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Judge Parker, 4/15/17

So Sam and Honey Ballenger’s armed, aggrieved, kicked-off-the-police-force-for-his-various-personality-problems dad are heading over to the Buttresses kidnap compound and right into her cunning trap, I think, but I wanted to share with you today’s high comedy: Officer Ballenger (Involuntarily Ret.) bashes in a window with his rifle butt, reaches through the broken glass to try to open the door, gets an owie, fails to open the door, withdraws his arm (presumably causing more owies) then starts yelling and trying to kick in a door that, from the look of it, opens outward. Good revenge skulking, guys! A+++!

Mary Worth, 4/15/17

Hey, remember a couple of days ago, when Mary decided to take a short break from her walk and try out one of these “chairs” that are all the rage? Well, she’s now fully committed to the sitting lifestyle and has no intention of ceasing to sit any time soon! Toby might be line dancing by the pool later, and maybe the Hoosiers will see her there, but they won’t see Mary anywhere but in this chair, where she’s going to be staying indefinitely. Remember how there was vague talk of going to see how they make the folded towel animals? Well, fuck that. Chair.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/15/17

In honor of the risen Christ, Snuffy has briefly stopped robbing his neighbors and started … robbing stores, I guess.

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Judge Parker, 4/1/17

So Honey Ballenger’s dad has invited Sam over to the kidnap compound and is going to shoot him with a shotgun, probably for being a rich jerk whose kid was the reason his got briefly kidnapped or something. I like how the subtle details let us know he’s a crazed maniac: what sort of lunatic just has a VHS tape labelled “NFL PLAYOFFS”? Does re-record over it every year? Or does he just endlessly rewatch the Patriots-Jaguars first-round game from January 2006, the last one played before the record function on his VCR broke?

Blondie, 4/1/17

[I take a long drag from a cigarette]

Now, Cathy’s mother-in-law tried to sell hers at a yard sale, back in ’09, but the real heyday was three years before that. Curtis wanted a pair. A plugger threw ’em out by accident. At least one of the Chix thought they were a joke. And Al Scaduto — God, I miss Al Scaduto — Al Scaduto though you’d wear ’em at a “hobo gathering,” and that might not be what you call “politically correct” but you can’t deny it hits the nail on the head.

[I take another drag, then laugh a laugh that devolves into coughing]

Well, sorry to go on like that, stranger! It’s just, you come around here, and you say “predistressed jeans,” and–

[I look out over the rail of the porch, towards the distant horizon]

–well, I haven’t heard that name in years.

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/18/17

So Funky walked up the hill to that mysterious abandoned house and then … spent the week walking around in it eerie emptiness? And then looked at an old painting on the wall for a while. And today, in the first dialogue of the whole week, thought-balloons some stuff that I guess is supposed to be profound but is actually just a symptom of a major depressive disorder. I honestly don’t know if this is a Significant Location From Storylines Past or just a Metaphor Symbolizing Life’s Impermanence, and I also don’t know what’s supposed to be happening here, but in a larger sense I feel like I know exactly what’s happening here, you know?

Judge Parker, 3/18/17

You’ll recall that when Derek was first introduced to this strip, he was Honey Ballinger’s boyfriend but Sophie liked him she decided to steam him away, but then suddenly (and by “suddenly” I mean “four years later,” because this is Judge Parker after all) Derek was Sophie’s boyfriend and she was worried Honey Ballinger was going to steal him away from her. This could’ve all been chalked up to the silly, transient nature of teen relationships, but as today’s final panel reveals, the question of who exactly was dating whom has abruptly become extremely serious.

Mary Worth, 3/18/17

Pretty sure that this is what you’d get if you were making a movie and directed your actors to “do a bunch of cocaine and then yell whatever comes into your head about cruises as loud and as fast as you can.”