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Gil Thorp, 5/27/09

One of the (many, I swear!) things I like about Gil Thorp is its tendency to keep once-starring players around as background characters for as long as their fictional high school careers last. So, during basketball and baseball season of 2008, Andrew “The A-Train” Gregory (whose name was meant to taunt one of the strip’s younger readers) was an obnoxious, egomaniacal superjerk who dominated the plotlines with his self-aggrandizing antics. Now, though, he looks positively cuddly when compared to prank-happy megadouche Shep Trumbo. Presumably all of the strip’s readers will forgive Andrew’s past irritations if he makes good on his promise to choke the life out of Shep with that disturbingly realistic toy snake.

Marvin, 5/27/09

What is Marvin’s greatest affront to human dignity? This is a complex question that can probably only be fully answered by a duly constituted war crimes tribunal, but here’s my take. One of the things that make babies so enchanting is their innocence, their complete unfamiliarity with the world; everything is fascinating and delightful to them, even something as mundane as a household toaster, because it’s so new. But Marvin completely lacks this quality; instead, he’s a paradoxically cynical baby, viewing the world with heavy-lidded ironic distance. He’s a monstrous adult-infant hybrid: the worst aspects of grown-ups (emotional numbness, sarcasm) and babies (squalling, pants-shitting). He should be left on a hillside to be eaten by coyotes.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/27/09

This cartoon does a pretty good job of illustrating how difficult it must be to manufacture clothing in Herb and Jamaal-world, where individuals that are notionally of the same species can exhibit radically different physical characteristics. For instance, a baseball cap that fits snugly on the tip of Jamaal’s oblong skull can only balance precariously atop Herb’s spherical cranium.

Mary Worth, 5/27/09

Say, do you know what sort of people would be easy to snare in some sort of con? People who place their absolute trust in someone based on one ten-minute meeting and a relationship with his family that ended decades ago, that’s who!

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Spider-Man, 5/24/09

Hey, remember how newspaper Spidey used to be married to Mary Jane, but then a enormous wall of text told us that he wasn’t anymore, because we had gone back in time to his single college days? Well, it’s not even six months later and apparently we’re done with that. This is fully in keeping with the overall milieu of the strip, in which anything can happen at any time because whatever.

I do note with some amusement Peter’s shock in panel two about getting married without gainful employment, since much of the “drama” of the pre-time-jump strip revolved around Peter whining endlessly about how his underemployment made him less of a man. I guess they got hitched even without him having a steady job, proving that the best way to overcome obstacles in this life is to lower your standards.

Mary Worth, 5/23/09

All this jawing is leading me to believe that this storyline will, against all odds, have a happy ending after all: Dr. Jeff’s adolescent crush, to whom he never dared reveal his feelings, has returned in the shape of the man’s handsome young son! Now, in a more enlightened age, their love can finally be expressed. As added bonuses, Mary will have her heart broken lose control of her current whipping boy, and Adrian will once again be permitted to chose her own romantic partner (which will ultimately lead to her kidneys being stolen and sold on the black market, but that’s a small price to pay).

9 Chickweed Lane and Apartment 3-G, 5/23/09

These two strips are stacked pretty much right on top of each other on my Chron page, so naturally my assumption upon reading them was that Gary was pregnant.

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Panels from Apartment 3-G and Crankshaft, 5/21/09

Just as I am, in a larger sense, kind of in love with Margo, I’m also more specifically in love with her facial expression in this panel. She’s doing the head-bobble that A3G characters are contractually obligated to do when presented with surprising information, though you’ll notice that she’s upped the degree of difficulty by attempting an asymmetrical semi-bobble. But despite the bobble, her face still shows her mingled boredom and contempt. It’s as if she’s acknowledging the fact that she’s just now learning her parents have been making nice with each other behind her back, but she still wants to make it clear that this doesn’t change her opinion that love is dull and gross and so are they.

Meanwhile, the facial expressions in today’s Crankshaft would lead you to believe that you’re seeing the end game in a hate-filled, Lockhorns-style marriage of mutual emotional violence, in which one partner has finally managed to cross the line and say something completely unforgivable. You aren’t, though! They’re characters in Crankshaft, is all, so they just look like that all the time.

Marvin, 5/21/09

You know what’s a million times worse than Gil Thorp plots about YouTube? Marvin plots about YouTube.

You know what’s a million times worse than Marvin plots about YouTube? Marvin plots about YouTube that involve YouTube videos of Marvin running around with his penis flapping about.

Mary Worth, 5/21/09

“Certainly nobody whose father I knew years ago could possibly ever be a bad man! Here, take my daughter, and a list of her credit card and bank account numbers!”

Marmaduke, 5/21/09

“Also, someone in the house has a face that’s melting off the front of her skull!”