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Judge Parker, 8/9/10

Well, it turns out that Sophie’s cheerleading-driven powers of all-knowingness only give her universal access to cold, hard facts about whose ex-boyfriends are back in town, and whom those ex-boyfriends have divorced. The underlying motivations behind those circumstances are as opaque to Sophie as ever, and it’s kind of heartening to see that the youngest Spencer-Driver foundling is still an unsettling android-child, despite her makeover into a tween fashion plate. “NEDDY-UNIT: THE SOPHIE-UNIT DEMANDS INFORMATION ABOUT LOVE AND THE EXPERIENCE THEREOF! WILL LOVE OVERLOAD THE SOPHIE-UNIT’S CIRCUITRY IF SHE ATTEMPTS TO INCORPORATE IT INTO HER TOP-LEVEL ALGORITHM? THE SOPHIE-UNIT WILL INITIATE THE SENSATION KNOWN AS ‘IRRITATION’ (SUCCESS OF IRRITATION-INSTIGATION SUBROUTINE ESTIMATED AT > 95%) IN THE NEDDY-UNIT UNTIL THE DESIRED INFORMATION IS GIVEN!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/9/10

Ha ha, the chicken has fallen in love with Snuffy, whose main source of food is the chickens that he steals and eats! This has the potential for being one of the funny pages’ great tragic love stories. Let’s hope the artists don’t shy away from the heartbreaking beheading scene!

Dick Tracy, 8/9/10

Wow, usually we don’t get to see the badly decomposed corpses until the end of the Dick Tracy storyline. What exactly is that lump floating atop the body in panel one — is there an alligator lazily feeding on the poor sap, with Officer Hugepelvis gingerly sneaking up on it with plans to taser it? This could be the greatest Dick Tracy plot ever, if by “greatest” you mean “with the highest body count,” which is really the only metric I can think of that fans of this strip would respect.

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Blondie, 8/7/10

Ha ha, Dagood is a philistine who only appreciates books for their physical qualities, not for the wonders of storytelling contained therein! Of course, the third-panel payoff should have been evident from the beginning of the strip, as nobody selects a whole bookshelf’s worth of books with identically colored covers for their literary qualities. (Longtime readers of this blog will remember the day Dagwood made this mass sham book purchase.)

Judge Parker, 8/7/10

Oh my goodness, now we know why Sophie was so keen to become a cheerleader; she’s gone from being a mere know-it-all to being literally omniscient.

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Apartment 3-G, 8/2/10

At last, someone is showing some initiative around here! Naturally it’s Margo, but the low level of rebellion on display is really pretty pathetic. Oh no, they’re going to leave their hotel room and order dinner! Really, Margo, we expected Kat and Kitty’s severed heads to be displayed on pikes as a warning to others by this point. Why exactly is reckless restaurant-going forbidden, anyway? Is the show broadcast live, in real time? Are they depriving Americans of their chance to watch three badly dressed women mope around in a hotel room? Surely the entertainment value there ended when Lu Ann and Margo drained the minibar.

Judge Parker, 8/2/10

Meanwhile, the transformation of Jules from “predatory European sexual threat to Sam’s American sense of morality” to “sad, abused doormat” is pretty much complete. The best part of this scene is the way he’s proffering up that shoe, like it’s some kind of excuse. “But, your father and I … we’ve been working … look at this shoe! It has a decorative buckle-thing! And it’s been weight-tested! Please love me!”

Jumble, 8/2/10

As always, I cheerfully admit that I don’t have the brainpower to actually solve the Jumble, so I have to make my guess on what’s going on from the visual. Obviously curly mustaches and furrowed brows are only found on evil characters in comics, so I’m guessing the boss is going to give Sam a raise for cooking the books and hiding millions of dollars in offshore shell corporations. You just wear that visor and sheepish expression on the witness stand, kid, and we’ll do great, trust me.

Popeye, 8/2/10

Once again, I’ve become briefly intrigued by the new Popeye storyline, though I’ll quickly lose interest once it devolves into the boring kind of insanity. At the moment, though, I’m intrigued by what Popeye and the Professor have cooked up. Looks like genocide! Scientific genocide.