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Judge Parker, 4/27/08

Well, it’s been a few months since Sophie stopped being a pantsuit-wearing prematurely aged prepubescent and became a belly-baring tweenage fashion plate, and, heck, I guess that’s the sort of thing you expect from a girl that age. What’s much sadder is her transformation from a borderline-Asperger case, tethered to her laptop and constantly crunching climate change data, to someone who has fully bought into junior high’s draconian rules of social conformity. “Hey, Mr. Dickens is a weirdo! And everyone knows that people who deviate even slightly from the norm don’t deserve privacy or civil rights!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/27/08

We can already see the contours of the upcoming Rex Morgan storyline: the noble bureaucrats of the public health department versus the hate-filled harridans whose children died in an epidemic. “He must have been talking to the Wagners before their son even died!” Why, the Wagners probably deliberately infected their child with MRSA as part of an elaborate scheme to get a sweet financial settlement from the flush-with-cash county government! Monsters! Monsters with dead children!

Panel from Mary Worth, 4/27/08

“But she doesn’t deserve to see your hideous deformed and lumpy face, so please wear this paper bag, dear.”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/15/08

My, the local yokels in Rex Morgan’s town sure care about stuff, don’t they? I mean, most people respond to news about bacteria and public health policy by saying “Guh, science is hard” and changing the channel, but these folks have taken note of the crisis in their community and chose to get politically involved. Naturally, Rex and June, as representatives of the out-of-touch medical elite, dismiss them as ignorant peasants. In their perfect world, people would meekly follow the dictates of their physician-kings, especially when it came to purchasing expensive prescription medication manufactured by companies who contribute nice pens and notepads to the Morgan clinic.

Rex’s dickish statement in panel two definitely qualifies as one of his most hilarious dickish statements yet. Of course, his obsession with nostril health may be the root cause of some of the more unusual viewing angles this strip has featured in the past:

And let’s not forget this panel from last Saturday!

See, we thought it was about her choppers, but it turns out that we can actually see the MRSA breeding, up there amongst her boogers.

Apartment 3-G, 4/15/08

That’s actually what Margo asks herself pretty much every waking minute of the day. Still, in panel three she looks almost sheepish about the awful plan for exploiting Lu Ann’s brain damage she’s about to unveil.

Blondie, 4/15/08

When I first read this, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be easier if Dagwood just kept a stick of pepperoni in the car?” But if he did, he’d inevitably eat it. In fact, he’s probably going to eat that air freshener.

For Better Or For Worse, 4/15/08

Wait … when the baby boomers were getting married the bygone days of the ’60s and ’70s, did they really decide on a wedding date the moment they got engaged? I don’t think they did, actually. FOR PETE’S SAKE FOOBS, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN MAKE A PUN OUT OF IT DOESN’T MAKE IT TRUE.

Get Fuzzy, 4/15/08

Ha, he said “wash his own balls!” But what really made me laugh for some reason was “oh my head.” Most people would say “oh my God” or the like, but Bucky can imagine no deity more important than his own misshapen skull.

Judge Parker, 4/15/08

HEY, EVERYONE, MARIJUANA! The Dickens farm has been growing marijuana. That … that revelation turned out to be fairly anticlimactic, actually. At least we’ll be treated to a be-hatted Abbey being held captive by sinister geriatric drug dealers, which should be wonderful and bizarre.

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Hi and Lois, 4/1/08

Poor Hi! Sure, he hasn’t gotten more than a meager cost-of-living wage increase from that tightwad Froofram in years, but he’s gotten used to the lifestyle that his realtor wife’s huge commissions made possible during the go-go housing boom of the mid-naughts. Now that she hasn’t sold a house in months, Lois can only stare cross-armed at Hi’s $16 bottle of wine, knowing that it’s put a substantial dent in this month’s grocery budget. Only Sterno will help the Flagstons drink away their pain for the foreseeable future.

Judge Parker, 4/1/08

Poor Gloria! All she wanted to do was live out her lifelong fantasy of making it with a guy with no legs, but it turns out that hero Steve is not only damaged physically, but mentally as well. Sure, you can forgive a guy who had a mine planted outside of his hut and gets mysterious packages in the mail for being a little paranoid, but it’s clear that he’s going to see conspiracies in every nice gesture anyone does for him — and that he’s not ready for a relationship. Gloria will just have to console herself with her back issues of Stump Humper a little while longer.

Marmaduke, 4/1/08

One of the fun things I like to do with the comics is to come up a whole hidden backstory behind the gag-a-day features. For instance, I like to imagine that Marmaduke’s owner is actually Adolph Hitler, who faked his suicide, escaped from his command bunker to post-war American suburbia, and got a Great Dane. His former position as absolute ruler of a continent makes the petty indignities of life with Marmaduke all the more infuriating. Today, for instance, we can see on his hate-twisted fate that he would like nothing more than to send the impertinent policeman and the damn dog to a concentration camp, but as it is all he can do is wave his hand in the air and rage impotently. Is it a fitting punishment for his monstrous crimes? Not really, but it’s kind of fun to see.

Gil Thorp, 4/1/08

The “drama” of today’s strip — Gil sends hapless assistant to hush up overbearing parent, hapless assistant fails miserably — is lame even by Gil Thorp standards. Still, it’s always nice to see some Milford kids on the verge of tears.