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Momma, 7/2/13

If you somehow encountered this Momma comic in complete isolation, not being familiar with its characters or narrative conventions, you’d probably be pretty confused by it, right? I was pretty confused by it myself, at first. I guess it’s supposed to mean that Momma has been answering the phone, and Ed thinks that Momma is an answering machine, because … he’s a moron? Which I guess means that Marylou lives with Momma? I suppose that I’m one of the very few people in the world who ought to know the living arrangements of the characters in Momma for his job, but I confess that I actually am pretty surprised by this. We all know that Francis lives in a disgustingly filthy apartment and Thomas and his wife live in their own house where they can have sex with each other in private, or so they think. I guess I always just assumed that Marylou had her own place. I think … I think there ought to be more Momma-and-Marylou-drive-each-other-crazy jokes to be gotten out of her still living at home? No, wait, I don’t mean to suggest that Momma do more of any specific kind of joke, or indeed any jokes at all. Forget I said anything.

Better Half, 7/2/13

Hey, everyone, Stanley just read his credit card number aloud, right here in the newspaper/on the Internet, where everyone can see/hear it! Why not try buying things with it? Just change a digit or two! Sure looks like a credit card number to me!

Mark Trail, 7/2/13

Mark Trail … in disguise? Mark Trail in disguise. Mark Trail in disguise you guys OMG OMG

Family Circus, 7/2/13

“But sometimes when you hurt inside it’s because you’re bleeding internally, and then hugging makes it worse. You can tell which is which by the screaming!”

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Mark Trail, 6/29/13

Once upon a time, my dad was driving through one of the more rural parts of Western New York when a deer jumped out in front of his jeep, and he ran into it and killed it; the sheriff came by and told him that because it was deer season, he was allowed to take home the carcass if he wanted to. He demurred on this, but it’s always made me wonder if you could just hunt deer by driving around near those deer crossing signs and then intentionally ramming them with your car. Anyway, Mark Trail has already made it clear that it considers “WHAM” a perfectly acceptable gunshot sound effect, but I’d still like to believe that what happened between panels one and two was Death by Truck.

Mary Worth, 6/29/13

Generally, one of the first things people say to me when they start reading my blog is “Wait, Mary Worth is still being published, how is that POSSIBLE, surely no newspaper is actually using part of its dwindling features budget to pay to syndicate it?” Well, here’s a little known fact: Mary Worth has for the last ten years or so been an “advertorial” product entirely funded by the Association of Condominium, Townhouse, and Homeowners Associations. Some days this is more obvious than others.

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Mary Worth, 6/25/13

Ha, I bet you thought that once Beth and Tom had admitted to Elinor that they were totally in heterosexual love and planned to get married and Elinor miraculously came around to the point of view that Beth shouldn’t live a solitary, unhappy life for the rest of her days, all the conflict in this plot was over and we could move onto something more interesting, with that something to be introduced during a pool party. WELL I GUESS YOU THOUGHT WRONG, DIDN’T YOU?? Here we are and we’re still paying attention to these three mopes! What dramatic conflicts remain for our protagonists? Will Beth’s gratitude for Mary’s intervention transform into adoration and then into obsession? Will she manage to alienate both Elinor and Tom with her incessant Mary-worship? Will Mary’s beatific face appear in a floating picture-thought-bubble in at least one panel of every strip for the remainder of this storyline? Let’s hope!

Spider-Man, 6/25/13

I think we can all agree that “Irony, anyone?” is pretty much the greatest Newspaper Spider-Man narration box ever. It will be harder to come to a consensus as to which panel represents the ultimate Newspaper Spider-Man image: Spidey gazing forlornly into his empty wallet, or Spidey rubbing the back of his head and staring dumbly off into the middle distance.

Mark Trail, 6/25/13

Baker’s been here for two days. Has he seen anything? Stay tuned to find out!