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Gil Thorp, 10/2/12

If there’s one thing I genuinely love about Gil Thorp, it’s that it keeps track of a bewildering cast of characters who stick around over multiple storylines. At the end of the summer storyline, Gil offered embittered one-armed Milford alum Steve an unpaid coaching gig of the sort that he often hands out to the strip’s over-18 hangers-on. In a lesser strip, this would have been the resolution to Steve’s storyline and we would have quickly forgotten about him, but instead we see that this tiny modicum of power has transformed him into a cultish dictator. “We move together,” he shouts, waving his single fist in the air, “as one unit, one people. We hear the count in our mind before it is uttered. We present an unbroken wall of flesh to our enemies. We leave behind any family who may have once loved us, as we are all the family we need. After practice, each of you will chop off the arm of the man to your right, to make our union as real as the flesh and blood we sacrifice to the greater good.”

Mary Worth, 10/2/12

Haha, Mary Worth is really gunning hard for a spot on The Discovery Channel’s History’s Greatest Monsters this season! “Mary, my friendship with Jim is based on shared interests and experiences, not any sort of pity I have for him because of his injuries.” “That’s nice, dear, but have you considered that Jim is a charity case and that your friendship is a precious gift to him, much more valuable than his is to you? Don’t think of him as a person; think of him as an opportunity to give of yourself selflessly and condescendingly. Remember, he only has one arm!”

Apartment 3-G, 10/2/12

Not to go on too much about my “process” or anything, but when I made jokes yesterday about Evan cowering unseen in the corner while Margo and Greg bickered, it was funny because of course he wasn’t actually in the room while this was all happening! That would be super awkward! Except, um, apparently he was? Today’s first panel dialogue also nicely heads off any further jokes I might make about Margo and Evan’s twisted S&M relationship. Anyway, my point is that Apartment 3-G is getting dangerously close to producing self-aware camp and putting me out of business.

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Mary Worth, 9/27/12

Haha, Dawn isn’t even making a pretense anymore that her hospital volunteering stint is about leading a more fulfilling or spiritually rewarding life or whatever. You’d think she’d give Mary some kind of boilerplate lead-in about how “helping others is the highest reward blah blah blah” before launching into “LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT JIM THE SEXY AMPUTEE.”

Her new obsessions and her tendency to become monomaniacal about boys may explain the shocking scene here, in which Dawn is grabbing a steaming, fresh-from-the-oven pie plate with her bare hands, with a flimsy paper towel not even covering the entire hot surface. “At last,” she cries, as the odor of bubbling, searing hand-flesh fills Mary’s kitchen, “I won’t remind Jim of what he lost every time I reach to pick up a fork or salt shaker! We’ll be able to meet as equals!” (As you can see in panel two, Mary’s own hands are protected by long gloves made out of human skin.)

Archie, 9/27/12

So … the joke is that, while a teenager might accidentally use a homophone in casual writing, an adult would not? Because, as an occasionally professional editor-type person, let me assure you that there is a flaw in the assumptions here.

Ziggy, 9/27/12

Ziggy’s cat and Ziggy’s fish are sad, because they’re in love and their dreams of someday having a litter-school of cat-fish hybrid horror-children of their own has just been crushed.

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Mary Worth, 9/23/12

One of the things we’re getting to know about Dawn’s armless new friend is that he’s kind of into one-upmanship. Like, oh, Dawn, did you experience a harrowing ripped-from-the-headlines boat accident that suspiciously resembles the Costa Concordia disaster? Well, Jim experienced a harrowing ripped-from-the-headlines ferry accident that suspiciously resembles the Staten Island Ferry disaster from 2003, during the course of which he lost a limb. And Dawn, did you almost see your father die during your nautical crisis? Well, if today’s thought balloon is any indication, Jim actually lost his father during his! Give it up now, Dawn, he’ll be doing this to you forever if you fall in love!

Rex Morgan, M.D. 9/23/12

Uh oh, looks like the apartment where Rex and June are supposed to be staying while they check up on a patient’s San Diego investment property is occupied — by a hot naked lady! Wasn’t … wasn’t there a Rex Morgan story where some semi-naked lady was in the Morgans’ house, by surprise? I’m really pretty sure of this, but I find the prospect of trying to suss it out of my archives strangely exhausting.

Crankshaft, 9/23/12

You guys, Crankshaft’s irritating malapropisms aren’t just the detritus of a mind slowly slipping away into dementia! They can also help distract other family members when they threaten to wallow in unbearably moralistic nostalgia for a world that never existed.

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 9/23/12

As usual, Sunday’s Apartment 3-G just rehashes the previous week’s plot, but we do get this bonus shot of Evan making fart noises with his hands.