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Mary Worth, 6/21/13

Good news, everybody! Thanks to Mary’s fairly mild scolding and Tom’s ill-advised surprise-proposal, Elinor isn’t opposed to Tom and Beth’s love at all anymore! In fact, she’s in favor of it. Suspiciously strongly in favor of it, actually. Today she lets slip what her real epiphany was: if she lets Tom marry Beth and move into their apartment with him (obviously he’ll be moving into their apartment with them), she’ll have two soft touches to bully and push around, not just one! “I’ll even exceed those standards,” thinks Tom. But you won’t, Tom, you really won’t.

Herb and Jamaal, 6/21/13

Since this is clearly a reference to the bonkers ending of “The Rains of Castamere,” an episode of Game of Thrones that aired a mere 19 days ago, this is probably the most topical and specific Herb and Jamaal ever written. I guess by leaving out the actual name or description of the episode they can reuse it any time the show decides to freak everyone out with insane carnage, which I imagine will be fairly regularly.

Gil Thorp, 6/21/13

Actually, it looks Jimmy is smugly rubbing in the fact that the Foleys are as bad at baseball as they are at suing people. But, you know, Coaches Thorp and Kaz have pretty strict rules about cutting off all contact with their players the moment the season ends, so let’s let them have their little moment of self-delusion.

Judge Parker, 6/21/13

Soooo … I guess we’re done with even the pretense that Judge Parker Senior is a character we’re supposed to like?

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Heathcliff, 6/16/13

Somewhere, deep down in the bowels of my long-term memory, there’s a little glimmer that tells me that, yes, Heathcliff’s father has always been a notorious hardened criminal in the strip. I’m not sure what the significance is of the fact that he wears his prison uniform even as he walks the streets a free man. Are we meant to understand that he’s only just escaped from the joint and hasn’t had time to change yet? Is this an act of defiance against the government that once put him behind bars? Mostly his uniform just serves to draw uncomfortable attention to the fact that Heathcliff is walking around stark naked.

Dennis the Menace, 6/16/13

A rare double menace from Dennis today! In the throwaway panels, he waits until Margaret comes into earshot before letting everyone know that he doesn’t like her and is only hanging out with her for her cooking; and then he uses this twee little Father’s Day exercise as a chance to inform the other children that his father loves his family, unlike theirs, who will take any excuse to get away from them and enjoy their “hobbies,” alone.

Mary Worth, 6/16/13

Haha, the look on Beth’s face in the final panel is priceless and has made this entire storyline worth it. “Tom! Wait, you want to … what? We never … no. No. Not in front of … are you kidding me, Tom?”

Panels from Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/16/13

Sorry, everybody, I have been remiss in keeping you up to date with Rex Morgan, M.D.! Anyway, remember when Sarah wanted to sell her horsey art, for money? Well, now an actual museum wants to buy that horsey art, to use in a gift shop book! It was way too easy. “Wow … that was too easy!” thinks Sarah. She’s right. Sarah can smell a trap anywhere.

Pluggers, 6/16/13

Pluggers don’t understand that the structure of our global capitalist system ensures that fluctuations in equities and derivatives markets have major and sometimes painful results in the real day-to-day economic life of ordinary citizens. Also, they are very clumsy and often bump into things.

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Gasoline Alley, 6/13/13

Gasoline Alley’s current plotline involves the contemptible Slim being left to his own devices after his wife travelled to Hawaii without him, but things seem to be looking up as he heads upstairs to accidentally stumble upon his neighbor’s marijuana home-grow operation.

Heathcliff, 6/13/13

Moreover, where does he get the sycophants who laugh uproariously as he savagely beats the uncannily accurate depiction of his owner dangling lifelessly from a limb chosen for its maximum visibility from the house?

Mary Worth, 6/13/13

Pretty sure that even at this moment of sudden and terrible self-knowledge Elinor doesn’t consider herself a “creature,” Narration Box. This sort of needless editorializing is why so many of us don’t trust the mainstream media anymore.

Gil Thorp, 6/13/13

“You OK, Jimmy?”

“Of course I’m not OK, coach! There’s some monstrously huge hand-thing crawling up my chest! Augh, now it’s reaching for my neck! Get it off me, for the love of God, get it off me!”