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Sorry I missed a day yesterday … all that Finger Quotin’ left me exhausted. But there’s a-doings a-transpiring in many a soaper, so we need to cover at least the high points…

Judge Parker, 6/22/06

Oh, snap! If you’re not following Judge Parker, this is Raju, junior-high-age Sophie’s Internet-recruited Indian “personal assistant,” who travelled to America thinking that she was a college student and hoping to woo her into marriage. There was a loathsome installment earlier this week where he weepingly told her that he had thought that she and he might make “little Rajus” together, but I think this strip, where she insults his teeth, is a lot funnier.

Spider-Man, 6/22/06

Yeah, because expressing jealousy towards someone is iron-clad proof that you planned to kill them. Way to use your relative jumping-to-conclusions ability of a spider, there, Parker.

Admittedly, sitting around your mansion watching films of your failed auditions with your creepy manservant is a little strange. A little strange and lot ripped off from Sunset Boulevard.

Mary Worth, 6/22-23/06

Oh, man, Mary’s little golf-cart-drivin’ Jeff fantasy is yesterday’s strip is just too, too delicious. But the narrative tension caused by the arrangement of the panels in today’s strip, combined with the look of grim resignation on Dr. Cory’s face, implies that there’s rough waters ahead for our senior citizen lovers. Is Jeff going to tell Mary that he’s leaving town to be with a seventeen-year-old girl he fell in love with on MySpace? Or is just upset that she demanded he wear that nice paramecium golf shirt she bought him for once? At least they’re not going to be twinsies if he shows up at this party today.

For Better Or For Worse, 6/23/06

God damn, Paul the Mountie will grab anyone’s ass.

I’m mainly posting this just to acknowledge that yes, you aren’t crazy, the strips on the FBOFW site really are blinking at you and yes, it plumbs depths of creepy that I didn’t even know existed before.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/23/06

I don’t want to say that this Funky Winkerbean plotline, in which the hot popular girl repeatedly throws herself at the dorky kid for no real reason, is some sort of wish fulfillment fantasy on the part of the artist, but … OK, actually, I guess I do want to say that. Dorky kid has been pretty freaked out for the duration, so I assume we’re going to learn a Valuable Lesson about high school chicks who go too fast and the nerds they terrify.

Mark Trail, 6/23/06

Man, this Mark Trail plot is turning out to be pretty awesome, and we haven’t even got to the tiger penises yet. I love how Kelly just lies around her pink bedroom in a slip lovingly copied from Liz Taylor’s Butterfield 8 get-up, plotting out loud and giving a look of evil sexiness to no one in particular.

One Big Happy, 6/23/06

It’s not a soap opera, but One Big Happy has been running with the same plot all week, which is sort of unusual. Can I just say I love Earl the vacuum cleaner fetishist a lot? You live that dream, Earl. You live it.

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Beetle Bailey, 6/11/06

Here’s a strip that manages to completely undermine its own punchline, as near as I can tell. Because we were here to see what went on when Sarge was gone, and trust us, it wasn’t really that interesting.

Still, I am totally charmed by the rather bizarre sentence “We’re playing football with no boundaries!” I’m trying to come up with similar assertions. “We’re playing hockey without caring about what other people think!” “We’re playing baseball with no sense of proportion!” “We’re playing bridge full of contempt for civilization and its works!”

Apartment 3-G, 6/11/06

Here’s a good example of a strip where the throwaway panels in the top row actually have a great deal of impact on the meaning. When I read this strip in my paper today, without those top panels, I assumed that Lu Ann really didn’t care whether Margo came or not, but that sad face in panel two indicates that she knows all to well that Margo loves a party all too much. We readers, of course, can thank our lucky stars that this dark-haired dynamo is going to be crashing this artsy fartsy bash, because it’s gonna be wacky as hell.

I was going to complain that we just spent a week watching Tommie and Lu Ann getting ready for this shindig, and now we have to wait for Margo to primp herself as well. Then I realized that there’s a chance that we might see some Margo-in-sexy-underwear action, so I’m withholding my judgement for now. I don’t know what the hell is going on with her hand in panel four, though. That’s just weird.

Judge Parker, 6/11/06

So we’ve learned that “Raju Mishra” is Bengali for “Brick House”:

I’ve been impressed with the new Judge Parker artist’s work so far, but today he met his ultimate test: Abbey’s hair. Of course, he’s constrained by the fact that his characters have to be recognizable as the people we’ve come to know and love over the years. He’s almost managed to make Abbey look like she’s chosen a hairstyle that a non-insane person would choose to go out in public in … almost. It think that this may be as close as anyone could expect.

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Ye cats, while I was busy soaking in the sun and eating large quantities of grilled meat, this weekend’s comics were plugging along providing rich fodder for hilariousness. Let’s jump to them with no further ado!

Judge Parker, 5/27/06

Holy cow, it’s, like, the least subtle foreshadowing in the history of foreshadowing. You know what I think would be great? If this is, in fact, the last we see of April Bower. Not because I have anything against her, I just think it would be great if that smug bastard Sam’s prediction didn’t pan out.

I wonder about Sam’s pose in the last panel. Maybe all this talk of lawyer-on-secretary action, combined with Gloria’s sexy, sexy Judy The Time-Life Operator look, has convinced Sam to “take a dip in the office pool,” if you know what I mean. In panel three, he’s flashing her his expensive watch, as if to say, “This is the sort of bauble that could be yours if you agree to be my on-the-side woman.” By Gloria’s pinched facial expression in panel two, though, it seems that she can’t get past the disgusting thicket of hair on the back of his hands.

For Better Or For Worse, 5/27/06 and 5/29/06

Man, say what you will about FBOFW, but these strips show that it can still deliver. Specifically, it can deliver what I for one have been waiting for, which is Liz getting seriously called on her whiny suburban white girl shit. Take a look at the broad shoulders and quiet dignity of Canada’s Finest there, Lizardbreath: a year and a half from now, when the Spawn of Thérèse is throwing yet another temper tantrum and your mom is there offering unsolicited advice while Anthony is down at Gordo’s Car Emporium yukking it up as he fills his mustache with cinnamon bun crumbs, you’ll be thinking of Mr. Wright as you say “Wait! Did I really miss this? ‘Cause now I’m not sure!”

(Um. That last paragraph revealed both more in-depth knowledge of and more emotional investment in this strip than I frankly was aware that I harbored. Ratchet back, Josh, ratchet back.)

Mark Trail, 5/28/06

Damn, that lady in panel two’s gonna get crabs! Or, um, a crab. Heh. Crabs. I don’t have much to say about this strip, except that it’s one of the better “Mark Trail Teaches You About Nature” installments to come down the pike in quite a while. The sexy-lady-pokes-at-an-enraged-crab-with-a-stick action in the second panel is awesome, of course, as is the notion that crabs walk around weilding sea anemones as weapons. I have no idea if that’s true, but even if it isn’t, it’s one of those things that is so awesome, that if it isn’t true, it should be.

The Phantom, 5/28/06

Meanwhile, the Ghost-Who-Sleeps-Through-His-Wife’s-Kidnapping is, well, sleeping through his wife’s kidnapping. I’m puzzled by Diana’s cry for help in the last panel: I’m reasonably sure how you’d pronounce, say, “KIIIIIIT!!” But “KITTTT!!“? That’s a lot of Ts.

Spider-Man, 5/28/06

The studio may need Marvella, but apparently it doesn’t need Marvella’s costume. Or, specifically, it doesn’t seem to need any of the waist-up part of Marvella’s costume. Yikes!

Family Circus and Crock, 5/29/06

It’s the Battle of the Clumsily Deployed Catchphrases of the Moment! And the surprise winner is the Family Circus. Yes, the joke is lame and will be incomprehensible to anyone reading it 18 months from now, but there’s a certain charming pathos to it: Billy and Dolly glare at Jeffy with angry, piggish faces and jab at him with their fingers, while their little brother, with a tiny bit of control over his environment for once in his life, just closes his eyes, smiles slightly, and enjoys the moment. Crock, on the other hand, is Crock, and therefore sucks.

Slylock Fox, 5/29/06

Do you know why Slick Smitty has that big, self-assured grin on his face? Because he knows that, since he’s a human, a court run by animals has no legal jurisdiction over him. He may be guilty as sin, but he knows that half an hour after the verdict comes down, the court sketch artist will have his neck broken in a snap track and the prosecutor will be turned into a nice muff for his wife. For the sake of justice, we’d all better hope that the judge is a member of an endangered species.

Judge Parker, 5/29/06

And we’re right back where we started … or are we? Yes, today Judge Parker got a new artist — a new artist who has outfitted cult leader Mimi with the cutest paisley vest ever! Randy still looks like a tool, though that’s really unavoidable; at least he doesn’t look like a tool with a face like a monkey. The real test will come when two of the male characters are put in the frame at the same time; will we be able to tell them apart? Still, I for one am happy to offer a provisionally warm welcome to you, “Barreto,” whoever you are.