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Shoe, 2/1/10

Say what you will about Funky Winkerbean, but at least it’s totally upfront with its non-stop cavalcade of misery. Some strips hide a core of intense gloom that occasionally peeks out from underneath the cheery front end of a gag-a-day strip. Take today’s Shoe, for instance. The Perfesser thought-balloons that “mama said there’d be days like this” as his morning alarm goes off. In other words, he’s already written the day off as terrible in his first few seconds of wakefulness. “Oh, look, I didn’t die painlessly in my sleep. Yep, it looks like it’s gonna be one of those days!”

It’s also possible that the alarm has been going off for hours now, and the Perfesser is simply unable to move close enough to the clock to turn it off, due to some combination of obesity and decrepitude.

Gil Thorp, 2/1/10

Like many an angry, aimless dropout of his generation, Steve Luhm uses sarcasm to get in little digs at his elders that they’re too irony-deficient to catch. “My dad taught me there’s honor in any job if you work at hard at it … even coaching! And you know what’s a good sign that someone’s a hard worker? When they just hand off part of their workload to some other random person at the first opportunity! Anyway, I’ll be sure to thank my dad for that pearl of wisdom.”

Judge Parker, 2/1/10

Speaking of sarcasm, the Judge Parker narration box’s is particularly transparent today. At breakfast, Sam is still talking about Neddy’s live-in boyfriend! Still! The guy just will not shut up about it! Come on, dude, move on into the 21st century with the rest of us, OK?

Curtis, 2/1/10

I admit to being charmed by the enormous unblinking eye on Michelle’s t-shirt today. Curtis’s romantic ardor must be intense indeed, as it would instill a major case of the heebie-jeebies in the soul of a lesser suitor.

Luann, 2/1/10

Wait, they wish they had more time together? Every time we see them in this God-damned strip, they’re endless hashing out the terms of their perfectly gross relationship. Admittedly, each panel featuring Brand and/or Toni is one that doesn’t feature Luann and/or Gunther, but one shouldn’t have to settle for the lesser evil. Why not just retool the strip around Knute, Puddles the dog, Shannon, and Mr. Fogarty, and do everyone a favor?

Mary Worth, 2/1/10

Dear young people everywhere: do not ask either of your parents why he or she cannot forget a past lover unless you want to hear things about his or her past sexytimes that will shake you to your core. Fortunately, Wilbur is such a negative nelly that he goes straight to the arguments while meaningfully adjusting his glasses, though this may only presage tomorrow’s vivid recounting of the mind-blowing post-argument make-up sex. The description will blow Dawn’s socks off, assuming that purple bands of gauze wrapped around the middle of one’s feet can be said to constitute “socks.”

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Herb and Jamaal, 1/30/10

Herb’s mother-in-law Eula is always depicted as argumentative and unpleasant, perhaps because she’s a stereotypical, lazily created mother-in-law character constantly haunted by intrusive thoughts of death and divine punishment. We already know that she attends a church that has a creepy obsession with the afterlife. In this strip, her thought-ballooning begins with a brief moment of justified self-esteem over her good health; but soon she’s distracted that by the realization that her contemporaries are dying at a rapid clip, followed by paranoia that her dead friends are laughing it up at the right hand of Our Lord over her eternal punishment in Hell. Cheery! Presumably she’s going to take this self-loathing out on Herb, for having the temerity to displace her in her daughter’s affections.

Mary Worth, 1/30/10

As is the case with a lot of modern art, I couldn’t tell you specifically what feelings the second panel of this Mary Worth is supposed to evoke, but I enjoy at a visceral level. If I may venture an interpretation: Dawn’s mind is so aflame with shock over Wilbur’s quick capitulation that she’s on the verge of tearing off her own head to rid herself of the confusion and anguish inside it. Wilbur’s eyes, meanwhile, tell the story of a man grimly determined to not force the issue, someone who fervently and implacably believes that, really, it just doesn’t matter.

Family Circus, 1/30/10

Ha ha, it looks like Jeffy has learned the concept of asking for forgiveness rather than permission! Unfortunately, he’s also about to learn why Mommy calls that blanket “the Smotherer.”

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Mark Trail, 1/29/10

I’m hoping that this Mark Trail storyline might be about to turn into Brokeback Mountain meets The Larry Craig Story. “An ‘old friend,’ Ben Harris, has a camp up ahead … I don’t think he’s going to be too happy with me, bringing a handsome young man like yourself along with me!” “It has been a long time, Senator … you’re looking good … so good … and you’re bringing someone else here … to our special place …” *sob*

Mary Worth, 1/29/10

Now, this is the point where all you cynics are going to say, “Ha ha, see, Kurt was lying all along!” That’s nonsense. If a scam artist were confronted with a request for a paternity test, they’d probably sputter and prevaricate. They certainly would not unleash a clipped “I don’t believe in their accuracy.” Thus, I am forced to conclude that Kurt is not a con man; he is a cyborg.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/29/10

Rex and June begin to suspect that Sarah is on to their plan to drop her off at a farm upstate and never come back.