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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/20/07

Uh oh, it looks like June and Pete’s plan to take advantage of a man’s death and seize control of a multi-billion dollar corporation has hit a snag: Rex’s sense of right and wrong, by which we of course mean Rex’s petulant refusal to do what his wife tells him to. I note that June skips quickly from the “we need to help our dear friend in her hour of need” angle to the “insider stock price manipulation” angle.

Ziggy, 4/20/07

Yes, every day our once free nation becomes more and more of a police state by degrees, and who notices? Only Ziggy, apparently. If only more people cared about free speech and civil liberties. And about Ziggy.

The Lockhorns, 4/20/07

When I first saw this caption, I read “antidepressant” instead of “antiperspirant.” Frankly, I like my version much better.

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Apartment 3-G, 4/18/07

I am desperate to know more about Margo’s assistant Sam, and not just because I can live out through him my longstanding fantasy of scrambling to carry out Margo’s imperious orders. Look at that wide-eyed wonder in panel two: “Ladies in New York get married? GAWRSH!” I think Margo just stood outside the Port Authority bus station one day, waiting for someone attractive and not-too-bright to step off a Greyhound with small town hopes and big city dreams, and hired him on the spot before he learned the details of typical New York pay scales. However, his cynical look of disbelief at the word “love” in panel three indicates that New York is already wearing down his soul.

For Better Or For Worse, 4/18/07

There’s always an ongoing struggle for the coveted title of “Unintentionally Creepiest FBOFW Character,” but Deanna is making a good bid for it today, with her near-orgasmic musings on replicating her in-laws’ family in photo-perfect detail. This of course is someone whose greatest act of initiative was to get pregnant “accidentally” by “forgetting” to take her birth control pills, which Elly probably bribed her to do somehow. Maybe the house itself is the promised reward.

On the other hand, as several commentors have pointed out, the ravine that she’s waxing about so rhapsodically is the same one where April notoriously almost drowned, with only noble Farley saving her from a watery death. Since the junior Pattersons don’t own any skilled rescue beasts, perhaps Deanna is hoping that a couple quick drownings, Mike’s subsequent suicide, and a sale at market rates of a house they bought at a steep family discount add up to her ticket to sweet, sweet freedom.

Gil Thorp, 4/18/07

Ah ha! See, “Mr. Rickey” is Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager who famously helped break baseball’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson (whose major league career started sixty years ago this week). I’m telling you, this amiable old black man is going to explain to these young white people how Jackie Robinson blazed a trail of opportunity for them.

Judge Parker, 4/18/07

We’ve all been assuming that this mysterious figure is Canadian Cedric the Super Butler, though he appears to not be wearing Cedric’s trademark glasses, so who knows. As a commentor or two pointed out, the shadowy stranger’s use of the word “scum” echoes Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative candidate in this coming weekend’s French presidential election, who famously and controversially used the term to describe rioting youths in Paris’ poor suburbs when he was Interior Minister in 2005. Perhaps Sarko is wearying of the hand shaking and baby kissing and has decided to embark on a little side campaign of his own … a campaign of vigilante justice. Since his intervention will deny Judge Parker readers the opportunity to see Neddy and Abbey sexily fight off their attackers with lead pipes and flamethrowers, this will just give Americans another reason to hate France once he’s elected.

Incidentally, the fact that Cedric/Sarkozy/whoever hears the punks speaking English indicates that the English we’ve been seeing in the word balloons isn’t just a translation of the execrable French for our benefits: they’re actually switching back and forth between English and execrable French. Hee.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/18/07

OK, Rex Morgan, we all know that it’s fun to look at June’s breasts, but there’s a little something called “subtlety.” I mean, Jesus.

By the way, if I were Heather, I wouldn’t be all that heartened by the magical thinking of a preschooler with a hideously misshapen head. Now, if Abbey the Wonderdog had barked her vote of confidence at me, I’d feel reassured.

The Lockhorns, 4/18/07

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here. Was Leroy attempting to hold out on Loretta by squirreling away a portion of his meager paycheck for his own use? Is Loretta upset that he would cut their already cramped budget down further? It’s hard to tell whose moment of triumph this is supposed to be because they look so damn depressed. Because in the Lockhorns, nobody ever wins.

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Family Circus, 4/6/07

I’m not a Christian, but even I know how theologically troubling this Good Friday installment of the supposedly Jesus-friendly Family Circus is. Hey Dolly, they don’t say “Jesus was an adorable baby wrapped in swaddling clothes surrounded by cute animals for your sins,” you know what I’m saying?

Several commentors have suggested that Ma Keane is attempting to exorcize the demons out of Dolly, but I think it’s instructive to compare this panel with Tuesday’s installment. The visual echoes imply that Dolly is about to get smacked with that crucifix; we might assume that its religious meaning is incidental, and that it was merely the closest heavy object to hand.

Gil Thorp, 4/6/07

The first panel of today’s Gil Thorp is just evidence of how far this strip (and by extension America) has slipped from the good old days, as “the doc” is some touch-feely psychotherapist who’s helping Tyler get in touch with his emotions and discover the reasons why he felt a need to hit himself in the back of the head with a stick until he bled; obviously his coach should be telling him to man up, push all those troubling “feelings” deep down inside, and hit other people with sticks instead. The third panel is completely incomprehensible to me. But I like panel two. I like the fact that Assistant Coach Kaz spends his spare time lifting free weights in … well, I don’t know where he’s supposed to be, exactly; it looks like he’s in the exercise yard in prison. I also like the fact that it’s totally obvious that Kaz has had some eye work done.

Apartment 3-G, 4/6/07

The “Lu Ann is being possessed or dying or something and nobody cares or even remembers she exists” bit is now becoming actively hilarious to me. And do we need any more proof that the Professor’s years of “paternal” attentions to the girls in 3G were basically driven by a desire to get into the pants of one or all of them? Now that he’s managed to somehow snag a babe even younger than them, his interest in their sordid paint-huffing adventures has vanished.

The Lockhorns, 4/6/07

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. But it is true that, thanks to Leroy’s listlessness and inattention, Loretta is like El Niño in that she comes once every three to eight years.

Slylock Fox, 4/6/07

Wow, for someone who in the next few minutes is going to die either from suffocation or from a trip through a walrus digestive system, that fish sure is looking pretty darn cheery.