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Family Circus, 4/30/14

We’ve seen the Keane kids watching anachronistic non-flat-screens before, as is to be expected in a strip that, like many legacies, is usually constructed from a comprehensive library of decades-old clip art. Today’s installment is interestingly post-modern, though, in that the very outdatedness of the art is transformed into a self-referential joke by the rewritten caption. What do you suppose the original joke here was? “Look at all those books grandma has! Is she a Communist?”

Funky Winkerbean, 4/30/14

Well, that didn’t take long at all! John Darling’s last words weren’t a defiant announcement of his devotion to his secret lover at all, but rather a weirdly phrased declaration of love for his daughter. Turns out he was secretly a good guy, to one (and only one) person, namely his infant child. I guess that solves the mystery that was bothering Jess, somehow! The rest of us can just be relieved for her sake that her father didn’t live long enough to inevitably use her beloved nickname in a cruel and degrading fashion (“Hey, whatever happened to my unrealistically proportioned little Barbie doll? Better lay off the deserts, sweetie!”).

Mary Worth, 4/30/14

Ooh, look at Wilbur, acting like a big shot, showing off his connections to Santa Royale’s rich and powerful! Meanwhile, in panel two, Jerry is practically going cross-eyed just imagining all the sandwich revenue Wilbur has generated for him over the years. What a wonderful, mutually beneficial relationship this has been!

Marvin, 4/30/14

Marvin thinks his friend’s house smells “strange” because the air isn’t thick with the stench of his own putrefying feces. That’s the entire joke of this comic strip, which is published in newspapers across the country!

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Mary Worth, 4/29/14

Good news! After being somehow hypnotized by Mary into trying to take Wilbur back, Iris is accompanying Wilbur back to Jerry’s Sandwich Shop, and she promises that the date will not end in shouting and recriminations, this time. By the way, the “crime” Wilbur refers to is not the awkward end to their last Jerry’s encounter; it’s the vicious man-on-sandwich violence he perpetrates there, lunch and dinner, every day of the week.

Heathcliff, 4/29/14

In 1993, the Butthole Surfers came played a concert in my hometown of Buffalo, and the Buffalo News (hilariously, to me) refused to print their name, referring to them only as the “B------- Surfers” throughout their review. I realize this makes me sound like an old person, but it is interesting to see the evolution of what’s considered “kid-friendly” by the print media industry. Anyway, I find this panel’s depiction of a group of children cheering as Heathcliff spray-paints “POOP” on a wall completely believable, as little kids think the word “poop” is endlessly hilarious and are also probably too young to be properly terrified by a literate cat who walks on its back legs and can operate a spray can.

Dennis the Menace, 4/29/14

“No matter what your thoughts on the matter, our marriage is inevitable!” “I’m not sexually attracted to you!” Brrr, Dennis the Menace has reached Lockhorns level of emotional menace.

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Mary Worth, 4/25/14

Oh, Mary! How could we ever doubt the nobility — and the complexity — of your intentions? It seems Mary never had any intention of meddling Tommy into a job at all. I mean, she’s not against Iris’s son finding gainful employment — whatever gets him out of Charterstone is fine by her! No, Mary is after something much, much more difficult than helping an ex-con with dumb hair find a fulfilling career: she’s trying to find love for Wilbur Weston. She recognized when Iris had reached the state of emotional desperation necessary to be receptive to Wilbur’s advances, and has even left the possibility open that Wilbur himself might help solve a difficult problem and thus boost his self-esteem. Truly, Mary never tires of challenging herself with seemingly impossible meddle-quests.

Blondie, 4/25/14

Speaking of awkward and weird, Dagwood is reading a broadsheet paper that features the 1754 Join, Or Die cartoon on the front page, for some reason? And he expects it to be of interest to an actual, literal five-year-old? Also, Elmo is only five, and yet his parents are never seen and he seems to wander freely back and forth through the neighborhood between the Bumsteads’ house and wherever it is he lives? This seems like a lot of trouble to go through to trash-talk Dan Piraro.

Apartment 3-G, 4/25/14

OK, we can all agree that Tommie and her pet deer needed to get out of the apartment and see some changed scenery, but the look of sly satisfaction on Jack’s face indicates that she’s stumbled onto some kind of BDSM scene here that I’m not sure is really what the doctor ordered, you know?

Dennis the Menace, 4/25/14

Bringing Joey into his mother’s bedroom and narrating the action as she stands paralyzed in terror by the unstoppable march of time and its effects on her body? I deem Dennis’s behavior today: pretty menacing!