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Mark Trail, 5/4/10

Oh ho ho, women, am I right, everybody? First they’re all like “Oh, we’re married, we should maybe spend more than six days a year together,” then when you agree to stick around, they’re scooting off to have themselves professionally groomed, because they just hang around the house looking like a slob when you’re not there! Who can understand ’em?

The best part of this strip is how happy Cherry’s dad looks in the second panel to get a little Mark time in. “Say, Mark, we don’t really get much opportunity to chat, so while she’s off at the beauty parlor, why don’t we…” “No, Cherry! Don’t leave me alone with him!”

Hi and Lois, 5/4/10

Is Hi’s face covered with bruises? I guess that’s just to show you that when men gossip, they do it in a manly way — at a bar, after drunkenly punching each other in the face.

Spider-Man, 5/4/10

Super-heroics update! While the sinister Sabretooth disarmed a police officer and fled, our hero nestled his face into his wife’s ample bosom and muttered semi-coherent nonsense. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, EVERYBODY!

The Wizard of Id, 5/4/10

Wow, this strip sure is on the cutting edge of social commentary! Yes, sir, the times sure are changing, if by “the times” we mean “the times forty years ago!” But, whatever, women, am I right?

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Hi and Lois, 4/23/10

Comics aren’t just casual fun entertainment; they can also help you grapple with everyday but still painful life dilemmas. For instance, what if your son, who you love very much and who you only want to help succeed in life and be happy, turns out to be a terrible, miserable failure? Worse, what if he’s unable to recognize his own incompetence, and runs to you, his loving, nurturing parent, for the emotional affirmation that he’s learned to expect from you? How do you react? Hi and Lois doesn’t claim to have the answers, but Hi’s frozen, heartbroken expression in the final panel at least assures you that, if you’ve ever found yourself face to embarrassing face with your useless hump of an offspring, you’re not alone.

Dennis the Menace, 4/23/10

Making sex-themed jokes about cartoon kids is a little discomfort-making even for me, but then I’m not the one who used as the punchline for my child-populated comic a Las Vegas marketing slogan carefully constructed to evoke images of binge drinking and strip clubs, am I? Anyway, the most icky thing about this comic is the contrast between how pleased Margaret looks and how angry Dennis is at the thought that the smooching news might get out. Looks like he’s gearing up to be Dennis the emotional menace, am I right?

B.C., 4/23/10

Totally not at all discomfort-making or squicky to me at all is this apparent depiction of one reptile paying another for some kind of emotiono-sexual service. It’s like he’s a dominatrix, but with cuddling? And also he’s a turtle? Anyway, it’s all good clean fun!

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Funky Winkerbean, 4/6/10

A layperson might believe that Funky Winkerbean has already extracted the maximum amount of misery possible out of its characters and settings, but rest assured that the Pain Scientists over at Westview Industries are working hard at pushing the envelope of pure torture. It is of course pathetic that this grease-stained fast food subchain is the only place where FW characters can be happy (presumably they’re mistaking the sated albeit somewhat bloated feeling that comes from eating the pizza, combined with the absence of immediate physical pain, for “happiness”), but it’s all they’ve got. And now even that’s being taken away from them! Montoni’s will go bankrupt and all of you losers will be forced to morosely pick through dumpsters for sustenance! Ha ha ha!

One of the fascinating things about today’s strip is that it contains the structure of a joke without any even nominal humor content. It would have maybe worked if Funky (and yes, it took me a minute to work it out, but I’m pretty sure that’s Funky calling from the accountants’ office, and not some accountant placing a mafia-style phone call with no proper nouns and vague, unspecified threats) had claimed that Montoni’s was “guilty of insolvency” or something. As it is, it appears that Funky and Holly are each deploying a mismatched half of a desultory pun-couplet of the sort that marginally leavens the bleak horror of the Funkyverse, leaving them (and us) confused as well as depressed.

Crankshaft, 4/6/10

Meanwhile, over in the “fun” Funkyverse strip, suddenly single Crankshaft has decided to look for love online. The expression settling on his face in panel two as he realizes that nobody likes him is utterly priceless.

Judge Parker, 4/6/10

Speaking of priceless expressions of despair, check out Sam slowly morphing into a sad-eyed Margaret Keane painting in panel three. “He’s wearing the same color of minty green as I am … but he looks so much more attractive and carefree in it than I do! Damn you, you handsome, leonine-haired young buck!”

Hi and Lois, 4/6/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because they’re going to be sleeping in their car!

Pluggers, 4/6/10

Pluggers could die at any time, anywhere they park their lazy asses, and nobody would care much, or even notice.