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Family Circus, 3/23/13

You know that I don’t usually wish good things for the Keane Kids, but my heart does go out to them a little bit here, imagining them paging through book after book with gritty, morally complex endings in which love fails to conquer all, good doesn’t triumph over evil, and ambiguous characters try and fail to grapple with a world they never made. But still, PJ and Jeffy look insufferably smug as they prepare themselves for the sweet, sweet fairy tale action they have coming to them. “Aw, yeah, in this book the attractive and virtuous are going to defeat the hell out of their ugly enemies, who are cruel to them for reasons that are never fully examined! Can’t wait for the wedding at the end, heteronormativity rules!”

Wizard of Id, 3/23/13

Huh, I guess I’m not surprised exactly that the Wizard of Id is the first newspaper comic strip to depict an actual steaming turd, but it wouldn’t have been my first guess. (First guess: Marvin, obviously.)

Mary Worth, 3/23/13

“Enough of this coy literary flirting! Are you two going to fuck or what?”

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Mary Worth, 3/21/13

Let me tell you a story about one of the origins of this blog. One day in 2002, I moved to Baltimore, and as was the style at the time, I subscribed to the print version of the local newspaper, the Baltimore Sun. In 2002 the Sun had four glorious pages of comics, among which were all the continuity strips that are my current mainstays. Mary Worth was in the midst of a storyline about balding crank Smitty Smedlap, who hated fish (or, as he called it, “feesh”) and didn’t care who knew it. When I first tuned in October of 2002, he was eating with Mary (and maybe some other people?) at the Bum Boat and complaining about its feesh-based menu. This went on for weeks. Everyone else just sat around uncomfortably, letting him rant. Was it supposed to be awkward? Were the strip writers aware of how socially aggravating Smitty was? I couldn’t tell, and I was riveted. Thus, whenever we hit an awkward meal in Mary Worth, I’m full of nostalgia and my love for the strip — for the whole genre — is renewed.

I’m particularly enjoying Mary and Tom’s facial expressions as they sit and watch the fun. Mary seems to be keeping her face deliberately neutral — she abhors conflict, of course, but she also enjoys the quick access to backstory this argument is giving her. Tom, meanwhile, looks increasingly agitated that he’ll be found out at as man who divorced his wife and subsequently torn limb from limb by the Kinleys, who will be relieved to at last have a common enemy.

Crankshaft, 3/21/13

“Coming up next on Channel 12 Action News: Hated local creep Ed Crankshaft has immobilized himself in an unprotected public space! 12 On Your Side reporter Harv Postman will give you information on angry mob staging points, where pitchforks and torches will be available, after these messages.”

Spider-Man, 3/21/13

Really, if every Spider-Man plot were about Spider-Man meeting other, cooler superheroes and being humiliated by how much better their powers were than his, I would be a happy guy.

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Pluggers, 3/16/13

Cats are a species that are always suspect when it comes to Real American Authenticity, so naturally the cat-plugger tends to be an outsider in the world of pluggerdom. Speaking as a cat-type myself, I’m not sure what exactly this panel is all about — are there baseball cards that don’t come with bubble gum? are they “fake,” somehow? wouldn’t old cards sold at a garage sale have stopped smelling like bubble gum years ago, assuming they aren’t in their original wrapper? — but it’s fun to see how sad the cat-plugger is at having his wares rejected. Haha, cat-plugger, your attempt to sell off these tiny bits of your childhood and some of your furniture in order to stave off economic catastrophe has been met with only scorn! Why don’t you go back to gay communist France, with your bogus baseball cards?

Mother Goose and Grim, 3/16/13

One of the central schticks of Mother Goose and Grimm is that Grimm the dog and Attila the cat cordially despise each other, but even still, Grimmy isn’t a narc. He knows that snitches get stitches! (Or more stitches, in this case.)

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/16/13

Nearly eight years after Mary Worth threw down the gauntlet, Rex Morgan looks poised to be the first syndicated continuity strip to feature a graphic vomiting scene. Just in time for a large-format full-color Sunday strip, too!

Mary Worth, 3/16/13

You guys, I’m starting a new meekcore band called Beth Kinley, and the title of our first single will be “I’ll Just Have Regular Water (If It’s Not Too Much Trouble)”.