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Marvin, 5/10/12

Some people probably think I’m little harsh on poor li’l Marvin, repeatedly calling him the “world’s worst baby,” just because he isn’t potty trained, and glories in not being potty trained, and poops and pees in his pants constantly, for fun. Nothing the kid won’t grow out of, right? Well, it may concern you to learn that once he does finally learn to do his business in a toilet, like an adult, he plans to become a brutal dictator who will starve his own people if they refuse to support him politically. (Also, once he has obtained absolute power, he’ll probably just start crapping himself again, because who’s to stop him? You? Do you want your entire family sentenced to work in His Lordship’s diaper-processing plants?)

Mark Trail, 5/10/12

Uh-oh, you guys, Mark Trail’s gotta clear a guy on murder charges, so it looks like his fishing trip with Rusty has to be postponed, forever. Sure, a man had to die and another man had to languish in prison for a crime he didn’t commit to keep the horrible notion of Rusty-Mark bonding at bay, but I think everyone would agree that the sacrifices were worth it.

Judge Parker, 5/10/12

Hmm, since one of the main things we know about April is that she is extremely capable with firearms, perhaps Sam’s “I’m afraid April will have something to say about that” presages a full-on shotgun battle for control of Randy’s wedding. But that will have to wait until the strip cycles around to this plot again, sometime in 2014! Right now we have to worry about the mysterious Avery Blackstone. Something WASPy this way comes!

Mary Worth, 5/10/12

I’m sorry, the notion that this wedding reception would involve demure, well-dressed women applauding Mary’s meddling prowess has pushed it completely beyond the realm of believability for me, even by this strip’s rather lax standards. I’m now convinced that Mary never left California at all, and that this is just one of her masturbatory fantasies.

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Judge Parker, 5/2/12

Just to keep you Judge Parker non-obsessives in the loop, Katherine is actually Randy’s stepmom, a sexy lady (because this is Judge Parker, natch) who appears to be roughly Randy’s age but who nevertheless does in fact consider him to be her beloved son, so her momzilla intervention in his upcoming nuptials are sure to be super creepy on a number of levels. But, while I am always here to keep you up to date the quasi-Oedipal goings on in the continuity strips, I can’t offer any coherent explanation as to why Randy has chosen to decorate his judge’s chambers with an enormous bust of Homer. I mean, I’m not a miracle worker.

Mark Trail, 5/2/12

“It was these drug plants that got me excited!” Ha ha, some days this blog just writes itself. I’ll bet the drug-destroying team is going to be super-excited too!

Apartment 3-G, 5/2/12

Hey, if you ever find yourself working in the Pentagon’s PR department and need to write a press release that says something along the lines of “We had to destroy that village in order to save it,” why not try “As usual, our kindness was totally misunderstood”?

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Family Circus, 4/20/12

Aww, isn’t that sweet? Ma Keane can’t stand physical contact with Dolly, for obvious reasons, but instead of just letting her wither and die without affectionate touch, she’s convinced her that the seatbelts are some kind of wire mother. The car will hug you even though Mommy can’t, Dolly!

Most repurposed car cartoons from the ’60s and ’70s, of which this Family Circus is almost certainly one, feature seatbelts that were pretty obviously drawn in later (i.e., they attach to nothing in particular at the ceiling, they tuck weirdly under characters’ turtlenecks, etc.) in order to make Americans forget about the glorious former age when gas was 50 cents a gallon and cars were gorgeously designed high-powered death traps and we didn’t care whether we or our children lived or died. Still, it’s kind of weird to take an altered cartoon like this and make it actually about seatbelts. One wonders what the original caption was. “I almost broke through the windshield that time, Mommy! Next time slam on the brakes a little harder!”

Judge Parker, 4/20/12

Aw, not only do Randy and April get wealth and power without any effort or merit, but they also get true love, the kind that ordinary people like you will never experience! I’m intrigued/disgusted by April’s claim that she wanted to marry Randy from the day she met him, which seems to lend credence to the idea that she’s a CIA superagent detailed to protect him at all costs, because really, who’d fall in love at first sight with Randy, gross. The earliest example of Randy-April romance I could find in my archives is from six and a half years and two artists ago; I don’t think it’s supposed to be the day they met, but it’s instructive nonetheless, as it features skilled marksperson/all-around badass April feigning incompetence, because that’s what boys like; later, Randy makes a crude sexual demand.