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Luann, 4/13/09

After a week of Gunther “Clueless Doofus” Berger and Luann “Woo Me!” DeGroot, we’re back at last to Brad “Clueless Doofus” DeGroot and Toni “Woo Me!” Daytona. This strip sure does know how to mix it up! You’ve got to admire how Brad slips in that a) this invitation is for breakfast only, so there will be no squicky sex going on, and b) TJ will be there, so the wall-to-wall squickiness will have nothing to do with sex.

Shoe, 4/13/09

Pluggers, lacking only the good taste, restraint, and simple human compassion.

Slylock Fox, 4/13/09

Ah, Casa Shrew, just as we’d imagined it. Looks like Sly will be rethinking this part-time gig as building inspector, as soon as he takes a moment to hurl.

And, in other news . . .

Garfield, 4/13/09

Hmm. Garfield minus Garfield, with Garfield. Not quite clear where this is headed.

Dick Tracy, 4/13/09

. . . and a big hand for new Dick Tracy artist Jim Brozman — just like the one he gave us in panel three there.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Apartment 3-G, 4/9/09

This, combined with this, makes me think that we should add “outfits that people wear while cleaning” to “drug paraphernalia” and “men who don’t look like the two or three dudes that every dude in Apartment 3-G looks like” on the list of things for which the Apartment 3-G team could use some reference photos. My alarm bells are pinging, of course, as to why Ruby might be in desperate and immediate need of some industrial-grade solvent. “Hey, look at that lady over there in that vacant lot! It sure looks like she’s burying someone in a shallow grave and then using some sort of potent cleanser to accelerate the corpse’s decay, doesn’t it? But that can’t be right — nobody dressed like a Colonial Williamsburg re-enactor could possibly be involved in anything shady!”

Family Circus, 4/9/09

I’m all for Billy rotting his mind with comic books, as he’ll clearly never amount to anything anyway, but can’t we expect him to pay attention to the details? As far as I know, Peter Parker doesn’t even have a mother; he was merely created spontaneously when Aunt May and Uncle Ben came down with nephewism, a common affliction in fictional characters. But maybe I’m being too hard on Billy; his larger point — that it would be amusing to see one of Peter’s loved ones beat him to death with a shoe or a rolled-up newspaper — is one that I can heartily endorse.

Mary Worth, 4/9/09

Oh, look, I guess I was wrong: it seems that Ted really is a scammer, and now we’re going to get to watch the Spanish Prisoner con in action, for certain limited definitions of “action.” Meanwhile, I’d just like to offer this bit of advice to noir-aspirant villains everywhere: though it is important to keep your victim in your sexual thrall in order to prevent her from thinking too much about the details of your fraudulent scheme, creepily drawing her onto your lap in public and gently caressing her cheek, all the while telling her how much she reminds you of your sister, is not the best way to go about doing that.

Shoe, 4/9/09

There is exactly one character in Shoe at whose antics I laugh in a non-ironic fashion, and that is Buzz, the elderly dyspeptic bird. Today, he’s spent hours wandering around aimlessly, angry and confused, because he’s old and losing his mind! Ha ha! Oh, I’m going to hell.

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Greetings, reader! Here’s something a little different today: a look at how comics artist can best grapple with the tough economic times in which we live. For instance, many comics creators may have become vaguely aware that such a thing as a “stimulus package” exists, and that it exercised much passion and energy in this country before it was passed by Congress several weeks ago. Thus, “stimulus package” is both an important and a potentially funny phrase. How can it be slipped into a cartoon in such a way as to please the audience?

Momma, 3/19/09

The appearance of “stimulus package” in today’s Momma leaves much to be desired. It’s not clear that the author knows exactly what “pork” or “pork item” means in this context. By associating the term with the distasteful Francis Hobbes, we are forced to contemplate many of the word’s meanings in unsettling ways. Would it be possible to somehow use U.S. tax dollars to actually purchase Francis, as a means to benefit some Congressman’s home district? Is Francis protesting — perhaps protesting too much — against claims that he is in fact composed of delicious pig meat? Is he begging the passing dwarves not to “pork” him as they put their money in his cup? The mind boggles.

Shoe, 3/19/09

This is a much better use of the phrase. As you can see, Roz has ordered a “stimulus package,” which is being delivered by courier service. In this case, the “stimulus package” is not an authorization to spend federal money on various projects, but is rather an enormous vibrator.

Ziggy, 3/19/09

Ziggy, as is its wont, takes a more abstract approach. This stimulus package sure sounds expensive! With all this government spending, can America afford luxuries like punchlines, or jokes, or humor of any sort? You can be sure that Ziggy will do its part to conserve these precious national resources until the crisis is safely past.

Thanks for tuning in for our recession primer! Tune in next time, when you’ll find out just how devastated your characters should be by tightened economic circumstances! Learn to distinguish between “sympathetic,” “maudlin,” “mawkish,” “Dickensian,” and “suicidally depressing.”