Post Content

Wizard of Id, 12/20/12

Hey, teens, I bet you think that it’s “cool” to drink alcohol! Well, your pal Frosty is pretty hip and extreme with his backwards baseball cap and such, and he thought it would be OK to get drunk like a grown-up, and look what happened: he tore his own body apart and hurled it in gory chunks at his enemies, who presumably ran away in gibbering terror. This is what’ll happen to you if you let bad kids give you a hard lemonade at a party. Just ask for a Mountain Dew instead! You’ll thank us later!

Mary Worth, 12/20/12

The Sad Tale of Dawn’s Sadness that just concluded began way back in May, so obviously we need something wacky to cleanse our palate in its wake. But even longtime Mary Worth trufans such as myself could never have predicted how wacky things would get. Mary coaching an amateur cake designer to victory in the face of smug, sneering professionals, all in an attempt to cash in on the cake decorating TV craze of four years ago? Mary finally getting to see her many rambling philosophical diatribes transformed into pastry dioramas, wowing the world with her wisdom? YES PLEASE.

Better Half, 12/20/12

Whatever, Stanley is just going to keep on doing weird sex stuff with that remote, and he doesn’t need God or society’s approval, man.

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 12/18/12

Aw, yeah, improbable Apartment 3-G Hollywood-yet-somehow-also-New-York publicity agency war plot: You get as weird as you want! So our double agent Evan is a bit resentful of all the sharp-tongued women in his life, either for having sex with him or for ordering him to have sex with someone else, I guess. And Greg, for good measure, for being too “pretty.” I’m assuming that Evan plans to solve all his problems and/or petty resentments via murder, but since he’s not actually as smart or clever as he thinks, probably this will be hilariously botched.

Mary Worth, 12/18/12

Whoops, sorry I made fun of your weird cake yesterday, Mr. Dill! I understand that tasks that require meticulous craftsmanship can help distract you from grief, so your cake-diorama makes perfect sense, emotionally. And once you get a taste for the glamorous cake-making life, well, obviously you’ll want to turn pro! Although … he doesn’t seem that broken up about his wife’s death, does he? He’s just jumping right in with the professional cake designer talk. Maybe his lifelong dream was to become a cake designer, but his late wife was always holding him back, nagging him to pursue a duller, more financially stable career, one that did not involve designing beautiful cakes? And now she’s conveniently dead? What is this Mr. Dill person hiding? There is no secret that Mary cannot uncover, Mr. Dill.

Crankshaft, 12/18/12

Crankshaft is one of the last literate people in America, and he can’t even spell “mojito.”

Post Content

Mary Worth, 12/17/12

Oh boy oh boy pool party pool party POOL PARTY, everybody! This is great because (a) it means that the long, eternal slog of Dawn’s Quest For Meaning And Love (But Not Love Like That, Just Friendship-Love) is finally over (I mean, it will only really end with Dawn’s mopey death, but at least we won’t have to look at it for a while) and (b) we get to see a pool party, and those are always awesome. In today’s strip, Mary doesn’t even bother coming up with a specific reason for why she skipped her neighbor’s wife’s funeral. “I had a … thing, you understand, it was more important than your grief. Why don’t you cheer yourself up by gawking at that weird cake over there with everyone else?”

Funky Winkerbean, 12/17/12

To give those of you who don’t subject yourself to Funky Winkerbean daily a vaguely succinct summary of what led to this: Crazy got laid off from the Post Office, and in a desperate attempt to not starve to death decided to sell off his beloved collection of comic books and sci-fi novels to Comic Book Store John, and then Comic Book Store John decided to hire Crazy, to sell his own stuff. Thus “It wasn’t about greed, it was about need,” makes sense if we read it as “He needs an income to live on,” but I think we’re supposed to understand it as “It’s really the emotional satisfaction he’ll get out of seeing his beautiful collection dismembered, that’s why I hired him.” Although maybe it’s more about John’s need to see the citizens of this hell-town that’s always hated him debase themselves for minimum wage, for his amusement.

Apartment 3-G, 12/17/12

Oh man, the story of Evan the Sexual Spy is just getting weirder and weirder! Remember, Evan got Margo to summarily reject Skyler by making her believe that the young starlet was a rival for his affections. So he’s going to send Greg over to Aunt Cathy … how? “No, it isn’t above my skill level! I can do the bisexual jealousy grift! I’m ready for this!”

Hagar the Horrible, 12/17/12

Hagar and his Viking band seem to engage in no productive economic activity of any kind, and instead subsist entirely on the violent looting of a hapless late-Carolingian Europe. Will the fact that this castle is inhabited only by children and an old woman stop their awful depredations? Enh, probably not. Enjoy being sold into slavery to some monstrous Norse chieftain, kids!

Mark Trail, 12/17/12

Mark generally verbalizes literally every thought that passes through his square, immaculately Brylcreemed head, which makes his silent stare in the second panel here all the more hilarious. “Huh, so, cruel leader of a pirate band, kidnapping the innocent and holding them for ransom, ruling this tiny island by fear, tried to feed me to sharks … and ‘strange man,’ that’s all you got? Huh.”

Herb and Jamaal, 12/17/12

You probably think that today’s Herb and Jamaal is ripping off a joke from zany church signs everywhere, but in fact it’s just ripping off a joke from a Herb and Jamaal strip from 2007.