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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!

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Mark Trail, 7/25/12

Rusty and his suddenly piercing blue eyes seem to have gone through some kind of handsomification (or at least de-hideousification) process, but don’t worry, he’s still alone in his room muttering furiously about “sheep killers” and “dead animals.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/25/12

I’ve always assumed that Hootin’ Holler was a socially conservative enclave, but it appears to actually be a polyamorous commune.

Hagar the Horrible, 7/25/12

Hagar the Horrible, the protagonist of a beloved nationally syndicated comic strip, is a thug who always takes what he wants with violence and threats of violence.

Pluggers, 7/25/12

Even before the Internet, pluggers could only make “friends” with people who lived far, far away from them.

Spider-Man, 7/25/12

“Let’s stare at them as he casually saunters away!”

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Gil Thorp, 7/18/12

At last, this summer’s wacky Gil Thorp storyline comes into focus! And it involves … one of Gil’s former students, who joined the military and then was physically maimed and mentally scarred in combat, and has become a recluse? Damn it, that’s not wacky at all. Though surely whatever non-board-certified tough love therapy Gil will unleash on him will be good for a laugh or two. One also wonders if the particular nature of the poor young man’s injury is meant play to the strip’s artist’s strengths, since there’s guaranteed to be one fewer hideous flipper-hand per panel whenever he makes an appearance.

Pluggers and Marvin, 7/18/12

Ha ha, old people, they sure hate the computers and the social networking, right? Oh, wait, that just seems a little at odds with all the old people I know who love Facebook and the many pictures of grandchildren it provides to them. Anyway, mostly I would like to point out that (a) these pluggers have found reporting of plugger-esque exploits on the society pages, which in most newspapers are usually dedicated to fancy parties thrown by the wealthy and beautiful, which means that in Pluggerville there are people even lower on the social ladder than these guys; and (b) I would like a comic about Marvin’s grandpa and his cranky old friend cruising for sexy grandmas in the park a million times better than Marvin’s current Marvin-pooping-focused iteration.

Shoe, 7/18/12

Whoops, looks like Roz served the Perfesser a meal intended for one of the many insectivorous birds who patronize her diner! Also, she is extremely sarcastic.