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Judge Parker, 2/10/11

I need a consult from the Fashion Police on this, because I’ve been spending the last week trying to figure out what exactly the outfit of our latest Judge Parker female guest star is meant to convey. Usually the implication of ladies’ clothes in this strip is fairly straightforward — “I am sinister; here are my breasts” — but Constance Darling, publishing marketing intern suddenly thrust into a position of power, is all over the map, sartorially. Since she’s an intern, I’m assuming she’s supposed to be of college age or at oldest in her early 20s; she’s wearing a long, flowing skirt, strappy high heels, a sort of collegiate-y sweater, a big chunky scarf, big glasses, big earrings, and, of course, a giant yellow peace symbol. Is this someone’s idea of how the young people are dressing? Because I can assure that it is not the way the young people are dressing, unless they’re trying out to star in Doctor Who as the first female Doctor.

Mary Worth, 2/10/11

Now we know why now why Mary shuns the Internet: it’s full of people, talking about their lives, unprompted by Mary’s probing questions, a prospect she finds completely ghastly.

Mark Trail, 2/10/11

Whoops, looks like Kelly Well’s ladyish incompetence has resulted in one of the more hilarious Mark Trail panels in recent memory. It’s too bad Mark isn’t using his recently developed thought-ballooning abilities to let us in on what’s going through his head as he hurtles through the air. “I’m flying! Am I a bird? I always thought I might be a bird! Look, my seagull brother is behind me for my first flight! I love being a bird! I will definitely capture that diamond smuggler no[SPLASH]”

Apartment 3-G, 2/10/11

Based on those arousal lines radiating from Margo’s head, I think we’ve finally learned the easiest way to get her attention: make with the igloo talk. She’s obviously now planning to drag Trey back to her love igloo and ravish him atop a pile of furs (all the better, furs made from adorable animals that Lu Ann would get all sentimental over). They’d drape their yellow scarves over the igloo’s narrow entranceway, to indicate that the igloo is a-rockin’ and that others should under no circumstances come a-knockin’.

Exciting listening opportunity! You are no doubt familiar with Citation Needed, the Tumblr I help maintain that’s all about Wikipedia’s most hilarious prose! Well, it now has a podcast that you’re obviously going to want to listen to. I had nothing to do with this first installment, because I am lazy, so all props go to Conor Lastowka and his cast of guest stars, but I will hopefully be helping out with future installments, about which you will kept in the loop!

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Spider-Man, 2/7/11

Whoah, big surprise in Spider-Man today! No, it’s not the fact that newspaper Spider-Man has finally decided to cash in on Twilight mania; that was more or less inevitable. Nor should we be startled by the title character’s braggadocio over his epic sleeping prowess, since we’re all well aware that the sheer magnitude of his laziness is his only distinguishing feature. No, the shocker is that J. Jonah Jameson has decided to transform the Daily Bugle into a British-style tabloid, as we can see in panel two. Unfortunately, on day one the copy desk already used the only Britishisms they knew — “cheers” and “Yanks” and were forced to just slip a placeholding “something” in as the headline’s final word, hoping to cram in some BBC watching in time for tomorrow morning’s edition.

Shoe, 2/7/11

Speaking of the mass media, I’m pretty sure that this is the first time I’ve ever seen ostensible news-bird Cosmo actually perpetrating journalism in this strip. I’m not really sure why he’s filing his story from the Roz’s diner rather than the newsroom, unless the gruesome crime scene he’s describing is actually just off panel, and the characters’ favorite lunchtime spot has become a scene of unimaginable carnage, with corpses everywhere. Gory as the thought is, the strip at least deserves kudos for actually making its bird-world setting integral to the joke, for once.

Mark Trail, 2/7/11

Barely a year after managing to keep an inarticulate interrogative to himself, Mark Trail has apparently learned how to think exclamations without saying them. Soon he’ll be able to construct a sentence complete with nouns and verbs silently, entirely within his own mind — and then there will be nothing he can’t do.

Lockhorns, 2/7/11

Loretta doesn’t want Leroy passing out like last year, so she hid all the booze! Which is frankly pretty cruel. The only thing worse than a birthday party with no guests except the wife you hate is a sober birthday party with no guests except the wife you hate.

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Mark Trail, 2/5/11

Who says that Mark Trail compositions are clumsy and artless, mostly focusing on poorly dressed mannequins shouting at each other while disproportionately large photocopies of wildlife loom in the foreground? Well, everyone says that, really, but today’s strip is actually structured in a somewhat interesting way, with everyone gazing intently at what they most desire: Ben Smith at the precious smuggled diamonds, Mark Trail at the proof he needs to put a bad guy in jail (possibly after punching him), and Kelly at Mark himself. The fact that Kelly is disrobing as she wonders what Mark’s up to strikes me as significant.

Beetle Bailey, 2/5/11

Sarge’s body language — eyes shut, body completely stiff — seems to me indicative of total panic and mortification, but I think it’s cute that Beetle has downgraded this to “embarrassment.” I also think it’s cute that Beetle refers calls the gay porn clip they’ve downloaded a “love scene.” I leave open the question of what Sarge is referring to as “shooting.”

Gil Thorp, 2/5/11

Since Gil Thorp doesn’t run on Sundays, we’ve got quite an end-of-week cliffhanger set up here. What are Jefferson’s plans for Milford’s Number 11? More suspense might be generated if anyone anywhere knew any of the various Mudlarks’ uniform numbers.

Apartment 3-G, 2/5/11

Seeing as Trey and Margo are gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes as the car hurtles down the highway in the midst of a dense fog, perhaps Iris hasn’t so much fallen asleep as passed out from terror.