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Momma, 6/23/13

One of my favorite/least unfavorite Momma bits is Momma’s recurring nightmare that she and/or her children in some combination will be reduced to panhandling, due to her children’s shiftlessness and incompetence. I enjoy these installments because they’re about her constant mid-level anxiety that she and her family are trembling at the boundary of middle-class respectability and could be pushed out into the abyss at any moment, but the actual “jokes” of the strips generally take the form of weird passive-aggressive wordplay on signs that the Hobbes-hobos are displaying for the benefit of passers by. Today was actually the first time I noticed that these signs aren’t makeshift cardboard placards propped up in front of them but actually attached to the wall, which implies both a certain resourcefulness and collusion with the building owner. Come to us when can’t even afford thumbtacks, Momma! Then we’ll know you hit rock bottom.

Panel from Mary Worth, 6/23/13

Haha, look how startled Tom looks by this demand. “But that … that’s kind of my thing! It’s my trademark relationship move!”

Mark Trail, 6/23/13

“How are we going to get the kids interesting in birdwatching? Breakdancing? Do the kids still like breakdancing? Should we tell them that birds breakdance?”

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Apartment 3-G, 6/12/13

There are so many things I [love/am horrified by] (this is a single emotion that I trust is familiar to anyone reading this blog) about today’s Apartment 3-G that I can hardly stand it. Let’s start with the idea that Lu Ann lacks the rudimentary linguistic-cultural competencies necessary to parse the concept of a “famous stylist,” which would be pretty embarrassing even if she hadn’t fairly recently been on a reality TV show in the course of which she got a makeover from a famous stylist. Then add in the fact that what had on Monday been an ignorable peach-orange shirt has today suddenly become a peach-orange shirt insanely paired with an all white suit jacket, which, when combined with Lu Ann’s weirdly rubbery-seeming fish-lipped visage, makes her look like a villain from the Adam West Batman. Look, the governor is affectionally patting her mask-face! Haha, this is a [nightmare/delight].

Funky Winkerbean, 6/12/13

Man, Funky Winkerbean is really going there, if by “there” we mean “dragging one of the sad sack characters from Crankshaft ten years through a time-wormhole into the Funkypresent.” Things we’ve learned today: Jeff looks even more beaten down by life and depressed than he does in the Crankpresent; and, Crankshaft still lives, but has been banished to a nursing home, and thus presumably no longer endangers children by driving a bus. What about Jeff’s terrible mother? Has she finally shaken off this mortal coil? I’m legitimately on tenterhooks!

Crankshaft, 6/12/13

Meanwhile, back in the Crankpresent, my shriveled black heart twitched in delight at Crankshaft’s look of genuine panic in the second panel. Is this the moment when the school district decides to let him go from the job that lets him preserve a modicum of independence and dignity? Let’s hope!

Mark Trail, 6/12/13

Oh, man, I’ve been totally neglectful in keeping you up to date with the new storyline in Mark Trail, which involve otter poaching and otter traps and rescuing injured otters, and have been bubbling along on just this side of hilarity. But I think it’s safe to say that the sentence “How are the otters today, Rusty?” crosses that line at a pretty fast clip.

B.C., 6/12/13

The B.C. creative team apparently has only a vague idea of what the “internet” is or how one interacts with it.

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Mark Trail, 5/30/13

Well, all’s well that ended well for Mark and Cherry and Wes and Shelly! Someday Wes will be able to put weight on his inexpertly set ankle again, Cherry only got lightly mauled by a bear, and probably no more than a few hundred acres of protected forest went up in flames when the gang’s propane tank blew up. It was all worth it, though, if the end result was the final panel: Shelly weeping tears of glorious relief at being within range of a delicious, life-affirming cell phone connection one more.

Marvin, 5/30/13

Marvin’s dad, meanwhile, has encountered kindness in the form of an invitation from a co-worker whose existence is not defined by catering to a squalling, pooping hell-infant. He appears to have gone into shock as a result. Presumably the tears of relief will come later.

Heathcliff, 5/30/13

At first, I thought that the government of Heathcliff’s town had broken the sanitation workers’ union and replaced them all with non-human primates, but then I realized that this ape is apparently … delivering garbage cans? As described by talking owls? Anyway, this has been your daily installment in the Chronicles Of Heathcliff’s Descent Into Total Madness.