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Gil Thorp, 6/18/09

I’m kind of shocked that the word “sexting” has actually made an appearance in a Gil Thorp word balloon, but I’m not at all shocked by the context, in which Dr. Pearl (is this her first appearance under the new artist?) appears to be half-assedly principaling, since she presides over Milford High, America’s most half-assedly educated school. “But Dr. Pearl, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t constitute sext–” “I’m sorry, didn’t you hear what I said? This term appeared in major newsweeklies that my doctor leaves in his waiting room! I just learned the word last week and I’m going to use it, by God.”

Meanwhile, the prospect of Bill Hawkins being charged with a felony for not actually forwarding a totally non-revealing picture of his girlfriend in a cardboard bikini made me confront how little I actually like him. The problem with this story is that it revolves around the battle for the baseball team’s soul between Shep Trumbo, who is an unlikeable douchebag, and Bill Hawkins, who is noble and upright and good and also wholly unlikeable. I suppose if I had to choose which one I’d rather see go to jail, it would be Shep, but really if the whole team could just be dragged off by Milford’s jackbooted thugs and thrown in a dark hole where none of us would ever have to see them again, I’d be a happy guy.

Slylock Fox, 6/18/09

This is definitely the most intriguing Six Difference drama I’ve seen in some time. Let’s start with the obvious: the fellow in the chair has a charming mustache, the sinister lunatic in the child’s drawing does not. This implies two separate potential background narratives. Either chair-baldy is the kid’s stepfather, and, just in time for father’s day, he’s being passive-aggressively presented with a drawing of the absent bio-father; or the child has decided that the terrible voice in his head, the one that tells him to burn and kill, is his “real” father, and has drawn a picture of what he thinks this demonic force would look like: something like the man everyone says is his father, but with an evil grin and a glazed, murderous look in his eyes. Either way, the kid’s vacant smile and stab-ready crayon are things to worry about.

Family Circus, 6/18/09

Speaking of multiple wonderful possibilities, are we meant here to believe that Big Daddy Keane is actually trying to offer a skateboarding clinic, only to fail utterly and humiliate himself? Or has Billy just left his skateboard out in the middle of the floor, resulting in an accidental tumble, spun as “look, Daddy’s showing me how to skateboard!” in the usual self-serving darnedest-things-saying way of the Keane Kids? Either way, Daddy is going to be terribly injured, and this is pretty much the greatest Family Circus week ever.

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Marmaduke, 6/1/09

I suppose that Marmaduke’s owner’s wobbly, knock-kneed stance and one-sided smirk are supposed to convey “coquettish feigned innocence,” and that we are meant to understand that she has left her tired old penny loafers out in the middle of the floor, possibly after having covered them with steak sauce, so that Marmaduke will eat them and she’ll get to buy exciting new penny loafers. This is all well and good, but harnessing Marmaduke’s insatiable appetite for organic or quasi-organic matter to solve one’s problems can lead down a dangerous path. I shudder to imagine the scene, a few months hence, when Marmaduke’s owner arrives home to find the mangled corpses of her children strewn across the foyer. “Oh no!” she’ll exclaim. “Now I’ll have to figure out something fun to do with the money in their college savings accounts!”

Family Circus, 6/1/09

I actually find this cartoon kind of poignant, mostly because of what you can barely see written on the paper: “Chapt 1 I’m bored.” Is this some sort of creative writing assignment, where the students are allowed to write their own novels, their stories limited only by their imagination? Has the task brought Billy face to face with his essential emptiness, a fundamental lack of creative energy? Is he bored inside his own head? His enormous, misshapen head?

Hi and Lois, 6/1/09

I was going to make a crack here about the Flagstons’ depressing, sexless marriage, but then I remembered how awful it was when they last telegraphed to us their intentions to get freaky, so: yes, this is exactly how I expect — nay, require — Hi and Lois to spend their precious few hours of alone time.

Slylock Fox, 6/1/09

Really, Sly? Industrial espionage? That … that just seems beneath you.

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Family Circus, 5/9/09

It’s far too lovely a Saturday for me to spend time hunting through the archives to confirm this, but: is it just me or have more and more Family Circus cartoons involved the four children traveling around the house in a tight pack-like formation? I much prefer installments where their rage and stupidity are turned against each other, but now it appears that they are forming some sort of hive-mind so that their limited cognitive ability can be pooled. A group Keane Kids organism, with eight flailing arms, four runny noses, and almost-human intelligence is a terrifying prospect, and Ma Keane is right to warily hold that spoon ready as a weapon.

Mary Worth, 5/9/09

Ha, ha, deliciously awkward. “I … I have to get back to … no, really, I’m a doctor and I’m very busy … OH GOD PLEASE DON’T TRY TO EMPATHIZE WITH ME NO NO NO”

Slylock Fox, 5/9/09

I was initially going to say that my first reading of this cartoon — not “aw, a cute Mother’s Day tribute” but “HOLY CRAP LESBIAN DWARF OCTOPUS PORN IN SLYLOCK FOX” — marks me out as a bad person, but it’s worth noting that without that kind of impulse, this blog wouldn’t exist, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?