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Better Half, 10/12/14

Like the Lockhorns, the Better Half just churns out a bunch of individual panels to fill its extra allotment of Sunday space. Unlike the Lockhorns, the Better Half attempts to link the panels together; they never create any coherent storyline, but rather present disconnected moments that circle around a few linked themes like some kind of avant garde non-narrative film. The sense of psychic dislocation this produces is really ramped up today, as all the jokes center on teeth, and dirty teeth, and tiny magical beings who come to you in the dead of night while your spouse is asleep and want to take your teeth.

Mark Trail, 10/12/14

“There are thousands of kinds of snakes, they are everywhere, and lots of them are poisonous and one kind can just straight up strangle a crocodile, as depicted in this nightmarish drawing. Also, about a third of people have this weird, irrational fear of them for some reason!”

Momma, 10/12/14

Welp, looks like the Hobbes family is about to be conquered and enslaved, assuming they survive the devastating diseases against which they have no immunity! Everyone is right to look horrified, in other words.

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Mark Trail, 9/30/14

My goodness guys, it has been a while since Mark has seen his family, but sure, why not stop by Washington, D.C., on his way home and do a little testifying about animal poaching and then hobnob with actual congressman Trey Gowdy, who’s taking valuable time away from his job of chairing the House Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi to do a little rhino-horn chat! Why are real elected humans appearing in this strip all of the sudden, instead of random fake baldheaded senators? Well, it’s possible that Trey Gowdy is desperate to woo environmentalist constituents and overcome his extremely low scores from the League of Conservation Voters, and so has paid good money to appear in this tree-hugger comic strip. But Mark’s cutting aside about getting proper funding for any conservation effort probably means that isn’t the case, since Congressman Gowdy is super not in favor of the government spending money. So I have to assume that his carefully rendered face and somewhat too blond hair are appearing here primarily because “Gowdy” is an objectively hilarious name.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/30/14

“The inevitable march towards death, I mean? Our fate approaches us, like an onrushing train?” The leaf hurtling to earth behind Les is a nice touch.

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Momma, 9/27/14

Today’s Momma is a master class in whiplash, moving from clunky, painfully artificial dialogue clearly meant to set up a joke in the first two panels to gibbering madness in panel three. I guess Momma is doing an exaggerated “hands up” gesture to make it clear she’s responding to Francis’s monetary request neither freely nor cheerfully. But what are we to make of the young men’s dialogue? Francis is only thinking his, and with the darkened bottom of the thought balloon that designates gloom in this strip. “Never mind, Normy,” he muses. “I never wanted you to see this. I didn’t want you to know that this is how things really are in this house.” Normy, meanwhile, similarly troubled, mutters “I dig you…” presumably in reluctant admiration of Francis’s elder-terrifying fundraising techniques.

Mark Trail, 9/27/14

You might think Mark is being awful cold to the obviously smitten Lori, looking at her expressionlessly as she weeps and telling her that he really has nothing to do with her situation and that she should “take care of herself.” But that’s pretty much how he treats his wife, so!

B.C., 9/27/14

Remember when Johnny Hart was alive and B.C. did strips mocking the concept of evolution? I guess you could say that under new management, the strip has … evolved. UGH NO SORRY I EVEN SAID THAT IT WAS TERRIBLE