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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/17/16

At long last, the day we’ve all been waiting for: Sarah Morgan’s book is available in print! As near as I can tell this strip from May 2013 is the beginning of that saga, so the whole project from genesis to execution took … just short of three years? In the soap opera comics, which move at a notoriously glacial pace? And it took me, a real adult human who lives in the ordinary timestream three and a half years after my Kickstarter to get my book out? Ugggh. Anyway, come to my book tour April 26 in Washington, DC or April 28 in Baltimore or May 2 in Brooklyn or May 5 in Buffalo, so I can outsell this terrible sphere-headed child-golem, at least!

Archie, 4/17/16

I’m sorry, Mr. Lodge, but nobody wearing that red-and-yellow nightmare has the right to criticize anybody else’s clothing choices. It’s really too bad for him that having a servant entirely for the purpose of dressing the master of the house has apparently fallen out of favor amongst the ultra-rich.

Family Circus, 4/17/16

I absolutely love how furious Jeffy looks in the rightmost panel here. I know Billy’s statement is supposed to be a response to his sour face, but it looks like it’s the other way around and he’s just so mad about this dumb aphorism. “Grandma isn’t here, Billy. The best part about Grandma not being here is that we don’t have to listen to this shit.”

Pluggers, 4/17/16

Pluggers remember when they used to be able to guide their grandchildren away from Darwin’s Satanic lies, back before their damn daughter-in-law started pitching a fit because she and the public schools knew better than the Bible.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/17/16

Remember, If Your Strip Ends With Even The Vaguest Play On Words, That’s Technically A “Punchline,” Even If It’s Incredibly Depressing: The Funky Winkerbean Story

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Beetle Bailey, 4/14/16

You might not believe it based on the nonstop stream of cruel vitriol I heap upon comics creators daily, but writing this blog over the years has actually given me a lot of sympathy for the people who write these things. Coming up with a joke a day within the same little world, every day, for years and years is hard, man, even for the team of people they have down at ol’ Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC. I mean, I get it. Some days you’re just staring at a blank panel and are trying to figure out how you can wring a few laughs out of it, and clearly, as the deadline loomed, today’s jokesmith could think of nothing except for falling off a cliff into the sweet embrace of death, which might be something they should talk to a trained therapist about. But anyway, I’d argue that the second panel here is wholly unnecessary. Beetle and Killer dully contemplating the fact that their fellow soldiers just can’t stop falling off cliffs, while staring at a handwritten note on a bulletin board that, in a plea for sanity that will surely go unheeded, urges everyone to “AVOID CLIFF”, is the funniest thing in the comics today, and probably the funniest thing to happen in Beetle Bailey ever.

Gil Thorp, 4/14/16

Boy, the softball action in Gil Thorp sure is a lot more exciting when it’s drawn like an German expressionist film, right? Pitcher and catcher stand at opposite ends of some long corridor, then suddenly are practically on top of one another, representing the way the emotional space between us can sometimes collapse into sudden moments of terrifying intimacy.

Pluggers, 4/14/16

The look of profound shame on those he-pluggers’ faces makes me think that the caption to this panel should actually be “plugger moms seem to be the only ones in the house who actually use toilet paper.”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/11/16

Well, looks like we’re done with the “Rex Acquires Real Estate and Breaks Hearts” and “Dementia Sure Is Depressing” storylines for the moment and are moving on to your favorite and mine, “Everything’s Coming Up Sarah Morgan — Forever.” The relationship between Sarah and her minder is reaching new heights of passive aggression: Kelly notes with with cheerful surprise that Sarah hadn’t been physically assaulted on her first day of school, despite her terrible personality, and Sarah demands to transcend her physical limitations and sit up front like the big girl she has bullied her private school administration into declaring her to be.

Mark Trail, 4/11/16

Oh hey guys, I know it’s been a while since we checked in with Mark Trail’s exciting cave adventure! And today we have … uh … Karst processes … gypsum … you know what, I’ll just let you know when the punching starts up again.

Pluggers, 4/11/16

Well, this seems relatively harmless, and … wait, what’s that say?

NOOOO

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO