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Judge Parker, 6/20/14

Good news, everyone! Everyone’s shared love for Judge Parker Senior’s unreadable book has helped broker a truce between warring factions, and now the wedding reception can continue. Now we can focus on the important questions, like: did Randy get married in a mint green suit? For real?

Mary Worth, 6/20/14

Wow, this is a disappointing revelation on a number of levels. First, it seems kind of lame that the heavenly prophecy Olive received was just “don’t go near the pool, kid.” But even worse is how casual she seems about it. “Mommy, mommy, a glowing, heavenly messenger of the divine with huge, terrifying wings came down from heaven and whispered in my ear and told me never to go swimming!” “That’s nice, dear. Say, do you want to take swimming lessons?” “Enh, maybe, let me think about it.”

Mark Trail, 6/20/14

Welp, looks like Woods and Wildlife’s expose on rhino poaching has been derailed because their African contact has been kidnapped or killed or something. But don’t worry, Mark’s glommed his way onto some white couple’s safari, so he’ll be coming back with a bunch of wildlife pictures that look exactly like the wildlife pictures available from wire services or Wikipedia. He’ll still be expensing the whole trip, of course.

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Judge Parker, 6/8/14

OH MY GOD

THE MURDEROUS, VILLAINOUS ARMS MERCHANT NAMED “FLACO” WHO’S BEEN MENACING OUR HEROES FOR MONTHS IS GOING TO SPARE THEM BECAUSE HE LOVED JUDGE PARKER SENIOR’S TERRIBLE, UNREADABLE BOOK

THIS IS THE GREATEST POSSIBLE RESOLUTION TO THIS STORYLINE, MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN I COULD’VE POSSIBLY IMAGINED

Seriously, remember back on the cruise where we first encountered these sinister wedding-ruiners, and Alan read a negative review of his book from an awful elitist Ivy League double-professor, and then later he ran into her on the cruise and he publicly humiliated her, because she had an opinion? That character will have been treated by our narrative with significantly less compassion than Flaco, who sells deadly weapons to the highest bidder in conflict zones worldwide and before that worked for the Securitate, the most notoriously brutal Eastern European secret police of the Cold War era, all because Flaco loves Alan’s shitty spy novel. I love everything about this. Maybe Flaco will stop demanding the diamonds back, as long as they’re invested in turning The Chambers Affair into a terrible, unwatchable movie? Dare to dream!

Momma, 6/8/14

Sure, Momma is terrible to her kids, but there’s nobody she’s harder on than herself, and it’s often in her dreams and reveries that she really lets her self-loathing run rampant. Here she is imagining being spurned by her husband, in the afterlife! Or maybe just her corpse is being spurned by his corpse? Either way, pretty depressing!

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Funky Winkerbean, 5/22/14

In case you forgot, the title of Les’s book about his dead wife Lisa dying of cancer is Lisa’s Story, which is a terrible boring title that conveys zero information about the book’s tone, genre, or content. At least with a book there’s a cover and a subtitle to draw in attention; as a movie title, Lisa’s Story would be wholly meaningless and an instant kiss of death. In other words, I’m looking forward to this Funky Winkerbean storyline about heroic marketing professionals in the entertainment industry doing their job to the best of their ability in the face of impossible odds.

Judge Parker, 5/22/14

I can’t remember if we ever got an origin story on these diamonds, but based on the players involved the best-case scenario is that Abbott purchased them from a legal, licensed dealer with the millions he made over the years from selling weapons to despotic governments, violent rebel militias, and terrorist fanatics. The worst-case scenario involves a private slave-worked mine in Sierra Leone given to him by a grateful warlord as a thank-you for a long and fruitful business relationship, and is probably best not dwelled upon. Anyway, just sit tight, Randy! Everything is going to be fine! … for you.

Spider-Man, 5/22/14

I’m intrigued by the statement “he can’t play Doctor Octopus anymore,” as it seems to imply that Octavius’s villainous identity was no more than a role, a character he was putting on, and now that his mechanical arms have been somehow detached from his body, he returns to his essential “real” self. Anyway, “Spider-Man fights bio-mechanical madman with super-strong metal arms” was obviously way too exciting for the newspaper Spider-Man narrative aesthetic, so let’s all settle in for “Spider-Man fights portly scientist with bowl haircut.”

Gasoline Alley, 5/22/14

“That’s right, and I won’t get to work in a mine until I’m 18, thanks to these job-killing, innovation-stifling government regulations!”