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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/4/13

Guys, I need to apologize for having not at all covered the current Rex Morgan storyline, which if I had to guess will probably play out as “Sometimes Men Are Also Victims Of Domestic Violence, Like This Guy Rex Went To High School With Whose Wife Tried To Kill Him By ‘Accidentally’ Shooting Him In The Head With A Nail Gun, And Also General Practitioners Are On The Front Line In Spotting Possible Warning Signs Of Abuse.” But of course I couldn’t pass over Rex’s fantastic facial expression in panel three, which is much less “Hmm, wonder how this’ll play out, trying to limit the victim’s social life is a classic abuser move” and more “Ugh, why do they always think we’re friends just because I talk to them in a professional context, I knew I should’ve been a forensic pathologist, you get plenty of peace and quiet down in the morgue.”

Mary Worth, 10/4/13

Ugh, Mary Worth, can we get a little less Mary and Wilbur blah blah blahing about advice column writing and a little more badass meth dealer action? You’ve only got a few days to latch onto all the hardcore meth storyline addicts who have been left without a narrative supplier now that Breaking Bad is off the air, and you’re blowing it.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jeff had better brace himself, because now that Mary’s number one priority has been taken over by Wilbur, he’s been bumped back up to number four. Will he be able to handle the attention?

Family Circus, 10/4/13

The fact that omnipresent government surveillance has become such a natural part of our lives that even children joke about it is almost worse than this terrible, terrible bit of wordplay. Almost.

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Mary Worth, 9/29/13

OH MY GOD YES YES YES TOMMY THE TWEAKER’S COMING BACK, EVERYBODY! Tommy was the very first great Mary Worth character I got to cover in this blog’s history. He referred to drugs as “stuff” and smoked weed where Mary could smell it and dreamed of having his very own meth lab and tried to sell meth to some college kid but the meth didn’t work and an angry mob smacked him around but the cops rescued him and then he thought-ballooned hilariously. Later, he went to jail and found Jesus by reading a tiny, tiny bible. Obviously hilarious hijinks are in store for us now that our rotating-door prison system has dumped this hardened criminal back on the streets of Santa Rosa after a mere nine years in stir. Iris is right to push Wilbur out of her life right now! He’s already terribly addicted to delicious sammiches, so who even knows what’d happen if he got hold of the hard stuff.

Panel from Slylock Fox, 9/29/13

Oh, isn’t this cute! A bunch of anthropomorphic animals sitting around telling stories about how humans treated one another, in the Before Time. Isn’t it funny how humans had this thing called presumption of innocence? That they didn’t just throw you in a jail cell forever because some fox decided you were guilty? Might explain a lot about why they aren’t in charge anymore. Animals, they don’t worry about niceties. Animals get things done.

Beetle Bailey, 9/29/13

Oh my god, look at Zero’s face in the next to last panel, the sinister glint in his eyes as he imagines enveloping the enemy, cutting off all means of retreat, and methodically pounding them to bits with artillery. Their attempts to surrender are met only with sinister laughter. Testimony about this moment will feature heavily in his war crimes trial.

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Lockhorns, 9/27/13

This isn’t the first time that Loretta and Leroy have gone to see one of the Twilight films, but it’s always jarring and delightful when a smidgen of contemporary pop culture forces its way into the Lockhorns’ eternal 1962, isn’t it? I am also 100% in love with the fake Twilight poster hanging up at the Lockhorns’ local cinema. It reimagines Robert Pattinson’s dull, pasty visage as the brooding face of a proper Weimar-era expressionist vampire. And the graphic design! Doesn’t the striking image of the undead fiend’s face floating over the single word “TWILIGHT” have a million times more impact than, say, this piece of overbusy airbrushed garbage? Kudos, Lockhorns, for daring to imagine a better world than ours.

Mary Worth, 9/27/13

“The specific reason is that I have no friends and no life and writing advice to people desperate enough to send me letters is literally the only thing that gives my existence the barest shred of meaning! Uh, I guess I sort of covered that earlier, but that’s the much more specific version.”

Family Circus, 9/27/13

“I mean, he’s a competent adult and he could just learn how to cook properly, but I guess he figures that if he does, that’ll undermine the whole patriarchal structure that gives him power. So, your parents abandoned you at the world’s dullest mall kiosk too, huh?”

Shoe, 9/27/13

Huh, had it been established in this strip that the Perfesser’s mother is still alive? I guess it never hurts to introduce a new character in order to set up a hilarious joke! In this case, the joke is that an old man dropped dead during a social event for senior citizens, which probably cast a real pall over the rest of the evening.

Archie, 9/27/13

Meanwhile, the streets of Riverdale are haunted by roving packs of vicious feral dogs.