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Momma, 6/23/13

One of my favorite/least unfavorite Momma bits is Momma’s recurring nightmare that she and/or her children in some combination will be reduced to panhandling, due to her children’s shiftlessness and incompetence. I enjoy these installments because they’re about her constant mid-level anxiety that she and her family are trembling at the boundary of middle-class respectability and could be pushed out into the abyss at any moment, but the actual “jokes” of the strips generally take the form of weird passive-aggressive wordplay on signs that the Hobbes-hobos are displaying for the benefit of passers by. Today was actually the first time I noticed that these signs aren’t makeshift cardboard placards propped up in front of them but actually attached to the wall, which implies both a certain resourcefulness and collusion with the building owner. Come to us when can’t even afford thumbtacks, Momma! Then we’ll know you hit rock bottom.

Panel from Mary Worth, 6/23/13

Haha, look how startled Tom looks by this demand. “But that … that’s kind of my thing! It’s my trademark relationship move!”

Mark Trail, 6/23/13

“How are we going to get the kids interesting in birdwatching? Breakdancing? Do the kids still like breakdancing? Should we tell them that birds breakdance?”

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Better Half, 6/22/13

There’s something about Stanley and Harriet’s affectless naivety that just kind of breaks my heart. Like, if Leroy Lockhorn said this, it would be an extremely sarcastic response to a failed attempt by Loretta to get him to eat better, and would also have nothing to do with the actual amount of potato chips he ate. Whereas I picture Stanley imagining that Harriet will find this hilarious, and also carefully counting all the potato chips he ate over a two-day period in order to make sure the joke was also accurate.

Crankshaft, 6/22/13

Sorry everybody if I got you super excited Monday about Crankshaft gracing us with some New York-themed puns. It turns out we had to sit through a whole week of Crankshaft being an asshole to everyone who works at the airport first. Look, in panel three we can see two people hating him at once!

Mary Worth, 6/22/13

Haha, thanks, Tom, I will very much be seeing that grossly exaggerated wink in my nightmares tonight! Still, worse will come when I awake, because then I’ll be unable to stop trying to figure out the precise combination of sexual acts “I was in the mood for meat … but seafood sounds really great, too!” is a metaphor for.

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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?