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Herb and Jamaal, 9/8/09

Perhaps stung by allegations of rampant nonspecificity, Herb and Jamaal has decided to go the political cartoon route and just start labeling the crap out of things. For instance, while Herb’s coffee mug has long been designated as such by a label that reads Herb, Herb’s mother-in-law has traditionally drunk her morning pick-me-up out of a mug decorated with a triangle-ish shape that looks vaguely like the Star Trek logo. However, it seems that, having gotten tired of people asking her if “that’s the logo from the science fiction TV show first broadcast in the ’60s that everyone’s talking about,” Eula has traded her old mug in for one that simply has “STAR TREK” written on the side of it.

Alternately, it could be that her name is actually Star Trek, and Eula is just a nickname, a shortened version of what she said to her parents when she finally got the nerve, which was “You lunatics named me ‘Star Trek’?”

Family Circus, 9/8/09

Boy, Billy and Dolly sure look depressed, don’t they? And the reasons are obvious: they have to dress nicely and troop off to school for the day, but, as we can see from Jeffy’s appearance, if they got to stay home they could just wander around in their underwear, covered with filth.

Mark Trail, 9/8/09

I’m not some kind of big expert on killing and skinning alligators, but I question the utility of that tiny little knife that sideburnsy #1 is brandishing in panel two, unless he’s planning on tickling the great thick-skinned beast.

Mary Worth, 9/8/09

Isn’t this what we all hope for when we pop the question to that special lady? That she recoil from the shock, and cover her mouth so that she doesn’t splatter you when she vomits in terror?

Gil Thorp, 9/8/09

So these are the protagonists of our Gil Thorp football-season adventure: a kid who’s learned that he doesn’t need alcohol to have a good time, and a marginal athlete who likes to come up with nicknames for himself. Pretty thin material to work with, but things should get more exciting upon the arrival of the invasion fleet of spherical alien spacecraft that you can see in the background of panel one. Once Milford’s inhabitants have been rounded up to toil in the Zyrgt mines back on Planet Nebulon VI, there’ll be all sorts of interesting dramatic possibilities.

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Crock, 9/5/09

It’s not often that I’m thankful about anything that Crock does, but I have to admit that I’m grateful that this strip makes a joke about a little blue bird that includes the word “tweet” and doesn’t end in a terrible ham-handed punchline about Twitter. I have no actual idea what the punchline is supposed to be about, but the mere absence of a lame Twitter joke still improved my day. Is the sad Legionnaire talking about his penis? Probably. Still better than Twitter.

Mary Worth, 9/5/09

Having educated its audience about the dangers of phishing, Mary Worth is moving a rung or two up the criminal ladder to heroin dealing. I certainly hope the strip maintains the lavish inattention to detail in depicting in-person crime that it demonstrated in its expose of the criminal Internet underworld.

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Mary Worth, 8/30/09

Could there be anything more delightful than the third panel of Sunday’s Mary Worth? My guess is no! Mary and Tobey are clearly bombed out of their minds after spending three hours drinking their lunch as usual; Tobey attempts a sloppy high-five in celebration of terrible couples bound more tightly together in dysfunction’s death grip, while Mary leaves her hanging and stares glassily into the middle distance. Things go downhill a bit as she ruminates on all the societal ills that her meddling has somehow failed to rectify, but I love the transition between the penultimate and final panels. Could love help overcome these important problems? As panel three demonstrates, clearly not, because if this is love, then love is repugnant beyond description.

Crock, 8/30/09

Ha ha, the heat is killing him! It’s funny because a prisoner locked in a hotbox and left out to broil in the desert sun would literally die, from the heat.

Marvin, 8/30/09

August 30, 2009, will forever be remembered as “the day Marvin showed us his ass-crack, and nobody stopped him.”

Spider-Man, 8/30/09

Now that family-friendly Disney has purchased Marvel, I’m afraid our saucy NEXT! box will have to stop hinting at hot mutant-on-cyborg-on-spider-bite-enhanced-dude action.

Slylock Fox, 8/30/09

Solution — The chain may be too strong for the saw, but Slylock’s leg isn’t. Slylock will plead for his sidekick to reconsider, but Max will just think back to years of condescension and abuse, and smile.