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The Lockhorns, 11/28/11

My goodness but this is a delightful Lockhorns! I’m not entirely sure what’s supposed to be happening here, but since Leroy is in his pajamas and looks miserable and ill, while Loretta is already up and about and dressed and carrying something indistinguishably horizontal, I’m going to guess that he’s been staring at that mirror for hours now, trying to decide whether or not to follow through on his drunken boast from last night that he was going to kill himself. “Let me know how it ends!” Loretta says cheerfully, fully aware that if he doesn’t have the courage to end his awful, soul-crushing marriage, he certainly doesn’t have the guts to finish himself off.

Gil Thorp, 11/28/11

Way back in the mists of times, Gil Thorp plots ended in wacky hijinks and weird psychological ploys, but apparently someone decided that this wasn’t realistic enough, so now Gil solves his problems like a real high school football coach would: by ignoring them until it becomes clear that they won’t go away, and then yelling at people. Last year’s great budget cut debacle concluded when Gil showed up at a school board meeting and dragged his enemy’s private life into public scrutiny; now he’s just straight up humiliating the president of the team booster club in front of his buddies. Presumably everyone else will literally fall in behind Gil, now that the true alpha male has been identified.

Archie, 11/28/11

In this Archie rerun from the mid-1990s, Ms. Grundy worries about the teenage pregnancy epidemic (not that we’ve ever seen a pregnant teenager in Archie, but I guess she has a TV set). Well, don’t fret, long-ago Ms. Grundy! Over the next decade and a half, teen birth rates will plummet, eventually hitting their lowest point since the 1940s. Teens continue to not use pins as tokens of affection, though, if you still want something to complain about the kids today.

Marvin, 11/28/11

Obviously — obviously — Marvin’s sudden Internet fame involves time spent on the toilet.

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Let’s start our discussion of Tuesday’s comics by looking at the first panel of Monday’s Apartment 3-G:

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 8/8/11

Sorry Lu Ann, looks like you’re left holding the glass! Wait, don’t you have another roommate? Maybe she wants lemonade!

Apartment 3-G, 8/9/11

Do you think that’s the same glass? I sure hope not, for Lu Ann’s sake. Margo doesn’t want your hand-me-down leftover glasses of lemonade, Lu Ann! Margo only wants the freshest lemonade! And Margo couldn’t possibly want anything Tommie has rejected! What’s the matter with you?

Fortunately for Lu Ann. Margo is mostly ignoring her as her mind is firmly set on her next round of harebrained schemes. Still, our lovable dim blonde sure is hilariously sad by the end of the strip! “Doesn’t anyone need me? Making lemonade is my only skill! If nobody ever wants lemonade again, what will become of me?”

Gil Thorp, 8/9/11

Ha ha, remember when a Ben Franklin lookalike hustled Marty Moon out of hundreds of dollars on the links? That was all good fun, since Marty is everybody’s punching bag, but having the strip’s ostensible authority figure and voice of reason high-five his protege after a successful revenge-grift seems somewhat more problematic.

Lockhorns, 8/9/11

C’mon, Leroy, it’s Tuesday, aka “sexy hobo cosplay day.” You know what Loretta wants. Unless … this is part of the game? “Fine, let me just finish the paper, and then I’ll put a little something in your cup, if you know what I mean.”

Mary Worth, 8/9/11

That tiny question mark in the final panel isn’t a sign of self-doubt or a signal that Mary isn’t sure what her next move should be (ha ha, like she would ever experience such things). Rather, it’s indicating her sudden disorientation. As soon as she hears the words “I need your advice,” the world seems to retreat away from Mary, appearing as a tiny pinprick of light at the end of a long tunnel, as she enters a fugue state. She’ll come to three months later, covered in blood, just in time to watch Gina’s newly de-estranged father walk her down the aisle.

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Lockhorns, 7/25/11

I am absolutely in love with the enormous frown on the kid’s face in this panel. It’s like, he’s just gone down to the newsstand to buy the latest Superman comic (because like all of today’s youth he loves twee retro affectations). He didn’t expect to be harassed by some squat middle-aged stranger. Certainly he didn’t expect to be offered an observation so dense with emotional anguish and post-love ennui; he’s far too young to really understand it, but he feels the pain of it flowing out of Leroy and crashing over him in waves. He’s going home a changed person, and he’s going to be looking in his funnybooks for the real stories, the stories about what makes people human (hint: it’s suffering).

Slylock Fox, 7/25/11

Once again, Slylock proves that he simply can’t stop with the sleuthing after tiny clues, even when it isn’t necessary. I’ll bet he makes the poor techs down at the CSI lab work for days with him on figuring out the make of the tires that left those treads in the concrete before finally admitting that he also has access to the perp’s license plate, which they could connect to his registration and home address by spending about thirty seconds in front of the computer. I’m less interested in his sad and increasingly desperate little game than I am in the nattily attired duck standing on the corner. While everyone else in the neighborhood appears traumatized by the reign of automotive terror that just blew through the subdivision, he just stares forward with big, soulless eyes, like he’s a jarring minor character from a David Lynch film.