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Mary Worth, 1/18/15

I am profoundly happy that today’s Mary Worth features a visual trope from Friday’s strip that I neglected to comment on: potato peeling. Today, this kitchen chore dovetails nicely with her inner monologue, which is even more gravid with self-regard than usual. “Some found Hanna dowdy … quiet … difficult … covered with a thick, unattractive peel. But I sliced away at that outer layer and revealed the attractive, delicious person inside, just waiting for the right man to love her. Me! I did this. God, are these potatoes fuckable or what?”

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 1/18/15

Is there any more menacing quality than a total and unapologetic lack of self-awareness?

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Apartment 3-G, 1/16/15

This is kind of a delicate subject, but: I feel like there’s been a marked decline in the quality of the Apartment 3-G art over the past year or so; artist Frank Bolle will be turning 91 this year and I wonder how much longer he’ll be up for doing the strip. Today Tommie has wandered so far off-model that it seems that even the syndicate colorists have failed to recognize her and given her the wrong hair color. Honestly, the strip could use the infusion of new energy from a younger artist like the ones who took over Judge Parker and Gil Thorp in the past decade. It would’ve been particularly nice to have someone new in place in time for the steamy shower lesbian three-way Apartment 3-G fans have been waiting for literally since the day the strip launched in 1961.

Mary Worth, 1/16/15

I honestly did not think I was going to see anything in today’s comics funnier than Hanna in panel two of today’s Mary Worth, her flute at the ready and her face demonstrating her grim determination to make beautiful music with it.

Spider-Man, 1/16/15

But then I saw panel three of today’s Spider-Man, in which Peter shows his steely resolve to not have sex with his wife like he wanted but instead show up for some publicity photos for her lucrative job that pays his bills, presumably sulking visibly the entire time.

Herb and Jamaal, 1/16/15

Hey, are you wondering what Herb’s mother-in-law is doing on this fine Friday? Well, she’s just sitting in an armchair, silently contemplating her own inevitable death!

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Mary Worth, 1/13/15

Tobey often exists in this strip as someone to half-listen all glassy eyed to Mary’s expository gossip-blather, but she sure seems interested in the elder-loving goings on around Charterstone today! Maybe it’s recently occurred to her that Ian, the December to her May, is likely to leave her a widow at a young age after rage-stroking out. “Gee, Hanna found a boyfriend over at the nursing home, and she’s almost as old as he is! If I go sashaying over there when I’m, say, 55, I’ll have my pick!”

Mark Trail, 1/13/15

Is whacking a gator on the neck with a big stick an approved method of scaring it away? Sure, why the heck not. Mark has taken his time and picked up the villain’s gun quite a ways away from where the gator is, so I’m assuming that his nemesis was in fact eaten yesterday and this is some kind of advanced alligator Heimlich maneuver. He’ll be “help[ing] him out” of the beast’s gullet, presumably significantly worse for wear.

Dennis the Menace, 1/13/15

OK, I’ll admit it: the sight of Dennis and Joey leaning back in intense intestinal distress is completely delightful and funny and poignant to me, at all once. There are few things more menacing to your sense of ease than discovering that your appetites can actually outpace the capacities of your body.