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Hi and Lois, 1/21/10

Uh oh, it looks like that damn Women’s Lib has ruined storytime forever, am I right, fellas? Used to be little girls would hear medieval tales about being rescued from dragons and becoming some handsome man’s property and just eat it up, but now they want, like, social and economic autonomy and shit. The befuddled look on Hi and Ditto’s faces shows that they know that patriarchy has been fatally undermined.

Of course, Hi appears to be reading not so much out of a storybook as from a few pieces of loose-leaf paper folded down the middle to form a crude booklet with “ONCE UPON A TIME” scrawled across the front. Perhaps the inside is filled mostly with Hi’s rantings about how the 19th amendment brought about a gynocentric tyranny, which makes Dot’s response all the more reasonable.

Herb and Jamaal, 1/21/10

Herb seems to have been possessed by an extremely mellow demon, which has compelled him to casually pull the Bible off the shelf and spit on it. The holy book responds to this assault by releasing thick clouds of acrid smoke. Who will win this low-stakes battle for Herb’s immortal soul?

Mark Trail, 1/21/10

Meanwhile, the sinister Parker Brothers have struck at the … dudes … in the canoe … who I don’t know who they are … by running their outboard motor at them? I guess? Oh, that’s a punching for that, that is.

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Blondie, 12/23/09

As is sadly typical, the actual punchline in today’s Blondie is so gentle as to be essentially undetectable, but I confess that I like the visual gag. Generally, when the Bumsteads’ shop, they end up with packages ludicrously stacked in their arms in structurally improbable configurations. Today’s strip takes this to its logical conclusion, with a series of boxes just sort of floating in a cloud around Blondie, without any visible means of support.

Mark Trail, 12/23/09

OH YEAH MARK TRAIL JUST PUNCHED A COP RIGHT IN THE FUCKIN’ FACE! This is the greatest Christmas gift you or I or anyone else will receive this year. Note that the mighty blow has miraculously dislodged the car keys that Mark and the lawmen were discussing in the previous panel; Mark’s fists are unerring plot-device-seeking projectiles.

Hi and Lois, 12/23/09

Add another entry to the “call social services on the Flagstons” file: the apparently unsupervised Trixie is just eating garbage she finds under the furniture now.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/23/09

I’ve been reading this strip for going on five years now, and more or less against my will I’ve actually accumulated some knowledge about the title characters. For instance, here’s what I know about Jamaal: He’s a firefighter, he’s in love with his fellow firefighter Yolanda, his name is “Jamaal J. Jamaal,” and — a relevant detail about today’s installment — he’s a former professional basketball player. Since today he’s challenging his gnomish best friend to a game of one on one, I’m guessing I’m going to have to add “he’s a cruel bastard who needs to boost his fragile ego by demolishing poor Herb on the court” to that list.

Apartment 3-G, 12/23/09

“To be more specific: I hope you like them enough that you’ll let me trade these poinsettias I stole from the Macy’s window display for more sleeping pills!”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/8/09

Uh-oh, it looks like the Morgan household has got a case of the squatters! And they’re slobs, too, and one of them is a busty blonde who looks capable of at least briefly experiencing joy — exactly the sort of person that June is most likely to skewer with one of her patented soul-freezing glares.

You know, sometimes when I return to my house, I have the strange, unbidden thought that perhaps I’ve passed into a parallel universe where I don’t exist, and someone else will be living there. I wonder if something like this has happened to the Morgans — if their cruise ship accidentally passed through the Bermuda Triangle or something, and now they’ve returned to a town exactly like the one they left, except nobody’s ever heard of them. This would guarantee hilariousness, as virtually everything this power couple does is based on an overwhelming sense of their own entitlement. The anger and befuddlement that will ensue when their increasingly plaintive cries of “But don’t you know who we are?” are met with honest “No”s will be delicious.

Archie, 12/8/09

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially for an emergent cybernetic consciousness. It’s been long established that the Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000, the massive computer that creates the Archie newspaper comic, is connected to the Internet and aware of this blog; but now it appears to have decided that I am its primary audience, and is specifically filling its strip with things that unsettle and amuse me, including people gazing lovingly at their own image on computer monitors and creepy furries whose deranged eyes glow out from the otherwise inky black maw of their fursuits.

Still, the AJGLU 3000 deserves credit for adding some character development to this strip. In most iterations of the Archie mythos, Reggie exists solely as an arrogant, egotistical foil and occasional romantic rival to Archie. However, as depicted by the AJGLU 3000, when he’s behind his (Reggie-themed-photo festooned) editorial desk, he does seem determined to do a halfway credible job of running the school newspaper, an attitude worthy of praise. Of course, this being Reggie, he’s probably only doing it because he believes that a career in print journalism is his ticket to power and influence; this is misguided, but not as misguided as Archie’s apparent belief that a career in print journalism is his ticket to sex with cheerleaders.

Hi and Lois, 12/8/09

Ever since the real-estate market imploded, Lois has had little to do with her time other than hang out at the mall with her fellow realtors and talk about which mood-altering pills are the most fun and which crooked doctors will prescribe them.