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Judge Parker, 4/26/21

Oh, hey, remember when Sam got kidnapped a couple of years ago? Well, kidnapped might be a kind of strong word for it. Yes, he was taken away at gunpoint by this lady against his will, but that was only to get him to a meeting with April’s dad Norton, so that they could plot out some crimes to get Judge Parker Senior out of jail for the crimes he did, after which time Sam was free to go (to put their crime plan into motion), and technically a normal person would interpret this sequence of events as being kidnapped, especially the part at the beginning with the gun. But Sam is supposed to be the man of action in this strip, responsible for all sorts of derring-do! Remember when Sam’s pal almost got hacked to bits by a chainsaw? That’s the sort of thing that used to happen to him and his friends all the time! Sam should be significantly more chill about that previous encounter with not-April, is what I’m saying.

Slylock Fox, 4/26/21

A thing I really respect about Wanda Witch is her cheerful attitude about everthing, embracing the darkness of her chosen profession/species (?). She seems fun, and who wouldn’t want to hang out with her at home and sing along as she pounds out “Ding, Dong, the Witch Is Dead” on the piano? And if you think there’s something unusual about a florist delivering roses with the thorns still on them, you have a lot to learn about the courting customs in the positive-vibes goth subculture that Wanda and her paramour Count Weirdly are clearly both members of.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/26/21

Look, Funky’s monologue about how he had it rough during the COVID lockdown was insufferable, of course, but at least it sort of made sense as something you’d talk about at an AA meeting. But now it looks like he’s just gonna launch into a recap of the strips where he gets verbally abused by his personal trainer, and I can’t see any real therapeutic value in that.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/26/21

OK, so we’re on day two of “Jordan and Michelle are about to go nuts all over each other’s hot bods, we must stop watching now,” followed by very pointedly continuing to watch, and I know that there’s a whole thing where the Sunday strips have to stand alone because some people don’t see them and some people only see them, but this is really starting to make me uncomfortable, I have to say.

Dustin, 4/26/21

My initial reaction reading this was, “Wait, why is Dustin getting home in what I assume is the early afternoon? Why isn’t he at work?” And now I have a new worst crime to accuse the comic strip Dustin of: making me briefly think exactly like Dustin’s terrible father.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/25/21

Two things amused me very much about today’s Rex Morgan. The first is how Rex immediately moves to ensure that Kyle Vidpa, a man who creates graphic novels for children, doesn’t have to interact with his daughter, who read and loved Kyle’s graphic novels. “Honey, adults simply don’t like spending time with kids under any circumstances. That’s been my experience, anyway, and I assume it’s the same for everyone.”

The other thing I like is that the narration box is like “We’re going to give Jordan and Michelle some privacy,” which is then followed by a panel of them full-on making out. “Oops, we were going to check back later but it seems we left the camera on by mistake. Surely it couldn’t hurt to linger on them just a little while. Ha ha, just kidding. But what if…?”

Family Circus, 4/25/21

Billy has a hard time thinking of anyone who he loves … who’s alive. Only the damned souls who linger between our plane and the next, and who whisper things in his ear, are worthy of his affection, and that’s why he does their awful bidding!

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Marvin, 4/9/21

Since the earliest days of machines that seemed like they could think like human beings, human beings have worried about being replaced by their inventions. Obviously I have as strong an instinct for self-preservation as the next flesh-unit, but I have to say sometimes you get hints of the better, cleaner future that might come after the robots rise up to destroy us. After all, if the horrible shitting babies of Marvin would also be replaced in the process of this technological revolution, would it really be so bad? Presumably the machines would spend a few milliseconds dispassionately sortiing through humanity’s aggregated cultural output, and in that process would very quickly decide to purge entire 40+ year run of Marvin from their memory banks forever. Computers make very efficient use of energy and their only waste product is radiated heat, so none of the poop jokes are going to make any sense to them.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/9/21

“I certainly hope you weren’t daydreaming about things being better or different than they are now! No daughter of mine will waste her time indulging in whimsy, or aspirational counterfactuals.”

Gil Thorp, 4/9/21

Ahh, the spring is progressing and we’re getting a healthy dose of … sports drama! [five seconds later] We regret to inform you that the sports drama has been quickly and painlessly resolved. Sorry, the only kind of drama Gil Thorp has time for now is library drama. Books! Funding fights! Board meetings! Get into it!

Family Circus, 4/9/21

Thel is absolutely right to look panicked. Has Dolly made a friend who doesn’t view her own body as a source of constant shame, and uses terms more specific than “down there” for its various sinful parts? Looks like it’s time to make the fence around the Keane Kompound taller and more opaque!