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Mary Worth, 1/27/13

A comment of the week from December demanded it, and so it has been done: today’s Mary Worth has provided a genuine cake-decorating-training montage. Feel free to play the theme from Rocky in your head while reading it, or, if you’re feeling saucy and/or 90s nostalgic, Smash Mouth’s “All Star.” Personally, I’m more interested in John’s relaxed, cheerful facial expression as he declares that this is a victory or death situation, and that the Santa Royale Civic Center will either echo with his bellows of triumph or be splattered by an awful melange of batter and blood.

Archie, 1/27/13

“Why do I get the feeling that Riverdale High isn’t going to qualify for Race to the Top funding for innovation in education any time soon? Maybe it’s because our ‘homework’ consists of simple questions on disparate subjects, the answers to which require no critical thinking skills and could easily be looked up on the Internet.”

Panel from Judge Parker, 1/27/13

“And he’s dying!” “Too bad!” Really wish this strip had featured Sam staring bemusedly at a six-figure check because then I could just quit reading Judge Parker and look at this panel every day forever.

Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/27/13

Haha, yes, the salinity of the Dead Sea, but also COUNT WEIRDLY’S FACE EMERGING FROM A HATCH THAT OPENS IN THE VERY FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE.

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Mary Worth, 1/25/13

You guys, John and Mary aren’t just practicing baking a cake. That’s only a part of the elaborate stagecraft that goes into Santa Royale’s elite cake-baking contest! They also have to carry their cake from one place to another, and are thus quite sensibly going through a trial run of that as well. Probably in real life the reason this stack of tins is the exact same color as the practice cakes Mary and John have been making is because the colorists can’t be bothered to distinguish among the various cylindrical objects the strip’s been featuring over the past few weeks (additional data point: freestanding set of cookbooks, all the same dull steel grey), but I’d like to believe that John carefully painted each tin after filling them with odds and ends, for added verisimilitude.

Dennis the Menace, 1/25/13

Good lord, Dennis is one of those people who go around smugly informing everyone that they don’t watch TV. Menacing factor: Increased!

Pluggers, 1/25/13

COME ON PLUGGERS YOU HAVE MULTIPLE CHARACTERS THAT AREN’T DOG-MEN WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US

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Funky Winkerbean, 1/15/13

Funky Winkerbean Is The Most Depressing Long-Form Work Of Art Ever Created, Chapter 923: two happily married young people with no major current traumas (though plenty of traumas lurking in their past, obviously, not all of which I can remember right now, why is there not a specialized wiki online with articles for each Funkyverse character explaining the specific awfulness they’ve suffered) are having a pleasant evening at home, and express contentment, but that contentment is tempered by an overwhelming sense that any fleeting moment of happiness will immediately be destroyed by the hateful God of Sadness who rules over all. It’s a recurring theme in this strip! And lo, it has come true in panel three, with … a call from Darrin’s mother? Isn’t Darrin’s mother (his mother who adopted him as an infant, not his biological mother, who was LISA who DIED OF CANCER very soon after she and Darrin reconnected with one another) the nice lady who helped coach the girl’s basketball team last year? Why would they fear a phone call from her? Well, I’m sure there will be reasons. Terribly and arbitrarily depressing reasons. Get ready for a dramatic roller-coaster ride this week! (Is it still a roller-coaster ride when you only go down?)

Better Half, 1/15/13

In contrast, this shockingly frank panel is almost hopeful. Mental illness cannot be cured by mere aphorisms! Seek help from a licensed professional!

Mary Worth, 1/15/13

AT LAST, THE DRAMATIC CONFLICT IN MARY WORTH! Mary has been asked to help John design his cakes for his entry in the contest, but John is maybe deciding he’d rather do it on his own and will try passive-aggressively to extricate himself from Mary’s mentorship! Will their pairing end amicably, or will it be mildly socially awkward? Don’t miss a single panel of pulse-pounding action, be sure to order home delivery of every newspaper you can, just in case one gets lost!

Dennis the Menace, 1/15/13

Dad’s job is soul-killing grind, where he neither learns anything nor grows professionally.