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Mary Worth, 6/1/12

Sorry I have not been properly keeping you up to date on the Great Dawn Weston Mope-Fest of 2012, which has consisted entirely of her lying on her couch, clinging to a pillow, obsessively rewatching Game of Thrones, and mumbling things like “Life is brutal.” This has gone on for days! I know, it doesn’t sound that exciting when I describe it, but she does it with a certain verve. Anyway, Wilbur’s had about as many of these thrills as he can handle, so he’s off to his sealed Wilburtorium to make a call … a long distance call, if you know what we mean! I actually don’t know what he means, though I do know that, since Mary lives in the same condo complex, he isn’t calling her, which means he hasn’t stumbled onto the real solution to everyone’s problems yet, i.e., calling Mary Worth.

I do kind of hope that his phone call has absolutely nothing to do with his miserable daughter, who he’ll just leave on the couch whining for the foreseeable future until she decides to buck up. “Yeah, Dawn’s still not over what’s-his-face yet. ‘Life is brutal,’ blah blah blah. So, what are you wearing?”

Funky Winkerbean, 6/1/12

Wow, two primary characters in Funky Winkerbean are really excited about something happening in the lives! How do we get from here to abject misery in the fewest possible moves? Hmm, let’s say … former rivals, now best friends and stepsisters to be, suddenly find themselves competing for the lone spot on the team, with no other options and their futures on the line? Yes, that’ll do nicely.

Apartment 3-G, 6/1/12

I’m sure “We shouldn’t be having this conversation, Margo” is meant to denote that Tommie is on Team Nina, or even that she has entirely false views of the legal implications of midwife-patient confidentiality, but I kind of hope that it means something more along the lines of “We shouldn’t be having this conversation, Margo, because it is completely insane. You can’t just appoint yourself someone’s publicist against their will! And you’re not even a publicist! You’re certainly not a good publicist! I’m going to leave the room and come in again, and when I do I want to hear noises out of your mouth that are not 100% bonkers.”

Spider-Man, 6/1/12

Newspaper Spider-Man’s villains almost always become less threatening as their storyline works itself out. I was pretty worried that we’d never be able to get less menacing than yesterday’s reveal, but this is actually a pretty good start! Haha, that car has a duck on it!

Beetle Bailey, 6/1/12

You know, if Beetle Bailey decided it wanted to focus entirely on the theater of erotic bafflement from here on out, I wouldn’t object at all. It’d sure be preferable to whatever the hell it is that it’s been doing for the past 60 years or so.

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Dennis the Menace, 5/27/12

At first glance, this cartoon might seem to take place in a post apocalyptic lull. What has wiped out all the other humans in Dennis’s neck of the woods? Plague? Zombies? Do the living dead wander the streets of Dennis’s hometown, feasting on the flesh of the living, with Dennis staying alive due only to his own cunning and menace, and keeping Joey safe to have someone to talk to? But Dennis’s statement in the final panel paints an even more chilling scenario, and explains his incessant mishcief-making. Dennis exists in an empty world that only responds to his misbehavior, summoning up shadowy figures to scold him. It is only through menace that he can provoke a response from the universe. It is only through menace that he can be saved from terrible, endless loneliness.

Mary Worth, 5/27/12

“Dawn, don’t dwell on it … if you miss this bus, you’ll catch another! You see, each young man in your life is like a bus. They’re long and hard, and they come by on a fairly regular schedule, and whenever one arrives, you can ride it for a while, though you have to respect the fact that sometimes it reaches the end of its route before you’ve reached your destination, and sometimes other people want to ride the bus too. But they’re all pretty much alike, and you need to ride as many as you can if you want to get anywhere. Wait, where are you going? Is this metaphor making you uncomfortable? I’m just talking about riding young men as if they’re buses!”

Panel from Spider-Man, 5/27/12

Would you like to see Spider-Man almost slam crotch-first into a gargoyle? Here, here’s Spider-Man almost slamming crotch-first into a gargoyle.

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Judge Parker, 5/25/12

It’s nice to know that I can do my best to come up with a ludicrously favorable plot outcome for a Judge Parker hero and still undershoot things. See, I thought that Avery Blackstone would sign off on Sam’s unduly generous and hastily written contract proposals only after Sam proved his fly-fishing prowess, when in fact Avery is so eager to spend some dude time with Sam that he’s willing to just skip the hard-hitting negotiations that are the entirety of his job duties. Presumably, once the two of them head down to a trout-filled brook, one of their flies will snag on the handle of a suitcase half-buried in the stream bed. They’ll pull it out and open it, find millions of dollars in bundled hundreds, and laugh and laugh and laugh.

Mark Trail, 5/25/12

“Plus, I suppose, emotionally devastated, world falling apart, blah blah blah. I don’t know her very well, so I can’t say for sure that she has basic human emotions.”

Mary Worth, 5/25/12

“But wait, Dawn, I wanted to show you my latest invention — half ham sandwich, half Pop-Tart. I call it a Meat-Tart! Instead of frosting, it has mayonnaise!”

Ziggy, 5/25/12

In the post-apocalyptic future, the dwindling supplies of food are under the control of warlords and their gangs, and these thugs won’t accept the dead government’s fiat money in payment. They’ll only take payment in ammo and sex, and Ziggy is out of luck on both counts.

Six Chix, 5/25/12

The American judicial system’s hidden crisis: horny old ladies.