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Wow! I go away for a few days to spend a little quality time with my mom and now I’ve sat down to do some bloggy stuff and found that you guys have made … some comments. A lot of comments. An extra large number of very funny comments.

I bow down to your comics obsessiveness. I was going to skip over the days I flaked out on, but now I see that you all deserve better than that. Thus, today I offer you quick takes on the weekend’s strips just past.

Judge Parker, 8/11/06

As has been widely noted, the new Judge Parker artist, after a very strong start, seemed to suddenly come to the totally understandable conclusion of “Holy crap, this is Judge Parker, why the hell am I putting any work into it?”, and the quality of the lettering and, to a lesser extent, art suddenly declined. It’s still an improvement over the previous artist, who made everyone look vaguely like one another and not-so-vaguely like monkeys. He also deserves kudos for making Horace look at least quasi-human. For your reference, here’s old-artist Horace:

Yeesh.

By the way, if the phrase “more than just a business relationship” doesn’t make your gaydar ping just a little, then you and I have very different agendas in reading Judge Parker, my friend. It adds a particularly twisted twist to Horace’s desperate attempt to get randy young Randy married off to somebody — anybody — before enduring the public scrutiny of an election.

Mark Trail, 8/11/06

Like any true Mark Trail aficionado, I find this strip totally unrealistic. Everyone knows that Kelly Welly wouldn’t beat around the bush, but would just say “bear penis.”

For Better Or For Worse, 8/12/06

You know, I think this strip is really sweet. I mean, in this go-go, youth-focused world, it’s nice to see a depiction of the sort of gentle, loving, but still very deep intimacy that builds up over the decades of an essentially decent marri… oh, who am I kidding. PLEASE GOD DON’T MAKE ME THINK ABOUT ELLIE AND JOHN DOING IT NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Gil Thorp, 8/12/06

You know, for a strip as manic as Gil Thorp, the wordless final panel here is almost shocking. It really brings home the sad and quiet desperation behind a character who’s usually full of bluster. It almost makes you feel sorr… oh, who am I kidding. WEEP, MOON, WEEP! YOU’RE SCREWED! SOON YOU’LL BE IN THE POORHOUSE! MOO HA HA HA HA HA!

Apartment 3-G, 8/14/06

You know what’s important to creating a storyline about underlying sexual tension? Having it involve at least one character who we might believe to have some sort of inner sexual persona. I’m not sure how either of these sad sacks would react to some sort of potential romantic relationship, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be sexy. Tommie’s look of panic and confusion in the final panel seems about right.

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Mary Worth, 8/9/06

That’s right, Mary, let the rage and hate flow through you. But wait until he’s actually standing in front of you to unleash that left hook.

Archie, 8/9/06

I have to admit that this is a pretty stunning layout — I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a comic strip divided up like this before. I don’t know how it would look shrunk down to the size necessary to cram it into a newspaper comics section, but it looks good here. It’s a particularly good fit for the broad vista in the top panel. Too bad it’s all in the service of such a joke so spectacularly lame that I think it’s the product of a joke-generating computer — and not a good one, either. Some of Betty’s butt might have helped.

Hi and Lois, 8/9/06

Shitting. The baby is talking about shitting.

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Apartment 3-G, 8/6/06

I think it’s pretty clear that Tommie’s going to get her mind blown, over and over, until she begs to never ever get a storyline of her own again. I admit that it’s pretty shocking that a woman in her late twenties might call a man in his early fifties by his first name — if you live in 1954. Otherwise, I got nothing on Tommie’s total bafflement. Maybe she’s devastated that her longtime partner in sexless chastity has a non-platonic date with someone. Whatever it is, I hope we’re treated to a whole week of Tommie word-ballooning random words in quotation marks and out of context.

Mary Worth, 8/6/06

“I’m pretty open-mined, but I don’t find Aldo’s brand of stalking amusing at all!” Personally, I find Mary, that champion of suburban condo conformity, describing herself as “open minded” to be quite amusing. Tell the ladies at the downtown women’s shelter all about your open-mindedness, why don’t ya?

Since I actually am open minded, I find Aldo’s brand of humor freakin’ hilarious. Particularly risible is his maniacal and heavily-motion-lined evil hand-rubbing in the final panel. Or maybe he’s so turned on by the thrill of pursuit that he’s doing some spontaneous hand-jiving.

Crankshaft, 8/6/06

There’s absolutely nothing about the humor content of this strip that demands that it be narrated by girls in bikinis, but I’m gradually learning that the main role of the granddaughter in this feature is to distract from the lame-o writing by wearing something skimpy.