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Mary Worth, 8/6/08

Most scientists agree that today’s Mary Worth — in which Toby completes an e-commerce transaction with a click of the F10 button, then contemplates checking her e-mail — contains the least amount of action that can possibly sustain two panels. However, based on observations from the past few installments of this strip, tomorrow’s Mary Worth will almost certainly contain even less of interest, causing the local time continuum to ground to a halt. Friday’s strip will then take place on Wednesday, as the timeflow begins to unspool in reverse. It’s unclear what the cosmic consequences for this violation of the rules of nature will be, but it can’t be good.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/6/08

The second and third panels of this strip contain a delightful study in contrasts. In panel two, June’s manic grin is wholly inappropriate for someone proposing to spend a painful week alone with her surly, disinterested husband; in panel three, Rex reacts to the suggestion with a stone-faced mask that barely conceals mounting panic, as if — oh, I don’t know, his wife had walked in on him having sex with another guy in the laundry room, to pick a random example out of thin air for no reason.

It’s worth noting that this blog’s murky opening days covered the tail end of a Rex Morgan, M.D., storyline that involved our medical couple going on a disastrous white-water rafting trip. I’m pretty sure that this was for fun (meeting my definition of a “vacation,” anyway) and Sarah was very much alive at that point, as Rex and June decided to fire their nanny during the drive home.

Curtis, 8/6/08

Good Lord! It’s so hot that Ms. Honeystump has been emblackened!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/6/08

dear God WHERE ARE THEY GOING TO PUT THAT TRANSMITTER

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Mark Trail, 12/22/06

Damn you, O cruel gods of Mark Trail! Can’t you let our beaver friends maintain their newlywed bliss at least through Christmas? Must our orange-teethed rodents be face uncomprehendingly with hostility on the day the Prince of Peace was born to redeem the original sins of irate property owners and furry tree-gnawing beasts alike? Is there no justice in this world?

Is Lucky and/or Mrs. Lucky holding a rock in his/her adorable little paws in panel one? Because I’m, um, pretty sure that never actually happens.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 12/22/06

OK, I’m going to pass lightly over the fact that the “parent can’t put together kid’s toy” joke is passed beyond “classic” and “dated” status and gone right on to “musty,” and the fact that little Loopie’s “space ship” looks like a roller skate wearing the Tin Man’s scalp as a hat. What mostly amazes me here is that this TDIET was published on December 22, and yet the ground-based UFO in question is portrayed as a birthday present, rather than the more obvious Christmas gift. Did we need the urgency of the party being tomorrow to really bring home the stress of dad’s “living on the edge” lifestyle, but there’s already something lined up for the 12/24 panel? Or is TDIET in the vanguard in the liberal media’s implacable War On Christmas?

Mother Goose and Grimm, 12/22/06

The first use of “playing the cello” to describe this position that I’ve encountered was in Diane DiMassa’s Hothead Paisan: Homicidal lesbian terrorist comic series from the early ’90s. Sadly, since Mother Goose and Grimm appears in family-friendly publications, this strip had to be censored, since the phrase clearly refers to a cat licking its ass. If a child saw a feline applying a tongue to that part of its body in a cartoon, that child would obviously go blind and insane, so it’s a good thing that this bowdlerized version was used instead.

One Big Happy, 12/22/06

Part of Ruthie’s charm is that she straddles the line between “imaginative” and “delusional,” but the phrase “I know the smoke detector is really one of your hidden cameras” is clearly the product of the mind of a budding paranoid schizophrenic. This kid will be in a straight jacket in a rubber room by the age of 13. Presumably she’ll have a heart-warming malapropism ready for the situation.

The Phantom, 12/22/06

In case you’re wondering, Undersecretary Denton’s extrajudicial beatdown has now entered its eighth day. It’s been pretty rough going, though I suppose more so for Denton than for me; today President Luaga manages to get three POK!s out of a single left hook somehow. Anyway, this comic amuses me mostly because of panel three, in which Denton’s administrative assistant gets to live out every white-collar underling’s dream by punching her boss in the face.

Apartment 3-G, 12/22/06

Drunk, jilted Margo + lonely, emotionally needy Gina = SEXIEST CHRISTMAS EVER.

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Ziggy, 11/9/06

See, “diversity” used to be code for “black people,” but now it’s code for “gay people.” This represents the new PC horrorshow that awaits us under a Democratic-controlled Congress. Marriage is between one man and one woman, not a cat and two mice. Sickos.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 11/9/06

Speaking of which, I’m not a biologist or anything, but I’m pretty sure only boy cows have horns, which makes this already disturbing strip even weirder.

The Phantom, 11/9/06

This pretty much takes the cake, though. The dude in skin-tight lycra, the dog sticking its tongue in the drugged, blindfolded woman’s ear, the interrobang … sick, I tell you, sick.

And here’s two soaps from today that it would have been sick to ignore…

Apartment 3-G, 11/9/06

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WHO DO YOU THINK MARGO’S “ASSISTANT” IS? Is it Tommie? Lu Ann? Gina? The hobo who saved her life a few years ago? Margo herself in a blonde wig, answering to “Maggie”? I am on tenterhooks, I tell you what.

Mary Worth, 11/9/06

Mary Worth has of course been delicious all week, as Mary seethes inwardly at her coming obsolescence. Panel two may be the moment at which anger turns to self-doubt, the moment when Mary’s steely self-confidence began to soften just a little. More interesting, though, is panel one, in which she appears to be shoveling off-white glop out of bucket onto a cookie sheet. Many of you have wondered why exactly Mary has a thigh-high bench in the middle of her kitchen; the fact that she needs to drop her … food … from about a foot above its target would seem to illustrate how impractical this arrangement is. But I’ll bet she just likes the sound it makes.