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Gil Thorp, 7/20/13

Gil Thorp briefly (or maybe forever?) cuts away from wacky tales of senile retired pro wrestlers to bring you wacky tales of one-armed golf coaches! Steve Boone is an ex-Mudlark who lost his arm in a non-combat accident on an army base and was super depressed about it until Gil gave him an unpaid coaching job last year, which made everything better. Now he’s up for some wacky amputee jokes with the kids! Yaaaay sports!

Judge Parker, 7/20/13

Oh look, it appears that a member of the Spencer-Driver-Parker axis, who, it goes without saying, is already fabulously wealthy, just got $1,000 dropped in her lap, for doing nothing! Sarah Morgan may be already bored with having everything handed to her with no effort on her part, but this shit never gets old for anyone in Judge Parker.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/20/13

You know, I was going to complain about how Funky Winkerbean just won’t let us forget that the Dinkles are going to sex each other up, but you know what? It’s probably the happiest anyone in this strip has been for months, so I’ll let them enjoy it, at least until the shocking revelation about one of Viagra’s little-known side effects (boner cancer).

Spider-Man, 7/20/13

Oh, man, I was gonna guess “Because he’s on a plane and you have to turn your cell phone off when you’re on a plane,” but the real reason is much better, because it involves Spidey’s ineptitude.

Shoe, 7/20/13

“Ha ha no but seriously my marriage is a sham and my whole life is an awful emotional prison” [anguished bird-man sobs]

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Momma, 7/18/13

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the Momma-centric nature of Momma, but today’s strip really brings home how little energy the strip spends on the relationships amongst the Hobbs siblings. Is Francis just hanging out at Thomas’s house? Is this a thing that happens a lot? Do they have a close relationship? Is the whole “earmuffs” exchange a private joke between them, based on years of shared experiences? It surely can’t refer to actual, physical earmuffs, since none of those are visible or even implied in any of the panels here. Or maybe Francis has just learned to take Thomas’s intermittent delusions in stride!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/18/13

Good news, everybody! We’re temporarily done with “Life is too easy and it causes li’l Sarah ennui” and back to “Milton’s heart is going to explode.” Is Milton’s heart exploding right now, inside his chest? Is “10-41” secret doctor code/CB radio lingo for an exploding heart? Who knows! Not me, I’m not a doctor. I do appreciate panel two’s sexy nostril close-up, a traditional form of RMMD fan service that the strip has been far too stingy with lately.

Shoe, 7/18/13

In about 30 seconds these bird-men went from a serious discussion of a pressing issue that forces us to examine the very meaning of our political ideals to dreamily imagining an island made entirely out of pie. Or maybe just an island where pies grow on trees, ready for the plucking. It’s not entirely clear. The point is, though, that these bird-men are, in a profound sense, us. Mmmm, pie!

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Shoe, 6/19/13

Longtime readers of my blog know about one of my main beefs with Shoe: the Goggle Eyes of Horror that often appear in the final panel. These have the effect of implying that someone has uttered some unspeakable nightmare-sentence, when usually they’re making a gentle and dumb pun. Today’s instance of this visual trope has me particularly baffled/enraged. Frito the Parrot (and let’s just stop for a minute to acknowledge: FRITO THE PARROT, ye gods) has met a comely she-parrot at Parrots Without Partners! Assuming you’ve accepted a terrifying world of sentient talking birds, this is a perfectly reasonable name for an organization that arranges parrot-on-parrot romance, so it’s not clear why Shoe would be so shocked; the name’s a spoof of an actual organization, Parents Without Partners, but presumably Shoe would be thoroughly unaware of that, since the protective barrier between his reality and ours remains intact, last I looked. All I can assume is that Shoe, who has been shown to flirt with sexy lady birds of multiple species, is appalled at Frito’s racist decision to join an ethnically pure parrots-only dating service.

Gil Thorp, 6/19/13

Gil Thorp remains unspeakably dull, but I always feel obliged to alert you when we finally get to that point in the season where whatever Milford team we’re paying attention to fails to win a championship. And here we are!