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Don’t you hate it when people shout out warnings to fictional characters about to do something dumb? Well then, you definitely don’t want to go to the movies with me! Here’s how I cheesed off the neighbors this morning:

Funky Winkerbean, 2/7/08

“Aw, Funky — don’t you understand? They love Montoni’s just the way it is!” Just like somebody must love this plot, since it shows up in every sitcom ever written. Honestly, you’d think there were no professional writers around to help with this stuff. . . . And didn’t Brad and TJ do the “funny fixup” routine just a couple months ago? If Funky Winkerbean takes plot cues from Luann, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/7/08

“You’re low on blood, low on meds, and have one working arm. It’s raining and freezing out there, Rex has your pistol, and cellphones do not work that way! And you think Faith is the idiot?”

Mark Trail, 2/7/08

In three parts: 1. “Oh no, you are not going to walk away from a perfectly good airplane!” 2. “Well, get down, then!” 3. “Run, Andy, run! Run like the wind, far from the clutches of Mark and the community, and never look back! — Good dog!”

Slylock Fox, 2/7/08

And this news item: fresh from his My Cage and Pearls before Swine triumphs, Bob Weber, Jr. adds another to his string of edgy crossovers.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Family Circus, 2/3/08

Hmm, Billy, maybe that’s what they teach you in your liberal secular humanist public school, but I have someone here who’d beg to differ. A little someone named Genesis 1:26-7:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

So you see, Billy, there was none of this blasphemous decision-making process that you envision, as God simply copied His own preexisting Face for mankind. And He certainly didn’t request any help from the peanut gallery as you appear to be doing, either. As to where exactly God got His Face from, or as to what need he Has for a human-type Face, exactly, those are the sorts of questions that would get you a good paddling if you were going to the sort of school that made this country great.

Slylock Fox, 2/3/08

After Pearls Before Swine borrowed the Slylock Fox formula a few weeks ago, we should have expected that the PBS gang would make a reciprocal appearance before too long. Followers of Rat and Pig’s adventures probably don’t need any fancy process of ratiocination to figure out just who slammed a tree limb into the back of an innocent bunny’s head for not good reason. More disturbing to me is the Six Differences, where a hungry rabbit has hollowed out a snowman from the inside and is now triumphantly holding his noggin aloft à la the Headless Horseman. Our towheaded youth will be describing this scene to his therapist for years to come.

Judge Parker, 2/3/08

“Sure, let’s have an impromptu lunch date! It’s not like my dying mother isn’t going to still be dying in a few more hours; plus, the longer you linger with me, the better sense I get of how little effort will be expected of me when I actually start working with you!”

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Hi and Lois, 1/13/08

I’m not the kind of guy who’d fly into a pointless rage and rip into Hi and Lois … oh, no, wait, I double-checked and it turns out that’s exactly the kind of guy I am. Anyway, today’s Hi and Lois is even more pointless than usual. It is in fact the worst kind of Sunday strip: the kind that could have easily been a daily strip with three panels (specifically, the last three panels) or even one panel (specifically, the last one). Even without the two throwaway panels at the beginning, this pretty much has the vibe of a long boring story that Lois is telling that turns out not to have a point; add in panel one (red-hot UPC scanning action!) and two (Lois realizes she doesn’t have her eco-friendly reusable bags — what, does she usually carry them all in her purse?) and it becomes practically unbearable. For some reason, though, it’s panel five that really pushes me over the edge, and I want to isolate it to make my point:

See, if this were part of some meandering, slice-of-life graphic novel by Harvey Pekar or Daniel Clowes that ran to thirty or forty pages, it might be acceptable. But this is a Sunday Hi and Lois. It’s got six or seven panels to make its point, one of which taken up by the title. None of those panels should consist of a character making a statement of fact and another responding with a punctuation-less “OK”. C’mon, Hi and Lois, you’ve got places to be.

Apartment 3-G, 1/13/08

Speaking of long, boring stories that go nowhere, having subjected you to several utterly uneventful days of Apartment 3-G this week, I feel obligated to show one in which something actually happens — namely, the totally unforeseeable betrayal of Lu Ann. I’m sure Alan has a reasonable explanation for his behavior, like “I know she has heroin hidden in her teeth! I know it and I’m going to get it!” This is definitely going to be the most awkward art opening ever.

Pearls Before Swine, 1/13/08

I don’t have much to say about this one other than to add to the chorus of approbation, but I thought those of you who don’t see the Sunday PBS would want to have a look. The answer to the six differences is particularly hilarious.