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Family Circus, 1/15/09

I don’t have kids, so I have to turn to pop culture to find out what the quiet little moments of parenting are like. So, a question for you out there who have successfully reproduced: do you like to stand in the doorway of your kid’s room while he’s doing his homework, staring at him for hours while he pores over his multiplication tables or whatever, as you desperately try to will the knowledge into his brain, hoping against hope and all evidence thus far that he isn’t a drooling submoron but actually a vaguely competent person who will be able to earn enough to support you in your old age? And all the while, he’s sitting there, looking at his workbook but not really reading it, thinking, “Really? Are they just going to stand there, looking at me, until I finish this? Don’t they have hobbies? Don’t they have somewhere to be? How on earth am I supposed to concentrate? Maybe if I do some cheesy silent-movie ‘I’ve got an idea!’ move, they’ll go downstairs and watch TV!'” Because if that’s the case, that … that seems kind of creepy, is all.

Crock, 1/15/09

Ha ha, you see, it’s funny, because it wouldn’t make any sense for them to sing about a boat, because they’re in the middle of the desert … er … or maybe they’re on the beach … next to the ocean … where, um, a cow’s skull is floating…

OK, that’s the last straw. This, combined with this, has left me determined to get to the bottom of this coloring nonsense. Who colors this stuff? Do they not speak English? Do they hate their jobs, and/or the comics? I know you comics industry people lurk out there, so: do you draw a comic that gets colorized, or work for a newspaper or syndicate or something where coloring occurs? Write to me! I shall present my findings for the world’s edification!

Marmaduke, 1/15/09

Things are getting pretty bad over at the Marmaduke’s Ownerses. Mr. Owner can only sit rooted to the spot in terror, knowing that the moment he moves he’ll be torn to pieces by his man-killing dog. His wife, meanwhile, can’t even bring herself to say the word “Marmaduke,” terrified that she’ll attract his attention — and his ravenous appetite — if she does.

Mark Trail, 1/15/09

“I think Ken is in the lumber business, but she doesn’t talk about him! But I do often hear her talk about a man named ‘Buck,’ and she always seems very happy when she brings him up. I hate to cast aspersions on her, but maybe she’s having an affair with this ‘Buck’ fellow! Oh, also, did I mention she’s fucking a deer?”

Seriously, Mark Trail, I was going to lay off on the bestiality jokes, but if this is how you want to play, I say BRING IT.

Cherry and Mark, meanwhile, have marital problems of their own. Mark actually admitted to noticing Cherry’s different hair, so Cherry is pushing her luck by wearing her sexy electric blue western wear. This can only end in tears.

Shoe, 1/15/09

“Also, while Olivia and I were playing doctor, she got pregnant!”

(Seriously, I always thought Skyler was a little old to be playing house. I guess it’s hard to establish the ages of your characters when they’re mostly mouthpieces for wry jokes written by and for grownups, and also when they’re birds.)

Oh, and: all your votes did not go for naught! For I am your 2008 Weblog Awards Best Humor Blog winner! Here, here’s an enormous graphic announcing my victory:

I promise I will not harass you to vote for me again! Unless I get nominated for something else. THEN ALL BETS ARE OFF.

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Mark Trail, 1/9/09

“Dear Penthouse: I never thought this would happen to me, but one day I came home from a long trip early in the morning, with my dog Andy, and found my wife with both of her hands touching another lady! Andy is a St. Bernard! The lady who isn’t my wife was blonde, and my wife was wearing her robe! They leaped away from each other when I came in, and yet it still made me feel funny, somehow, as if I were seeing something unlawful! Andy sure is a good old dog! That’s why I take him on trips, instead of my wife! Later, my wife told me she had changed her hair, but I didn’t notice. I hope you print my letter! Sincerely, Mark Trail.”

Dick Tracy, 1/9/09

The current Dick Tracy plot is only just getting underway, but since it revolves around Tess attempting to market a Dick Tracy line of cosmetics, it may already the strip’s most laughable yet, since the Dick Tracy brand mostly consists of his impossibly square head and cheerful fascism. It’s appropriate that the final panel juxtaposes the phrase “doesn’t smell right” with a flaming house in which a scientist has just accidentally immolated himself, as the Dick Tracy cologne will smell mostly of seared human flesh.

Marmaduke, 1/9/09

When Marmaduke viciously claws at the eyes of random passersby, blinding them, his owner refers to his violent acts as “kisses.” I shudder to imagine her home life.

Oh, yes! Don’t forget:

(Thanks to Uncle Lumpy for the graphic! And vote for Ces and Medium Large, too!)

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Shoe, 12/17/08

Hey, here’s something fun I like to do when I’m having coffee with an old friend: in the middle of a conversation, I deliberately structure my sentences so that they’re ambiguous and my interlocutor has to ask for clarification! It’s great way to “mix it up a bit”!

Ha ha, just kidding, obviously, if anyone in real life did this you would think that they were unbearably pretentious, or perhaps suffering from some kind of head injury. “But Josh,” you’re probably thinking, “aren’t these birds? Shouldn’t we be impressed that they’re using recognizable English at all? Cut them some slack!” I suppose you’d be right if we saw these birds engaged in more typical bird-oriented activities — flying, chirping, preening, hanging out on tree branches and telephone wires, crapping on cars, vomiting half-digested insect parts down the throats of their offspring, etc. But these birds have developed any number of advanced behaviors, including coffee-drinking, cup-using, clothes-layering, and crappy-art-from-Pier-One-hanging, so I frankly expect more from them in terms of pronoun use.

Beetle Bailey, 12/17/08

If the U.S. military’s mandatory retirement age applies to Camp Swampy, then General Halftrack was born no earlier than 1944, so even as a young man he must have been quite the nostalgist. Still, we shouldn’t question the wizenedness of someone who either appears to have been utterly defeated by this newfangled “CD player” thingamabob, or is simply too feeble to get up and walk six feet to put the disc in. (The possibility that this is all an elaborate ruse to get Miss Buxley to bend over in front of him does come to mind as well.)

Spider-Man, 12/17/08

Wait, don’t count on … him … can’t saving Jameson? Man, the tension and drama in this strip are entirely syntactic.

Marmaduke, 12/17/08

Marmaduke was in that window being groomed long enough for his many enemies to get wind of his location and arrange this ambush.