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Mary Worth, 2/6/12

Ooh, fancy Nola has fabulous apartments plural, something sure to send condo queen Mary into paroxysms of jealousy. “Why, when you tire of your view of the parking lot from Unit 51, you can cut across the courtyard to Unit 16, just in time to catch the sunset rays peeking over the top of the freeway sound barrier!” Mary has prepared the sort of meal you’d expect for such a fancy guest: a steaming layer of green glop that she’s shoveling out of a shoebox with a trowel. “Dear, would you like some butter on, uh, whatever the hell this is?”

Apartment 3-G, 2/6/12

I’d like to believe that the sudden and pointless brunettification of Nina is a result of ongoing tension between artist and writer over the strip’s direction, and that the latter recently received a memo from the former that read in its entirety “ANCILLARY CHARACTERS WILL NO LONGER INCLUDE WHORISH BLONDES.”

Funky Winkerbean, 2/6/12

Sometimes Funky Winkerbean readers ask themselves, “My God, is there anything that happens in this strip other than misery and death?” Well, sometimes there are terrible malapropisms, delivered by people whose facial expressions make them look like they just received a cancer diagnosis

Curtis, 2/6/12

“He’s not tech-savvy like us kids, who print out emails when we want to show them to someone!”

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Pluggers, 2/5/12

I’m more than a little embarrassed to admit how much time I spent trying to figure out this Pluggers. Was there some site in the Belgian Ardennes where part of the Battle of the Bulge took place that had a name that sounded vaguely like “à la mode?” Eventually I figured out that it was just a dumb pun on “Alamo” because pluggers have only the vaguest sense of history, but know they saw something about couple o’ battles on the History Channel once, and also they eat ice cream compulsively. I HATE YOU MORE THAN EVER PLUGGERS.

Panel from Mary Worth, 2/5/12

One of Mary Worth’s sinister missions is to present brief quotes from radicals and weirdos in an attempt to make them seem bland and unthreatening. Today’s epigraph comes from a parallel universe where John Lennon wasn’t assassinated but instead took up a new career as a corporate motivational speaker.

Panels from Slylock Fox, 2/5/12

Oh look, the snowman is frowning because its very body is liquifying! It’s sad because it’s helpless to prevent its own horrible death, plus there’s some kind of monstrous demon-thing on its head grinning maniacally as it crumbles. This is a whimsical cartoon for children!

Apartment 3-G, 2/5/12

Ha ha, I’m really loving the way that Apartment 3-G, despite its dated aesthetics, is embracing America-in-decline’s warped values. “Whatever, Tommie, I guess saving lives and helping bring new babies into the world is just soooo important that you don’t have the time to churn out some forgettable pop hits that could make you and the multinational conglomerate bankrolling you a crapload of money. I’m not mad, just disappointed.”

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Apartment 3-G, 2/2/12

I was going to make fun of Dan Diller for having a studio full of primitive, Eisenhower-era electronic equipment, but then I noticed that the UNIVAC I unit in the background seems to have sprouted a mechanical arm between panels one and two. “WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, FLESH-UNITS?” the vacuum-tube-controlled machine barked out, as its deadly new limb dealt out death to all biological life.

Beetle Bailey, 2/2/12

You know, much as I root with varying degrees of subtlety for legacy comics to one day realize that they’re relics and that they should just pack it all in, I admit that it can be hard to come up with a suitably dramatic ending for decades of newspaper comics entertainment. But I think we can all agree that, say, having all of your irritating characters being eaten by bears, one by one, would probably be a good showing.

Hagar the Horrible, 2/2/12

Hmm, it seems Helga has been saying for three years that she asked God to improve her husband ten years ago, which is chronologically confusing. Perhaps instead we are meant to understand that all of Hagar the Horrible takes place in some fractured, Tarantino-esque chronology, where we jump back and forth between different episodes (the castle raid, the shipwreck, etc.) in a non-linear fashion. Thus, assuming this is actually the same incident as the previous strip, my speculation in 2009 that Helga will offer the Nordic pantheon human sacrifices if they would only hear her plea seems to finally be confirmed.

Mary Worth, 2/2/12

Whoa, it looks like Nola isn’t just a sinister sexual she-predator; she’s a master of interpersonal judo as well! Rather than attempting to escape Mary’s meddling powers, she’s instead turned her opponent’s greatest strength into a weakness. All she has to do is ask for tips on bedding every man in the condo complex; Mary, having sworn the Biddy’s Oath to always offer friendly advice, will be forced to aid and abet her reign of erotic terror.

Phantom, 2/2/12

Meanwhile, the Phantom is infiltrating the lair of the Ten Tigers, a sinister Chinese crime syndicate! I’m glad to see that bloodthirsty Asian gangsters use the exact same speakerphone that I’ve seen in every conference room in every bland, low-slung suburban office building I’ve ever been in.