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Shoe, 5/12/18

Today’s Shoe is one of those strips that really drives home the care that’s been put into coming up with grotesque chimeric body plans for the strip’s bird-people characters. There’s something in particular about putting clothes on them that drives it home: the Perfesser, in particular, is very obviously not wearing pants, as that would make the fan of tail feathers emerging from his suit jacket impossible; one must assume, in panel one, that his tie, too long for human fashion, is in fact meant to be decorously draped over his bird-junk. His “sexy” interlocutor, in constrast, exhibits a number of mammalian characteristics — not just the hourglass figure, but the long cascade of hair, plus the feminine eyelashes protruding so far from her face that they’re visible when her eyes are not, though their very troubling length seems to imply that they’re fake. Maybe her hair is too! Maybe all the non-bird-features on these creatures are in fact cosmetics or surgical enhancements, adding status in their weird bird society! God, this strip is an endless nightmare.

Mark Trail, 5/12/18

I guess I’ve made my peace with the fact that Mark and Cherry showing off their hot bods is something this strip is going to do from time to time, but I will not sit back and accept the fact that Rusty is ripped. When he looked like Ted Cruz but somehow also handsome that was bad enough, but those pecs? Too far.

Family Circus, 5/12/18

“Instead of a heart, I drew a circle because all our misshapen human organs will be replaced by a powerful, glowing orb when The Change comes!”

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The Lockhorns, 4/21/18

You know, I have this vague idea that the names of foods sometimes have historical or religious meanings embedded in their etymology, so I thought that maybe there was some tenuous connection between martyrs and minestrone soup, but no, it just means, basically, “stuff that’s served” in Italian, so, yeah, this panel is literally just Leroy telling his guests “the meal we’re about to feed you sucks, so I sure hope you get some psychological kick out of suffering,” with no wordplay or jokes of any kind.

Shoe, 4/21/18

Haha, remember blogging? Remember when it was a whole thing, that people talked about and cared about, and it was going to change the world, somehow? Thank goodness those days are over! Thank goodness nobody is left who would think that substituting the word “blog” for other vaguely similar words in common English phrases is something that would be funny at all, or worthy of publication! [aide whispers in ear] Oh no. Oh my god. I’ve just been given some terrible news.

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Mary Worth, 3/7/18

Mary has tossed Ted Miller and his unpleasantness down the memory hole, and it seems that none of her supposed friends are going to really press too hard to get to the bottom of what happened. Certainly not Toby! Toby frankly doesn’t care about Ted Miller, who she can barely be bothered to remember as “Jeff’s friend.” Toby doesn’t care about anything that’s not a delicious muffin. “I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” she says dreamily, staring at the muffin in her hand with an expression of erotic languor that Ian has never seen over the entire duration of their marriage, not even once.

Shoe, 3/7/18

I’m pretty sure in Treetops the vultures are generally depicted as owning the town mortuary? This guy has a different name — “Dooley” instead of “Mort” — but it’s enough to establish that the corrupt Senator Belfrey is in the pocket of Big Death.

Dennis the Menace, 3/7/18

Usually Dennis’s parents are nothing but embarrassed when he perpetrates his menacing antics in front of other adults, but today they seems slyly pleased as he wreaks havoc all over the fancy tablecloth at this snooty restaurant. Maybe they’ve decided to weaponize their son’s bad behavior to strike a blow in the ever-running battle between snobs and slobs? “These assholes are gonna make people put on ties and they aren’t even really French?” the Mitchells think. “Fuck ’em.”