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Shoe, 8/11/12

The empty benches behind Roz actually speak rather well of the bird-people of Shoe-world. Rather than coming into open court to gawk at the spectacle of a poor delusional woman attempting to seek legal relief from her own biology, they have stayed away to give her some small amount of privacy and, to the extent possible, dignity.

Apartment 3-G, 8/11/12

Wow, this guy has answer to everything, doesn’t he? “Oh, is my main reference’s number not on my resume? Just take a look at … this business card! Oh, you don’t think someone from L.A. would have heard of your tiny middlebrow art gallery? Maybe that’s because I’m … not from L.A. at all, but from New York City — the very place where your art gallery is located!” Jesus, dude, just tell her you Googled her after you saw the job ad on Craigslist.

Beetle Bailey, 8/11/12

Sarge is not what you’d call an intellectual, so it makes sense that he looks so distressed at suddenly finding himself the subject of and a participant in an experimental work of recursive meta-fiction.

Pluggers, 8/11/12

Pluggers would rather spend their declining years staring in absolute silence at a tired cultural relic of their bygone youth than interact with their families. Also, they can’t be bothered to learn how to program a DVR.

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Apartment 3-G, 8/10/12

You know, in most forms of narrative, when a small but out-of-the ordinary event happens — like, say, a job applicant failing to include a reference’s phone number on his resume, but happening to have it on a business card — you sort of file it away in the back of your mind as potentially significant. But since this is a soap opera comic strip, it’s probably a safe assumption that the entire pointless action in today’s installment only exists to kill time and means nothing and will never be mentioned again. Which, frankly, is a good thing, because I have a hard time imagining a plot so boring that it hinges on The Mysterious Episode Of The Phone Number That Wasn’t On The Resume But Was Easily Provided Separately.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/10/12

Hey, everyone, Wally Winkerbean is working through his PTSD with the help of an adorable therapy dog, and is involved in a healthy romantic relationship! Don’t worry, though, he’s still perpetually haunted by the grim spectre of death.

Pluggers, 8/10/12

Pluggers urge their sports heroes to viciously injure their opponents in career-ending and crippling ways.

Ziggy, 8/10/12

I’m not sure if I’d trust a doctor who reads off of continuous feed paper printed out of his dot matrix printer, and who has a certificate hanging on his wall that just says “Doctor” on it. But then, I guess Ziggy can’t really afford decent medical care, what with his explicitly acknowledged poverty and all.

Mary Worth, 8/10/12

“I mean, can you believe it? Everyone fucking hates that song! The boat probably committed suicide out of shame.”

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Lockhorns, 8/8/12

The Lockhorns isn’t just another comic panel; it’s one of the grimmest and most unsparing glimpses into the ways that the absence of love can wear you down into a sense of misery that’s so all-pervasive that you don’t even realize anything else is possible. I love how dead everyone looks in this panel. Leroy is so far gone he can’t even imagine how pathetic and small his request makes him look in front of a stranger; Loretta is dying of embarrassment but can’t summon up the words to explain why; and the pizza delivery kid, slouched over and numb, gets another glimpse of what appears to be the universal soul-crushing awfulness of adulthood, and is getting a crappy tip to boot.

Curtis, 8/8/12

Just a little whimsy in Curtis, where the Wilkins boys help out an old cat lady with some chores and then she drops dead! The facial expressions in the final panel are so great that I feel comfortable forgiving future Weekend at Bernie’s-style zaniness in advance.

Pluggers, 8/8/12

You’re a plugger if you remember when you used to eat at actual restaurants that served recognizable food, but a fried chicken dinner at one of those places cost like $9 plus tip, whereas you can get a 10-piece Chicken Nugget meal for $6, and sure it’s not “chicken” so much as “processed reformed chicken meat” but you get more of it plus it’s a lot faster and you can order right from your car, what does anyone expect you to do, what do you look like, some kind of big city elitist?

Ziggy, 8/8/12

Ha ha, it’s funny because Ziggy has finally realized he’s a slave to global capital!