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Luann, 6/21/11

Uh-oh, looks like the DeGroots are on a collision course with wackiness — TJ-flavored wackiness! So, wait, is TJ not capable of paying rent on his own? Doesn’t he have a job? Wasn’t there some whole plotline a few years back that centered on the family trying to figure out what TJ did for a living? Did they ever find out? You know, it’s times like this, when I realize that I actually don’t have some bit of Luann ancillary character trivia at my fingertips, that I realize that maybe I’m more mentally healthy than everyone says. I could just look up the answer, but it would ruin my feeling of triumph and well-being.

Anyway, the fact that TJ will be required by economic and/or narrative necessity to move back home with Brad only strengthens my suspicions that “TJ” is actually just a projection of Brad’s troubled subconscious, and that his entire family has been urged by Brad’s team of psychiatrists to play along with his delusion, a role they’ve tackled with an unsettling degree of gusto.

Apartment 3-G, 6/21/11

You know, if the A3G girls were so keen on getting a psychic reading for Lu Ann, why not just go with Margo’s mother Gabriella, who’s been known to dabble in the mystic arts herself? Of course, since Laura Lea is drawn exactly like Gabriella, that may be what they’ve done, and just asked her not to lay on the accent to so thick for a few minutes. At any rate, Margo’s sweet smile in panel one shows that she’ll always love how easy poor dumb Lu Ann is to fool.

Judge Parker, 6/21/11

Worried that the strip’s core audience of aged shut-ins might find the current storyline involving potential suicide too exciting, the Judge Parker creative team has decided to ratchet things back a notch and are now only showing Abbey and Sophie watching the situation unfold via a no doubt low-quality webcam. Still, they are narrating the action, which might cause stray amounts of dangerous drama to enter the consciousness of readers. Just to be safe, the rest of the week will consist of the two of them staring silently at the screen.

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Funky Winkerbean, 6/17/11

Oh, look Les’s mopey romantic life has been derailed by comical misunderstanding! Sure, if you actually go back and look at the Les-Susan smooch strip (which I did, because I have a professional obligation and/or hate myself) it doesn’t seem very likely that anyone would have had an opportunity to snap this little pic, but I say if Les is humiliated, all the better. Maybe Keisha was stalking him, in order to defend her mother’s honor, or just because everyone is obsessed with Les for no reason. Maybe Susan had a hidden camera set up for just this reason, and she sent the pic to Keisha when the time was right. The important thing is that finally someone in this strip is going to be suffering in a way that I find enjoyable.

Luann, 6/17/11

Speaking of enjoyable suffering: ha ha, Brad is about to be fired! I’m sure they’ll explain it as “budget cuts,” but it would be great if he were let go because of incompetence, or just because his personality is considered generally unpleasant by the other firefighters. I’ll bet those checks Toni’s brother gets for being in the Le Mis touring company look pretty darn steady now!

Ziggy, 6/17/11

Ziggy’s brought his pet to a restaurant, and his pet has brought vermin into that restaurant, and now that pet is going to disembowel and eat that vermin right at the table. I’m beginning to understand why the waiters in this strip are always so hostile towards Ziggy.

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Panel from Archie, 6/16/11

I’m terrible for not bringing this news to you earlier, but Henry Scarpelli, who for a long time was the artist of the Archie comic strip, died a couple of months ago. (UPDATE: Uh, as many people have pointed out, that article is from April of 2010 — so I have no idea why the art only changed a few months ago. Maybe he had drawn comics months in advance? Som artists do!) I will always have a warm spot in my heart for him because it was he (I assume) who inserted the occasional Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000 gag into the strip, possibly without the writer really knowing what was going on.

Since his passing, the syndicate apparently came to the conclusion that, what with the huge backlog of timeless Archie yuks available there’s no real reason to pay anyone to create new ones, and has, I believe, been running older strips from the ’90s, which explains why they’ve been even less in touch with today’s youth than usual. (Please correct me if I’m wrong on this point!) Anyway, the older version of the strip was not created by a cybernetic intelligence, but an all too human individual who, if this panel is any indication, spends his days in an isolated cabin, preparing for the day when he will lead the righteous cleansing of our degenerate nation.

Luann, 6/16/11

Yeah, Toni’s brother sure is flake and a jerk! He’s not a fine, upstanding, responsible person like Brad and Toni are. You can tell they’re upstanding and responsible because they do upstanding and responsible things, like trash Toni’s brother constantly, right in front of his daughter.

Apartment 3-G, 6/16/11

Aw, isn’t this nice, Tommie’s mom has come to visit! Too bad Tommie didn’t get some advanced notice; it’s little embarrassing to have her arrive at 3 p.m. and find her daughter and her roommate lying around in an opium haze.