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Six Chix, 1/18/18

I feel like I need to apologize, because this comic is basically pretty terrible, but I also kind of love it??? Like, I can’t parse its internal logic at all — clearly the “contgratulations, it’s a” balloon is a take off of the gender-denoting balloons for parents of infants we know and love, so did they give birth to this obnoxious teen, or did he spring forth self-living from one of their foreheads, or did he come in the mail, or what — but I still love his grinning, obnoxious teen face. “Hey guys!” he seems to be saying. “Guess what! I’m here, and I suck.”

Mary Worth, 1/18/18

I don’t have kids myself, so probably I don’t get to weigh in on this, but just because your child loves you, maybe that isn’t in and of itself a sign that you’re a good parent? Maybe another sign of good parenting would be if she goes through an emotional trauma and confides in you rather than just never mentioning it, I dunno. Anyway, even Wilbur’s theoretical sticker is baffling, since (a) “sticker” makes it sound like a bumper sticker, but apparently he’s imagining that he’d “wear” it, and (b) “How are my parenting skills?” gives way too much leeway to your interlocutor to just start telling you their opinions. If you’re just looking for a conversation starter that’ll let you boast, try “Ask me about my parenting skills!” But if you’re asking me about your parenting skills, well, this blog is already on the record with some opinions.

Rex Morgan, 1/18/18

So, it turns out the Morgans’ schlubby-ass lawyer is in fact trying to bring together the battling parties to reach a compromise that leaves everyone feeling like they had some of their needs met, instead of just spending as much energy as possible destroying his clients’ enemies financially and emotionally. As panel three makes very clear, this won’t do at all.

Spider-Man, 1/18/18

Oh, uh, it turns out getting an infusion of Hulk blood doesn’t turn Doctor Connors into a Hulk, it turns him into the Lizard, which is kind of weird because it was some other serum that turned him into the Lizard in the first place. Like when multiple different things injected into your body all turn you into the Lizard, maybe the problem isn’t the things being injected into you, maybe the problem is you, you know what I’m saying? Also, I assumed that the whole Lizard situation was a “human transformed into dumb rampaging beast against his will” deal, but now that I know the Lizard can talk, and use his powers of speech to talk about himself in the third person, I have significantly less sympathy for him.

Family Circus, 1/18/18

I am immediately intrigued by the idea of child-proof pants, but I have to imagine there’s a real cost-benefit analysis you have to run with them. Is the danger of Jeffy soiling himself outweighed by the danger of Jeffy exposing himself?

Gil Thorp, 1/18/18

“WOW THESE ISLAND PEOPLE GET ALL THE FREE HAMBURGERS AND BACKUP VARSITY SLOTS THEY WANT JUST BECAUSE THEY GOT SLIGHTLY HURRICANED, IT DOESN’T SEEM FAIR, DOES IT” –the syndicated newspaper comic strip Gil Thorp, I guess????

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Mary Worth, 1/16/18

For those of you who aren’t fully “in the know” on the details of beloved syndicated soap-opera strip Mary Worth, “Santa Royale,” Mary’s home and the setting for most of the action, is a thinly veiled version of the California university/beach town of Santa Barbara — they even use the real names for neighboring places, like Goleta. Anyway, you’ve probably heard about the horrific mudslides in Montecito last week, but you might not know that Montecito too is part of the Santa Barbara area — is right next door, in fact. What I’m trying to say is that while I wouldn’t wish that sort of disaster on anyone in real life, it would be pretty funny in Wilbur, out for a brisk, optimistic walk after deciding to pretend that he has his life together emotionally, were suddenly swept out to sea by a wall of mud.

Pluggers, 1/16/18

Pluggers aren’t afraid of the dark … but they are afraid of that yawning hole inside of them, the one that they can never fill with food no matter how much they try.

Beetle Bailey, 1/16/18

The excuses Sarge has to come up with for all the times he physically abuses the soldiers under his command are becoming increasingly transparent.

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Mary Worth, 1/12/18

Aww, isn’t this nice? Father and daughter are really relating to each other as adults and supporting each other emotionally! Say, also, unless I missed something, Dawn has neglected to mention to her dad that she made out with a married dude at her summer job, just like Wilbur never brought up the fact that he was grifted by a statuesque beauty in Colombia right before he came home. Just a happy father-daughter pair keeping deep secrets from one another and chowing down on some muffins, in other words!

Hagar the Horrible, 1/12/18

I have several questions about what’s going on here. The first is about the tattoo on this bar lady’s hand. That definitely looks like a prison tattoo font. Did she get that tattoo in prison? Was she in the least bad-ass prison ever, where that would be considered a cool prison tattoo? Did the fact that the tattoo is on the palm of her hand, a very sensitive part of the body and therefore an extremely painful one to get a tattoo on, make it seem slightly more bad-ass?

Perhaps more relevant: how exactly did Lucky Eddy come by his extremely non-specific knowledge of this lady’s tattooed status? Hagar’s smirk implies that he was the one who set up this little farce, but I’m not sure that really works with his canonical illiteracy.

Mark Trail, 1/12/18

One giraffe in Lost Forest is a bizarre, inexplicable freak of nature. But two? Two means that the forest land should be opened to responsible hunting by outdoorspersons who want to harvest delicious giraffe meat and keep local populations in check and avoid the tragedies of “nuisance giraffes.” This will be a profitable year for Doc’s side business selling individual pancakes off his cabin’s front porch!