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Mark Trail, 8/10/10

Well, now we know why Mark’s neighbor has erected that fence: he needs to make sure that the lifelike androids he built to simulate his murdered wife and daughter are 100 percent realistic before allowing them to interact with humans. “Damn it, this naturalistic speech problem is the greatest programming puzzle I’ve faced yet! There’s got to be a way for the wife-robot to distinguish the shades of meaning that define the proper context for ‘too’ and ‘also.’ And why did I even bother programming the subjunctive mood into the little one?”

The Lockhorns, 8/10/10

Leroy’s generic job, his glum co-workers, and his drab, featureless office look to be almost as depressing as his home life. Fortunately, he has one thing there to cheer him up: a picture on his desk of someone who is quite clearly not his wife.

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Blondie, 7/9/10

I imagine that the guy who draws Blondie gets tired of hearing about the strip’s title character’s unusually large and shapely bosom, both from the “oh God it’s hot it makes me so hot” camp and the “you’re a pervert creating unrealistic body images” camp. Look, can’t a guy draw a dame who’s stacked without getting an earful about it? I’d like to think that today’s strip is supposed to be some kind of response. You want to see a broad with big cans? Check this one out! She’s a freak of nature! A biological impossibility! I guess she’s supposed to be heavy-set — thus the wacky food-obsession banter — but with her relatively svelte legs, she just looks top-heavy, like she’s going to tip over in one direction or the other at any minute.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/9/10

“BPH,” for those not in the know, is benign prostatic hyperplasia — basically an enlarged prostate, which makes it hard for Funky to pee. So, you know, Funky is either experiencing a bizarre time-travel phenomenon or an intense, lucid dream, and after about twenty minutes it’s all come back to physical discomfort and potentially cancerous body parts. He can’t even contemplate that tiny cup of refreshing water without thinking of the hours of agony he’ll be spending in front of the urinal later. Might as well make sure his past self is good and glum too, while he’s at it!

Lockhorns, 7/9/10

Leroy’s carpool apparently reacted to his “practical joke” by beating the crap out of him. Or perhaps it was a reaction to his unpleasant personality.

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Judge Parker, 7/4/10

So it turns out that Neddy’s lunch date “Mark” was not her ex of “tongue thing” fame; that was “Bob,” proving that, for whatever his faults, Jules has at least helped break Ned’s addiction to guys with bland, WASPy names. Anyway, Mark, despite apparently being of collegiate age, has since parting with Ned gotten married and then divorced. I have to actually speak up in favor of the dialog in this strip: while soap strips are usually filled with awkward, unnatural speech, this installment is actually marked by the realistically awkward speech you’d hear when two exes with unresolved feelings get together. Mark’s final line is a nice touch. “Ned, uh, even though we discussed getting together in the near future, which would involve one of us calling the other, do I have permission to call you? Just making sure! I think about your body all the time! Uh, I mean, say hi to Jules for me!”

Funky Winkerbean, 7/4/10

OK OK WE HAVE RESOLVED THE FORM OF TIME TRAVEL UNDER QUESTION HERE, which is that Funky’s fiftysomething body has been propelled back to his high school days. This raises another question, though. Tom Batuik has said that the chronological question raised by the strip’s time-jumping — that is, whether the recent jump shoved the cast into 2017 or what — doesn’t interest him, an attitude I have sympathy with! However, if that’s not a question the strip wants to grapple with, then adding a time-travel plot isn’t the way to avoid it. How old is Funky supposed to be, anyway? I said “fiftysomething” above because that’s how he looks to me, but all Westview inhabitants are prematurely aged by grief, so I’m not actually sure at this point. If he’s supposed to be, say, 45, then he’s back somewhere around 1980, I suppose. And I’m sorry, but this crowd is looking insufficiently outrageous for the tail end of the disco era.

Panel from The Lockhorns, 7/4/10

I enjoy the vaguely simian but still contemplative look Leroy is giving that poster here. “‘Dracula,’ eh? He looks scary enough, I suppose, but he’s no The Blob.”