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Mary Worth, 10/10/13

So Shelly is getting an award for her work volunteering at the homeless shelter (the Nobel Peace Prize? probably!) and who else is she going to thank other than the person who was most responsible for all the good work she’s done over the years: Mary! After all, what’s the more selfless and grueling task: working every day without pay to serve New York City’s vulnerable and sometimes difficult homeless population, or casually telling someone else to do it? The second one, right? It’s only just that Shelly thank Mary in her award speech, but shouldn’t the award just be going directly to Mary? Shouldn’t the homeless carry Mary about the streets of Manhattan on their shoulders, then raise her up and set her on a makeshift altar in an abandoned subway tunnel, worshipping her as their dread Goddess and Mistress?

Shoe, 10/10/13

“Pain in the neck” is pretty clearly a back-formed euphemism for “pain in the ass,” and it’s very rare for anyone to use either phrase to describe actual discomfort in the specified body part, unless they’re being cute; it always refers to someone who’s annoying. The only way this joke works at all, it seems to me, is if the guy dressed as a wizard were an actual doctor making a medical inquiry. But he’s not! Not that you’d have any reason to know this unless, like me, you’re a damned soul/frequent Shoe reader, but the guy dressed like a wizard is the local computer repair guy. Ha ha, because computers are confusing and fixing them is like dark magic! Anyway, long story short, I’m pretty sure the Perfesser is a robot.

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Six Chix, 10/8/13

Oh, you really expect us to believe this is only “one day” at the Louvre, Six Chix? If you posit that inanimate statues are capable of thought but not movement or communication, then the Venus de Milo has been has been silently screaming about her missing arms for centuries. If only her head had fallen off during all those years underground! Then at least the thinking, the useless, awful, endless thinking, would be over and done with! Or maybe statues don’t think with their heads. Maybe being headless would only render her unable to see or hear, an unmoored mind whirling forever within cold, lifeless stone. Anyway, I know my next trip to the museum just got a lot more depressing!

Speaking of museums, Six Chix seems to have taken advantage Rex Morgan’s discovery that you can put naked butts in the comics as long as it’s fancy art, and has gone one step further and shown us some full-on boobs. If only certain other strips had the nerve to push the envelope!

Mary Worth, 10/8/13

Haha, remember when Mary was determined to spend more time with Jeff? Well, that plan is off if it involves going with him to gross third world countries, apparently! “I too am going on a trip … to … somewhere not infested with giant insects, and where I can get a nice dinner that won’t confuse and terrify me? Yes, let’s say that.”

Spider-Man, 10/8/13

Sure, El Condor’s regime is a brutal dictatorship, but he doesn’t only use his iron fist to crush all political dissent! He also uses it to enforce sensible modern building safety codes.

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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.