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Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/25/13

Rex and June, who are married to each other, and have been for some time, and they were co-workers for a while before that, are meeting up with one of Rex’s high school buddies, which gives them an opportunity to … talk about Rex’s high school dating life? Which apparently they never had before? This strikes me as kind of weird, but maybe lots of people don’t want to know about their partner’s early romantic experience. Or maybe Rex has a good reason in particular to never talk about it. “I was cheerleading captain my senior year, and I dated a couple of cheerleaders, simultaneously. Well, ‘dated’ might be the wrong word, more like ‘brainwashed them and indoctrinated them into my sex-death cheerleading cult.’ And, yes, the reporters may have compared me to Charles Manson, but the big differences between me and Manson is that I wasn’t dumb enough to make the swastika on my forehead permanent, and also all the records were sealed, because I was a juvenile. Wait, maybe there was a reason I never told you about all this before.”

Momma, 11/25/13

I somehow misread Momma’s statement in panel one as “Francis, you look more like Thomas Dewey everyday!” This would be completely in line chronologically with the strip’s usual cultural references. Francis doesn’t look anything like Thomas Dewey, of course, but he doesn’t look anything like his brother Thomas either, so whatever.

Spider-Man, 11/25/13

Has anyone considered that what Spider-Man has been overselling as his “spider-sense” is actually just what the rest of us call “irritation?”

The Lockhorns, 11/25/13

YES LEROY WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO DIE WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO DIE FOR MEEEEE

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Mary Worth, 11/21/13

Mary Worth is being mugged in broad daylight in the middle of Central Park (THANKS A LOT DE BLASIO) and things probably aren’t going to end well … for the mugger. Mary starts off by shouting for help, to be polite, but by panel two her face suddenly bears a striking resemblance to movie tough guy Claude Akins, or perhaps to a majestic lowland gorilla; this transformation, combined with her outfit’s similarity to a karate gi, implies an imminent savage beatdown that our petty criminal won’t soon forget.

Momma, 11/21/13

If you ever need proof that Francis isn’t just a loathsome layabout, but a loathsome hipster layabout, look no further than his sports fandom. Following Ivy League football when you don’t actually attend an Ivy League school makes all those European soccer nerds who smugly tell you about how they illegally stream Bundesliga games online in the wee hours of the morning look like amateurs. And the Ivies are actually among the more normal pennants on display here! “Oh, your favorite team is Ohio State, huh?” he says. “Mine is NYU. They played their last collegiate football game in 1953. You’ve probably never heard of them.”

Family Circus, 11/21/13

This is also what Jeffy will someday tell the cops when they finally arrest him for that string of brutal stab-murders.

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Archie, 11/14/13

I love that Mr. Weatherbee looks nothing but horrified in each and every panel of this strip. Right from the beginning he’s hunched over and anxious and clutching tightly onto his lapel; it’s not like he’s under any illusions that the superintendent has anything good to say about Riverdale High, after all. And yet the actual report is obviously much, much worse than even he had imagined. Sure, the final panel, in which he’s broken out into full-on panic sweats, is great, but it’s the second panel, in which he realizes that he’s only beginning to understand the meaning of terror and his mind won’t stop screaming inside his skull, is one of my favorite things in Newspaper Archie ever.

Momma, 11/14/13

Wait, did today’s strip and yesterday’s get swapped? Or are Francis and MaryLou just going to keep making Momma go out into the snow until she freezes to death for real?

Mark Trail, 11/14/13

These two panels of insect talk are preeettty boring, so just imagine how dull the two days of fly fishing we’ve mercifully skipped over must’ve been!