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Momma, 3/28/08

Generally, I’m willing to let slide the fact that Momma’s title character is depicted as being roughly two feet tall; I chalk it up to artistic license, perhaps meant to metaphorically reflect the deep-seated feelings of personal inadequacies that drive her to her awful control-freakish extremes. But it’s harder to think of it that way when one of her normal-sized children, no doubt tired of waiting for her to toddle on her stumpy legs to Danny’s Place, simply picks her up and carries her. On the bright side, she probably weighs less than thirty pounds, so it won’t cost very much to get her good and drunk.

(Actually, Francis apparently just likes carrying inappropriate people to bars.)

Mary Worth, 3/28/08

That’s it? That’s the big flashback? Little Mary was poor, and her friend’s family was nice to her once, and then her mother remarried and all her problems were over? That’s crap. I’m disappointed in the strip, obviously, but I’m really mostly disappointed in myself, for thinking that this could be cool. As ever, I need to ratchet my expectations far downward.

It’s possible that this flashback has just served to set up the real story. Maybe in the present the older Cathy is down and out, and Mary will finally get to repay her parents’ kindness! Maybe she’ll have to journey to the hellscape that is the Downtown Women’s Shelter! Maybe … oh, I’m doing it again, aren’t I?

Shoe, 3/28/08

I have to admit that I laughed unironically at Shoe’s completely absurd punchline today. Kids, this is why you don’t want to strike up conversations with random old people! They’re demented, and many of them are angry!

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Ziggy, 2/29/08

Sometimes, it’s important remember that we all have a huge, aching hole inside of us, a hole of hate and despair and pain and loss. What can fill that hole? Love, of course! Except that nobody loves us. So, we’ve got to go with the next best thing: food. Food is almost like love, except in the sense that if you absorb enough of it, you’ll probably throw up. But still, you keep eating those milkshakes that are literally larger than your head, Ziggy. Because maybe this time it’ll make you feel better. Maybe this time.

Shoe, 2/29/08

Ha! It’s funny because the only thing he hates more than his wife is talking to his wife! Thankfully he’s in a bar with Shoe, where his wife can’t possibly go, because she’s a lady. Don’t worry, fella: Tasty brown liquor doesn’t expect you to hold up a conversation!

Apartment 3-G, 2/29/08

Man, how much smack is running with Alan’s veins right now? Just saying his name make Lu Ann look all heavy-lidded and blissed up. “I can’t wait to tell Alan … Alan … so nice … Alan … [falls out].”

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Apartment 3-G, 2/24/08

Too often, drunks get bad raps in the comics, and, for that matter, in life in general. But in panel three of today’s Apartment 3-G, Alan shows his serious side, exhibiting the grim determination needed to get as drunk as possible as quickly as possible, and blot out whatever ill-defined pain he’s trying to blot out. He’s showing that no matter what obstacles he’ll have to overcome in the process, he’s going to drink the hell out that booze, and he will get blasted, as God as his witness, and he’ll never … be sober … again!

Funky Winkerbean, 2/23/08

Speaking of drunks, I’m pleased that all pretense of Funky Winkerbean title character Funky Winkerbean being sympathetic are finally being cast aside. I look forward to future installments in which we see the dark secrets behind Montoni’s successful rise to nationwide megachain: slave labor conditions, pizzas preassembeled in factories in Laos then frozen in liquid nitrogen for shipment overseas, and “pepperoni” made out of God knows what, intercut with scenes of Funky lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills.

Shoe, 2/24/08

Ha! It’s funny because … oh, wait, did I say “funny”? I meant “vile beyond description.”