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Hi and Lois, 5/10/08

Watch out for Lois’s crazy eyes, Hi! This “spontaneity” she’s experiencing is entirely meth-driven. If the completely barren room in which you’re standing is any indication, “cleaning the attic” is a euphemism for “finding everything of any possible resale value there and hocking it to buy more drugs.”

Spider-Man, 5/10/08

I was surprised as anyone to see this Spider-Man storyline start out with the introduction of a supervillain, even though this strip has debased the notion of “supervillain” to the extent that some chump in a dorky bird suit qualifies. Things got more in line with the Spider-Man I know when our hero was felled by the influenza virus, and today we see that our feathered baddy is actually going to stymied by some random swell in a blue tux in his very first post-prison robbery attempt. Thus, the path is open to the real plotline: endless whining from Peter Parker about how nobody needs him and being a superhero is pointless and he’s wracked with ennui and self-loathing and blah blah blah.

Crock, 5/10/08

Gah! I laughed aloud at Crock today! Curses, all my curmudgeonly street cred is gone, gone!

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Cathy, 4/13/08

I know it’s not “cool” to admit to being amused by Cathy, but I have to say that wading through all that text to get to the final word balloon was really worth it today. If the thought of Cathy reduced to such penury that she can only quench her thirst by desperately licking at her own salty, salty tears doesn’t bring a smile to your face, then you have a heart of stone, my friend.

Hi and Lois, 4/13/08

High on the list of Things I Have Spent Too Much Time Thinking About This Sunday: Why is Hi unshaven in this comic? Is this to represent the many hours he’s spent fretting over the family taxes? But in the opening panels, he’s clearly just getting started, but still sports a Don Johnson-esque stubble. Does it instead indicate that on weekends he takes a more relaxed attitude towards facial hair? But then, would he still put on a shirt and tie to do his taxes in his home office? I WANT ANSWERS DARN IT.

Further down on the list, but still nagging: “Tax Bat,” what the hell.

Slylock Fox, 4/13/08

The answer to this puzzle, if you can’t read it, involves Slylock swimming over to that overturned car and breathing the air out of the tires. This seems a little dubious to me, not least because he’ll have to engage in paw-to-tentacle combat with that octopus, which appears to be getting amorous with the submerged vehicle. My proposed solution? Just limit Max’s air intake. I’m sure that a little oxygen deprivation won’t do his already feeble brain any harm.

Meanwhile, that huge-eyed baby beaver will be haunting my dreams for weeks. The fact that it’s reproduced four times makes the top quarter of this comic more terrifying than Eraserhead.

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Panel from One Big Happy, 4/9/08

While the joke in today’s One Big Happy isn’t really worthy of note, there’s something very disturbing going on in the background of the first panel. Can you see it? Here, let me blow it up for you:

My God, is that … some ponytailed individual running through the park? Carrying a knife in ready-to-stab position? Is he or she fleeing from the scene of a vicious murder? Or running towards a hapless victim with the intention of committing one? Or are we seeing the midst of a multi-corpse stab frenzy? This panel will go down in history as the Zapruder Film of the modern comics.

Gil Thorp, 4/9/08

Stepping back from the total insanity for a moment … ha ha, just kidding, this is Gil Thorp, and under the new regime the total insanity is back, baby. To get a sense of this, look no further than panel three, where the pitcher is apparently making that ball hang in mid-air with just his mind. I think Milford has found its new pitching phenom … in outer space.

Meanwhile, it appears that the Very Special Spring Storyline is going to involve Gil throwing himself wholeheartedly (and disastrously) into his student-athletes’ lives to make up for years of disinterested coaching. It’s only now that it’s occurring to him that letting a deranged old man spouting obvious lies basically coach his baseball team may not have been the best idea last spring. Anyway, this year’s first victim of Gil’s new over-involvement is apparently going to be “problem child” Tyler Jay. Here’s a hint, Gil: If you want Tyler to keep on the straight and narrow, don’t let him play on the baseball team, where he’ll have ready access to many club-like objects.

Hi and Lois, 4/9/08

The innocence of youth is apparently a myth, as baby Trixie seems to imagine a future where people are forced to desperately stitch up the bleeding, mangled bodies of their loved ones as a matter of routine.

Dennis the Menace, 4/9/08

Usually, the Mitchells roll their eyes or loosen their collars in awkward humiliation when Dennis says something inappropriate, but here they’re positively gleeful at his suggestion that his aged grandfather is old and feeble-lunged. I’m not sure whose father he’s supposed to be, but Henry and Alice are obviously both lacking in filial piety and deserve to have Dennis foisted on them by the universe in karmic retribution.

Pluggers, 4/9/08

don’t think about a plugger’s prostate don’t think about a plugger’s prostate DON’T THINK ABOUT A PLUGGER’S PROSTATE