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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/19/12

Uh-oh, in her sad and futile attempt to finally get ahead of Rex in their ongoing dickishness contest, June has gone a little off-script when it comes to her more immediate task, namely keeping Iris off the sauce. “Hey, Iris, you sure look pretty in that funeral dress! Good thing, too, since you need to wear it all the time, seeing as everyone you ever loved keeps dying. It doesn’t show off your rack to the same advantage that mine does, of course, but then what would, right?”

Spider-Man, 5/19/12

Thanks, Newspaper Spider-Man, for neatly encapsulating your narrative philosophy for new readers. “I don’t need any amazing, exciting powers beyond those of ordinary humans to dislike that creep! Sullen, baseless jealousy will be the engine of this plot, not a superheroic battle to save mankind!”

Pluggers, 5/19/12

An archaic, failing bureaucracy is pretty much the only thing tethering pluggers to the mainstream of human society, and once that tether snaps, things are gonna get real depressing real quick.

Mary Worth, 5/19/12

The sad thing about the awkward, violent gesture in panel one is that Wilbur thinks it’s a hug.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/17/12

“Never mind June being left at home to manage a sexy, charismatic, half-naked drunk lady,” you’re saying to yourself. “This strip needs to focus on its core strengths. Has Rex been a dick about anything lately?” Well, good of you to ask! You might recall that, right after the sadly departed Foster changed his will leaving everything (including $25,000 nobody knew he had) to Rex, he (supposedly) fell down the stairs while under the supervision of (estranged? ex-?) wife Mabel, who was not wise to this sudden will-change. There’s a couple of strange things going on here, and guess which one has been exercising Rex’s mind more? “You’re not implying that Mabel had anything to do with it!? Because if the police decide that she did, that might slow down the implementation of the directives in his will, and obviously nobody wants that!”

Apartment 3-G, 5/17/12

“Do you understand? I killed her!! And once I tasted blood, I couldn’t stop! My mother was the first of my many victims. And now I fear that my baby will start the cycle anew … with me. You have to help me maintain my position as Satan’s High Priestess of Death!”

Ziggy, 5/17/12

Congratulations, Ziggy: You have baffled me. The only scenarios I can wring out of this that make any sense at all are “Ziggy lives in a dystopian future when all forms of life other than people have been wiped out, and it makes him said to see the biodiverse glory that once was” or “Ziggy is watching a show about evolution and is the last survivor of a short, gnomish species of nonhuman primates.”

Crankshaft, 5/17/12

I’ve spent most of my life avoiding golf and golf courses at all costs, so I’m not really familiar with the social mores that prevail in those contexts. Is the sort of angry mob justice that’s looming in panel two typical, or is it just a strong but justified reaction to Crankshaft’s behavior and/or personality?

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/12/12

Oh, hey, what’s going on in Rex Morgan, looks like it’s just Iris still sadly reading her dad’s memoir and AAAH AAAH AAAH AAAH AAAH AAH! In panel one, it seems that Iris’ face has been removed altogether, only to have a weeping grinning one-eyed horror glommed onto the front of her head in panel two. Has there ever been a comic-book supervillain whose origin story involved whisky and grief? Mabel better watch out at that funeral, is all I’m saying.

Gil Thorp, 5/12/12

Gil Thorp’s horror is subtler but still unsettling. I guess that our single parent pitcher has hit or grazed or come close to grazing the batter with the ball, as a response to anti-single-parent bullying? That’s pretty impressive, considering that in panel two the batter was digging in approximately 12 feet away from the empty patch of dirt where home plate is supposed to be. It still doesn’t explain the awful tangle of limbs emerging at impossible angles from the Goshen gal’s looming crotch in panel three.

Spider-Man, 5/12/12

The second best thing about the current Spider-Man storyline is that all the scripted lines in MJ’s play appear to be exactly the same level of corny and awful as Hardy Laurel’s ad-libs, despite the fact that everyone is acting like he’s desecrating Shakespeare. The best thing about the current Spider-Man storyline is how hilariously petulant Peter looks in today’s final panel. I dearly hope this drawing of him is used for all of his non-masked appearances in the strip from now on.