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Judge Parker, 3/16/14

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable are all the uses of this world? Just ask Judge Emeritus Alan Parker! In the years since he returned to his strip, we’ve heard of the growing marital discontent he shares with his wife. He told us he feels old and useless, and we’ve watched helplessly as his compulsive risk-taking escalated from recreational B.A.S.E. jumping to jungle snake-handling.

The story ends, as all such tales must, atop a forbidden cliff in the Mexican jungle with the frenzied Judge turning his wife out to “rock the joystick” of some buzzing monstrosity in the hopes that something — anything — will let him feel again. Oh Judge, Judge — in all those years on the bench, did no one tell you about heroin?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/16/14

“All right, Becka, I suppose it won’t hurt to go over this again. As we’ve discussed, Dr. Morgan and I allow you to banter with us on a first-name basis because it suits our image of ourselves as friendly, egalitarian people. This is our little indulgence, Becka, not yours — and there is a line. Now, when I tell you that Paula John is an incompetent emotional wreck, that is not an invitation for you to defend her, or spew vicious gossip about the Dean — my peer — from below stairs or wherever it is you and your little friends hang out. Especially when you’re not meeting your most elementary responsibilities around the clinic. Well then, I hope you’ve enjoyed our little talk. Now get me those results. And let’s go back to calling me ‘Ma’am’ for now, shall we? There’s a good girl.”

Spider-Man, 3/16/14

Mary Jane manipulates her doofus husband without looking up from her crossword: “Hey, Tiger, what’s a six-letter word for ‘eight-legged parasite’?”

Zits, 3/16/14

This strip finally makes sense to me: Connie is Princess Leia, and Jeremy is Jabba the Hutt.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Beetle Bailey, 3/8/14

Saturdays in Beetle Bailey are for the grandiosely dysfunctional Halftrack marriage; today’s installment at least has something resembling mean-spirited cheer compared to some of the more frankly traumatizing examples we’ve seen. Anyway, I’m not sure what interpretation here is more unsettling: that Mrs. Halftrack is desperate for sexual validation and doesn’t know what “person of interest” means and, as revenge for everything, the general refuses to tell her, or that Mrs. Halftrack and the local constabulary have some weird erotic roleplay going on and she’s rubbing it in her husband’s face.

Hi and Lois, 3/8/14

Still, today’s Hi and Lois wins the coveted award for Most Chilling Marital Misanthropy In A Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC Strip. I’m genuinely impressed by the attention to detail shown in panel one, in which Irma has the key to her husband’s basement prison casually dangling from her wrist. “She’ll let us out in a few hours!” Thirsty proclaims cheerfully, not realizing the he will never see the sun again.

Judge Parker, 3/8/14

Yes, the invention of armed, remote-controlled unmanned drones raises troubling questions about the future of armed conflict and the ability of hegemonic states to prosecute low-intensity warfare against non-state actors largely in secret, without expending much by way of blood or treasure. But if this technological advance leads to the insufferable Parkers being blown to bits by a remotely launched Predator missile, couldn’t we say that it was all, in the end, worthwhile?

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Judge Parker, 3/7/14

April’s dad may be an amoral arms merchant who deals with ex-Romanian secret police and has a “retirement fund” made up entirely of blood diamonds, but at least he likes Judge Parker Senior’s terrible book, which puts him one step above the real monsters: liberal Ivy League college professors.

Heathcliff, 3/7/14

Heathcliff only loves his owner-family for financial reasons.

Herb and Jamaal, 3/7/14

Herb has been having sex with the restaurant’s catering truck for years, but is now starting to question his auto-monogamy.

Pluggers, 3/7/14

Pluggers’ electronics are covered with more disgusting slobber and drool than you can imagine.