chip’s emotional victims. You can tell by her face in panel two that this is really starting to wear her down.

Family Circus, 9/12/12

Check out Dolly’s smug facial expression! That’s the look of a girl who can find the sex parts of any book.

Herb and Jamaal, 9/12/12

Shorter Jamaal: “I hold my best friend in withering contempt, because I’m a terrible person.”