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Mary Worth, 4/2/09

Always working on self-improvement, Mary has managed to upgrade the contents of her thought balloons from simple text-based information to a full multimedia experience. I was going to say that she really needs a hobby, but then I realized that figuring out better ways to obsess over other people’s problems so as to help her forget her otherwise empty life is her hobby.

Luann, 4/2/09

Does anyone else remember how, years ago, Greg Evans had his readers vote on whether Luann was going to go to some dance with either Gunther or Aaron Hill? I seem to recall that either Aaron won the vote, or Gunther won the vote but then Luann went with Aaron to the dance anyway. My point is that in panel three Gunther is right: he is unloved either by the majority of the people who read about his life or by his creator.

Marmaduke, 4/2/09

It’s natural that Marmaduke’s owner is confused. For most of us, being transported by our demonic pet through a mystical portal into some kind of hell-dimension of eternal torment would be an unfamiliar experience, and we wouldn’t have any idea what was happening until too late.

Marvin, 4/2/09

It’s been a painful experience for Marvin’s grandparents to have lost all their money and move due to financial necessity in with their daughter and her family; the worst part is that they have to live with Marvin, obviously. But still, multigenerational homes are traditional in much of the world, and there’s opportunities for real wisdom to be passed on. For instance, today Marvin is learning that human vanity does not fade with age, but rather only becomes more ridiculous.

Spider-Man, 4/2/09

Ha ha, Spider-Man told a “not” joke! These were very popular twenty years ago or so.

Mark Trail, 4/2/09

“But first, we’ve got $500 to spend! That will sure buy a lot of khaki and neckerchiefs!”

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Gil Thorp, 3/28/09

“Hey, Josh,” you’re probably wondering, “How did the winter Gil Thorp story finally play out?” Well, Gil managed to convince the Larkins (who are black) that it would be racist to move back to New York City to take a lucrative job that would help Mr. Larkin get his career back on track, and take the family away from the awful town where the kids are dating juvenile delinquents! Brenda Larkin marked the permanence of her presence in Loserville, USA, by blowing a key shot in the big game, thus keeping the Lady Mudlarks out of the playdowns, again. (The boys’ team’s fate wasn’t even discussed, so presumably they weren’t even in contention.) Then a career criminal, Ted Ex Machina, confessed to the convenience store hold-up that put all this in motion. And today, the one bit of whimsy and joy this plotline has given us — the fact that Ashley got robbed of a case of Nutboys (“It’s Nutty!”) — has been retroactively erased in Orwellian fashion. THEY WERE NUTBOYS, DO YOU HEAR ME? NOT ZAGNUTS! NUTBOYS! Now, for the love of all that’s vaguely wacky, let’s move on to baseball season.

In the final panel, we have confirmed what we’ve known all along: that Milford is a sort of Jerusalem for everyone who’s given up on doing anything with their lives.

Family Circus, 3/29/09

I’m not sure what’s sadder: that the Keanes view representational art as sacrilegious, and thus only decorate their otherwise blank walls with exuberance-restricting commands in terrifying blackletter font, or that said commands are so routinely disobeyed in the Keane Kompound, which is best known for the sounds of morons shrieking malapropisms.

Luann, 3/29/09

“You’ll be making crepes for me. While I wait in bed. Your bed. Which is where I’ll sleep, after I’ve captured and subdued you with my muscular, prehensile head-tail. Even now, it’s curling and uncurling at the tip, in eager anticipation of the moment when it will strike and wrap around you with its anaconda-like strength.”

Apartment 3-G, 3/29/09

“Aunt Carol thinks that being a child of divorce, like pretty much half of everybody in America today, and having a father with a lucrative medical career is the equivalent of growing up in a squalid refugee camp in the middle of a war zone! Aunt Carol has absolutely no God-damned sense of proportion.”

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Gil Thorp, 3/20/09

Well, it looks like it’s that time of the season again, when Gil realizes that whatever squad he’s doing a half-assed job of coaching at the moment won’t be going to the playdowns, so he needs to make a half-assed attempt to intervene in the most egregious of the stupid dramas playing out among his charges in order to vaguely justify his existence. (If he doesn’t do this at least once every three months, they’ll take his name off the strip entirely and call it The Magical, Boozy Antics Of Marty Moon.) This spring’s crisis involves the Larsons, who are quite reasonably worried that they’ve moved their kids from the warm, nurturing environment of New York City into some kind of degenerate hellhole where they’ve become romantically entangled with vest-wearing fans of wacky, theatrical surf-rock bands. Gil needs that coffee, as he’s almost certainly come straight to Chez Larkin from PUB, as his drunken logic indicates. “See, Ashley and Dylan are all right kids … but, uh, don’t judge Milford based on them! We’re better than they are! Not that they’re … bad … per se … uh, what’s with those rays coming out of your eyes? Are you trying to use your mind control powers on me?”

Luann, 3/20/09

Well, there you have it. The big TJ mystery that’s been percolating since at least last Thanksgiving has been … solved! All thanks to a paragraph of exposition crammed into a single panel during a porch-based conversation. That should prove wrong everyone who thought the resolution to this plot point would be prurient, or interesting.

Slylock, 3/20/09

What kind of message are we sending to the young people of today? Look at this irresponsible bird, giving birth to an out-of-wedlock egg and then just strolling casually off! Where is this supposed to be, the ladies room at Parrot Prom?

Family Circus, 3/20/09

The way this little mob of melonheads is gathering at the open doorway, all staring silently at their teacher in her new short skirt and listening to Billy’s slander, is making me nervous. Miss McElfresh is about to find out how they deal with the Sin of Pride here at the Keane Kompound. (Hint: It involves rocks. Many sharp rocks.)