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Spider-Man, 3/4/16

You know, last week when I accidentally mistook this storyline’s antagonist for Dr. Strange, some people got mad at me. How dare I call myself the Comics Curmudgeon when I can’t even properly curmudgeon about prominent comics characters! Well, joke’s on you people: I care a million times more about Mary Worth than I do about anything that happened in a superhero comic book ever. The fun thing about reading Newspaper Spider-Man for me is having really no preconceptions about what exactly is supposed to be happening at any given moment. Like, if I had been paying attention to the Marvel universe at all the I wouldn’t have the joyful moment of discovery today when I learned that Dr. Strange’s name is Stephen. Steve! Steve Strange! Oh, this is a delight.

Mary Worth, 3/4/16

“That’s great, Mary, great. You always have friends. I never have to worry about you being lonely. I just, sometimes … how come nobody ever worries about me? Poor, lonely Dr. Jeff. You were gone, what, six weeks? Eight? I just … I get tired, you know. Tired of this life. I gotta … I’m just gonna rest my forehead on the steering wheel for a few minutes. Just rest my eyes. Wave the other cars around us, OK?”

Mark Trail, 3/4/16

“I meant … I meant sex, OK? I regret it now. It’s stupid and I regret it. I don’t want to die in a cave!” [sobbing]

The Lockhorns, 3/4/16

If there aren’t a half-dozen improv teams named Drunk Leroy Lockhorn formed by the middle of next week, I’m going to be very disappointed.

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Gil Thorp, 3/1/16

Hey, everyone, let’s check in with Gil Thorp! I don’t actually care about whatever half-assed basketball-season story is in progress right now, nor do I care that the long dragged out “Which college will contrarian star quarterback True Standish finally end up at?” plot has been resolved. I mostly want to point out Coach Kaz’s resplendent gold jacket/red turtleneck combo in panel three here. I like the way he’s holding up an index finger as he delivers his line. No doubt someone told him this makes him look thoughtful, probably the same person who advised him to wear a red turtleneck under a gold suit jacket.

The Lockhorns, 3/1/16

Leroy died several days ago, and Loretta is going to call the coroner to take him away eventually, but right after it happened she thought up this little joke and now she’s making her friends come over one by one to listen to it.

Blondie, 3/1/16

I mean, I guess the winner of the “which comic strip character is most likely to talk about a hamburger like he wants to fuck it?” competition isn’t going to come as a surprise to anyone, exactly.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/3/16

They say millennials are abandoning the suburbs and prefer to live in walkable city neighborhoods. Is Sarah a millennial? She’s, what, six, but she was also six in 2004 when I started this blog, which means she was born in 1998 or thereabouts. That makes her Generation Z, which, c’mon guys, we’re gonna need a new name there. Anyhoo, Rex looks pretty perturbed at getting lifestyle advice from a six-year-old, but not really perturbed enough to do anything about it.

Lockhorns, 2/3/16

For everyone who thought the Lockhorns couldn’t accurately depict a modern-day hipster stereotype in that classic Lockhorns style: I guess this panel proved you wrong! They even got that look of withering contempt right, though I’m not sure if a stereotypical hipster would care that much that Leroy is name-checking a boxer who lost the heavyweight championship months ago.

Dennis the Menace, 2/3/16

Little-known fact: it’s possible to become so un-menacing that you loop all the way around and become menacing again. Among menaces, this tricky maneuver is called “the Eddie Haskell”.