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The Lockhorns, 6/25/10

I’m deeply intrigued by the looks Leroy and the gentleman half of the rapidly departing couple are flashing at each other. That sheepish, crumpled smile is Leroy’s usual expression when he does something shamefully enjoyable, often while drunk (generally this is flirting with a statuesque blonde three times his height). The easy answer is, of course, that this guy is Leroy’s gay lover, but in fact I think the situation is sadder and more poignant: Leroy has finally made his first-ever friend. He was so excited at experiencing a brief moment of human contact that wasn’t steeped in passive-aggressive bile that he invited the man over to visit without asking or even telling his wife. “Sorry, new friend!” Leroy is thinking as he waves. “We’ll do this again sometime!” “That Leroy’s a nice guy,” the other fellow thinks, “But just being around him and his wife for 45 seconds has almost sapped my will to live. We’re never coming back here again.”

Funky Winkerbean, 6/24/10

Oh, darn, Funky survived after all, and now he has something else to be pissy and self-righteous about. Unless … that inky black panel really was his death, and now he’s a dead-and-doesn’t-know-it ghost, à la Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense. Seeing how much everyone resents his angry dickishness and fails to mourn him would be a suitable punishment for his various crimes.

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Mark Trail, 6/20/10

I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the geometry teacher I had my freshman year of high school. She was an excellent teacher, but she had one quirk: she had a crazy underlining tic. Any word she wrote on the board that she felt had even the slightest importance would be underlined. Sometimes the word was “important” only in that it was a verb! Thus, in order to designate things that were actually important, she would double-underline, but she was pretty free with that, too, so it wasn’t unusual for our chalkboard to end up with certain words sitting atop three or four levels of underlines. (I eventually learned to just remove two layers when taking notes.)

Anyway, she may have been a middle-aged African-American math nerd living in a city, but I think she had a certain similarity to Mark Trail, outdoorsman extraordinaire. Mark is a serial abuser of boldface and exclamation points, so when he’s really worked up about something (like the dangers of sky-electricity — he’s already kept all electrical appliances out of his primitive home, but you can never escape these devilish electrons!), he has to turn the text-shouting up to utterly bizarre levels. ALL THUNDERSTORMS ARE DANGEROUS! DO YOU THINK THAT RUBBER-SOLED SHOES CAN PROTECT YOU? NO! THAT IS A MYTH! NOTHING CAN PROTECT YOU! NOTHING CAN PROTECT YOU! STAY AWAY FROM TREES! STAY AWAY FROM ALL FORMS OF METAL! STAY AWAY FROM WATER! HUDDLE IN A FETAL POSITION IN YOUR RUBBER-LINED ROOM, EVERY DAY, FOREVER! OTHERWISE LIGHTNING WILL KILL YOU AND YOU WILL DIE!

Mary Worth, 6/20/10

The transition of Dr. Roberts’s face from pleased to devastated in panels four through seven is a delight of visual storytelling. “What’s this, another head case for me to fix? KA-CHING! Oh, wait … she wants me to … I mean, with a woman … emotional intimacy … oh, God. Oh, God. Well, I guess I don’t really have any choice, do I? Oh, right, her e-mail address, Christ. Ugh ugh ugh.”

Panel from the Lockhorns, 6/20/10

Loretta is ashamed because she and/or Leroy are addicted to prescription medication! But really, anyone who knows them wouldn’t be surprised at what they need to do to get through life married to one another.

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The Lockhorns, 6/18/10

After more than four decades of Lockhorns dinnertime spitefests depicted from a point of view more or less level with the tabletop, today’s panel attempts to play with perspective a bit, showing us what it would be like to cower on the floor about three feet away from Leroy and Loretta as they eat. (Obviously, they’ll ignore you, as their mutual loathing is far more interesting to them just about anything you can name.) In addition to adding a bit of visual flair, this new viewing angle really gives us a good look at their dining room chairs, which they’ve clearly had specially made with incredibly short legs to accommodate their freakishly stumpy frames.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/18/10

I have to say that if, back when Rex and June discovered Brook lurking in their house, you had asked me to predict how this story would turn out, I would have not have considered the possibility that she would end up using her martial arts skills to disarm a knife-wielding thug. In fact, I would not have made this prediction a mere three days ago. But to be fair, I don’t think we’d ever seen Brook’s ripped inner thigh muscles, a result of the long hours she puts in at the dojo keeping herself in peak physical shape.

Judge Parker, 6/18/10

Wow, so Judge Parker is really going to go through with this shoe business, huh? At least today’s strip accurately depicts what would happen if you got a lawyer involved in footwear manufacturing.

Mary Worth, 6/18/10

In a desperate, last-ditch effort to end this conversation with Mary, Jenna’s brain has just triggered a massive stroke.