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Gil Thorp, 8/16/17

OK, see, when it comes to my nostalgia-fueled love of returning former Gil Thorp teens who are now All Grown Up, even I have my limits. Like, Trey and Jaquan, a couple of guys who hadn’t appeared in more than a decade? I’m jazzed as hell, man! But True Standish, the star quarterback who graduated last year? Ennnnnnh. Under True’s steady hand, the ranking of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons offense apparently dropped from 114th in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision to 124th, but at least this summer when he crushes his receiver’s hopes and dreams, it’ll be the outcome everyone’s rooting for.

Mark Trail, 8/16/17

Oh, hey, remember when Johnny straight-up rode over a cliff on his horse? Well, surprise, that was just some fancy illusion work from Mark’s old buddy, and he’s not dead at all! Unfortunately, back two months ago (side note: Mark and this motley crew have been out on the Dakota prairie for two months??? Jesus) when Mark and Johnny plotted to use Johnny’s trick riding skills to defeat their enemies, they were still under the impression that the she-kidnapper was a hostage (despite Mark’s big talk about knowing all along she was on the side of evil), so probably Johnny is about to chivalrously ride to her rescue, with disastrous results.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/16/17

You know, some people view me with pity just because I somehow retain huge swaths of plot and character detail for Mary Worth or Gil Thorp in my head, but in my defense those plots and characters are, for the most part, fun. Take Funky Winkerbean in contrast: despite the fact that I’ve read it and been annoyed by it every day for more than a decade, I routinely forgot a lot of its byzantine world-building, because honestly why bother. So, like, for instance, up until today I would’ve sworn that Darrin’s pal/coworker Mopey Pete was another one of the strip’s seemingly endless supply of clinically depressed Northeast Ohio natives, but nope, I guess he’s a “New York and L.A. guy,” a proud bicoastal elitist who nevertheless dresses like that. Anyway, I’m sure he’ll find something that interests him in Centerville! Probably a lady, for sex.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/16/17

Sorry, gag-a-day strip writers: no so-called “punchline” you could come up with would be funnier than panel three of today’s Rex Morgan, M.D., in which we see the gears of June’s mind spinning wildly in her attempt to avoid the responsibility of raising her dying childhood friend’s toddler.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/13/17

Oh my God, somehow I just now remembered that June and Rex’s pal/former household employee Heather is agonizing over the fact that her agèd, Alzheimer’s-afflicted millionaire husband is in no shape to father the baby she’s always wanted! When last we heard from her, more than a year and a half ago, June was broadly hinting that Heather knows how sex works so Heather should probably just do sex with someone and get pregnant that way. I largely forgot about this because it was a plotline from the substantially wackier Woody Wilson era of the strip, and most of those got dropped when Terry Beatty took over writing duties on the strip. But now! An adorable little baby has just fallen right into June’s lap, and surely she won’t neglect to reward Heather for her years of faithful service. The only question is: will June actually tell her desperate childhood friend that she’ll be fobbing her orphaned son off onto a gold-digging white-collar criminal who lives with her agitated and demented husband in a drafty castle in England somewhere? Or will she just wait for her friend to drop dead and then put little Johnny in the mail?

Family Circus, 8/13/17

You know, the Keane house is really a character in today’s strip! Specifically, it’s like some huge, sedentary beast, its maw open and ready to feed, and Big Daddy Keane is responsible for its excretory processes.

Panels from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/13/17

“Tearin’ off chunks of my flesh to devour, and I’m still capable of feelin’ everythin’! It’s a nightmare from which there’d be no escape!”

Spider-Man, 8/13/17

So, just to emphasize here: an immortal supervillain is leading an army of awful subterranean monsters to the Earth’s surface … to ruin a wedding, and the monsters have to be quiet, because otherwise they’ll wake up his wife, who loves weddings. I take back every mean thing I ever said about Newspaper Spider-Man. This is literally the greatest comic ever made.

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Mark Trail, 8/9/17

Oh, man, we’ve gotten to the part of the Mark Trail storyline where Mark punches a guy and so you know that’s gonna get top billing on today’s blog post on Josh Reads Dot Com! As we often do on these sacred occasions, let us revisit the greatest sentence on Wikipedia, which can be found on the Mark Trail article: “His assignments inevitably lead him to discover environmental misdeeds, most often solved with a crushing right cross.” Today’s strip is notable because Mark starts with a right, and then, when Baldy McBankrobber neglects to fall over, follows up with a left as well. Bank robbing is a kind of environmental misdeed, right? Whatever, please spend the rest of your day enjoying Mark punching a guy in the mouth twice in two panels.

Dennis the Menace, 8/9/17

Who even knows to what year Dennis the Menace is supposed to be mapping onto exactly, but was there a time when kids Dennis’s age were supposed to sit in the back seat of cars but were not yet confined to specialized child seats? Because he definitely doesn’t looks like he’s a child seat, right? I think the real menace here is that Dennis and Alice have been placed in different rows just so we can see both of their faces easily. Doing things to make things easier for writers at the expense of narrative coherence is a menace against the literary contract with our readers!

Funky Winkerbean, 8/9/17

So I’ve been informed by more comics-savvy people than I that this dude is supposed to be legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby, whose 100th birthday would’ve been this week and who is being punished by an appearance in Funky Winkerbean as a result. Anyway, Jack Kirby’s advice to get a comics job is to have a portfolio of really great work, which seems … correct without actually being helpful?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/9/17

Ha ha, look at the kid’s face! He knows the answer is “no”!

Mary Worth, 8/9/17

God damn it Jared, why does all the stuff you say when you’re trying to be chipper sound like a threat