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Cathy, 3/19/08

As you know, I take this blog’s original promise — that I would read the comics so you don’t have to — seriously. Still, sometimes it’s hard for me to read Cathy for you. Not just because I find it irritating almost beyond measure (although I do), but because it just takes so much damn time. I don’t want to sound like some kind of quasiliterate philistine, but every Cathy includes an awful lot of words, which frankly I just don’t care to deal with. And what with a newspaper that comes every day and a New Yorker that comes every week and a whole pile of books that I’m supposed to be reading — well, sometimes all that text in Cathy just kind of get glossed over, you know?

Imagine my surprise, then, when I ready today’s Cathy and found myself quite engrossed as I watched Irving squirm in silent anxiety while he mused on his fate. It made me think about how lucky I am. After all, I just have to sort of make a half-hearted stab at reading the thing once day, which takes up maybe 30 seconds of my time, tops. Irving, on the other hand, is married to Cathy, every second of every day. Not that it’s likely to get me to read Cathy more closely, but it does really sort of put the whole thing into perspective.

Funky Winkerbean, 3/19/08

Hmm, let’s see … Les is already working a demanding and no-doubt soul-crushing job as a public school teacher, and is a single dad wracked with paranoia about his teenage daughter; nevertheless, he plans to give up his weekends to start working for his best friend from high school, who’s been transformed by age, capitalism, and an insatiable and unfulfilled need for sweet, sweet liquor into an insufferable prick. Whee! Good times ahead!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/19/08

Man, June sure looks awfully pleased to be taking the dog to get her shots, doesn’t she? In panel three, we learn why: anything to get out of the house, now that yet another of Rex’s long line of male “friends” is calling to “talk.” Maybe if she shows a little skin to the vet, she can score some of those tasty animal tranquilizers — you know, the ones that keep her feelings at bay.

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Ah, relaxing on a Monday night … done with work … maybe I’ll surf the Internet a bit … read the comics — wait, comics? Aw, crap, I knew there was something I was forgetting!

Yeah, uh, let’s do some quick Sunday strips to catch up!

Marvin, 3/16/08

Just when I think Marvin can’t get any more delightfully charming, we’re treated to the spectacle of Marvin’s parents engaging in witty banter as their child stews in a mess of his own creation. I just hope that when time has ravaged my lower GI and urinary systems, I’m capable of making droll witticisms while I wait for my caregivers to clean off the filth.

Doodles by Mac and Sack, 3/16/08

I’m sure little comics-reading children across America enjoyed this week’s Doodles, which featured an adorable little koala unable to sleep because he’s forced to sleep inside the mouth of a monstrous insect-beast, presumably to satisfy his creator’s sadistic sense of whimsy.

Plus, a couple of charming panels:

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 3/16/08

Margo dropping the star-bomb isn’t really news, but Margo cussing because she can’t find her other glove is definitely amusing, and Margo using her gloved hand to point to her non-gloved hand so as to demonstrate the missingness of the other glove makes me positively giddy.

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/16/08

Oh, June, are you sure this is a conversation that you really want to have?

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Marvin, 3/14/08

Tough questions for today’s Marvin:

• Do people normally let their two-year-olds toddle around the house eating entire hamburgers, and presumably leaving a trail of ketchup and half-masticated bun in their wake?
• Isn’t Marvin’s interlocutor old enough that she should be talking for real, and thus be unable to conduct the thought-balloon-based telepathic conversations typical of Marvin’s infant society?
• For that matter, why does she need to open her mouth in panel one to thought-balloon at Marvin?
• Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

Gil Thorp, 3/14/08

Woo-hoo, ladies! That’s how you celebrate a basketball win — with a full-on locker-room orgy, not whatever half-assed smirking is going on in Funky Winkerban. Lisa Wyche (or whoever the vaguely Tommie-faced gal at the far right of panel two is) looks particularly pleased to “celebrate” Milford’s “victory,” if you know what I mean.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/14/08

Ha ha, Rex just got back from his harrowing camping ordeal only to be repeatedly humiliated by his pre-kindergarten-aged daughter. Yesterday she forced him to admit that he was pretty much terrified throughout the whole thing; today she lets him know that his lies and bluster are and always have been painfully transparent. Proving that there’s no doubt about her maternity, at least, she fixes Rex with one of her mother’s patented Icy Stares Of Death™ in panel two, while June looks on approvingly.

Phantom, 3/14/08

So, we’ve got an arms dealer surrounded by heavily armed guards as he sells more weapons — presumably military grade — to some kind of green-clad paramilitary group, and our tough lady cop and waitress are going to break it up with — a handgun and a … stick … of some kind. Um. At least its a long stick. I guess “toughness” isn’t the only quality needed to join the Jungle Patrol; “suicidal insanity” also appears to be on the list.