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Hello, faithful readers! Your Comics Curmudgeon is back, and will keep on doing that thing he does in 2014, seeing as, against all odds, the print newspaper universe and its ancillary industries, like syndicated comics and bridge columns, have not shut up shop! Let us take this first of the year to give thinks for this triumph of hope over experience and/or analysis of various balance sheets, and to review the comics of the last couple of weeks.

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 12/23/13

As expected, Lu Ann’s inexplicable crush object Cole left for an upstate brain hospital, never to be seen again. Margo is trying to teach her how to use her facial expressions to mask ordinary emotions like sadness and longing, because those mark you out as weak. “Really? That’s the best you can do?” she asks, as she twists her own face into an inhuman horror-rictus.

Panel from Judge Parker, 12/23/13

You probably aren’t surprised to learn that the ultra-pampered mega-rich Parkers live in such a ennui-haze of instant gratification that the only way they can experience even a glimmer of excitement is to be in terrible mortal danger.

Mark Trail, 12/24/13

In Mark Trail, the story of the World’s Stupidest Currently Active Indian Artifact Thieves proceeds apace! It sure was dumb of Mark to turn his back on Jeff. But Jeff just knocking Mark unconscious and leaving him alive in this cabin was probably … infinitely dumber?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/24/13

On to Rex Morgan, where young Sarah found her babysitter making out with her boyfriend Niki (who also happens to be Rex’s former “fishing” “buddy”). What did you ask Santa for this Christmas? Was it Sarah Morgan acting like a creepy adult-child, only this time about sex? Well, you got it, by God.

Panel from Spider-Man, 12/25/13

Or maybe you wanted some Mark I Iron Man armor? Newspaper Spider-Man’s narration box seems to think that this is a festive thing, for some reason!

Gil Thorp, 12/25/13

Or maybe you just wanted some Christmas greetings from Coach and Mrs. Coach Thorp. Remember when the annual Thorp Christmas card featured their beloved children? Well, those kids are gone now, never mentioned, presumably removed from the timestream altogether thanks to advanced chrono-science or maybe just sold to a glove factory somewhere, which gives Gil and Mimi lots more free time for drunken Christmas partner-swapping with Coach Kaz and Kelly. Wait, is Coach Kaz’s girlfriend actually named Kelly? Whatever, I’m not bothering to look that up. The point is, they’re all going to swing.

Panel from Luann, 12/25/13

I’m quite sure nobody wanted to see Brad and Toni giving each other “sexy” Christmas gifts, and yet here we are. Why would anyone give or wear a t-shirt that says “this stud taken” on it? Is there … is there supposed to be wordplay involved, somehow?

Mark Trail, 12/25/13

OK, fine, maybe Jeff failed to kill Mark and left him to his own devices, but at least he left him permanently disabled, because he tied him up with rope! There’s no way he can escape from … oh. Oh.

Panel from Mary Worth, 12/26/13

Mary Worth continues to writhe in ecstasy due to her continued exposure to high levels of Ken Kensington’s erotic aura. “How could such a silver-haired fox still be single?” she hisses, bug-eyed, as she crams an entire cracker into her mouth without chewing. “Is it a trap?”

Mary Worth, 12/27/13

Yes, Mary, it is! Ken Kensington is a soothsaying wizard like Nostradamus of old! Flee from him now before he brings you to his witch’s coven, to be sacrificed!

Curtis, 12/30/13

You may have noticed that there have been exactly zero strips from Curtis’s insane hallucinatory Kwanzaa storyline in this post. Well, there’s no easy way to tell you this, so I’m just going to come out and say it: Curtis-Kwanzaa (Curwanzaa?) is cancelled this year. Instead, the Wilkins parents are going out on a New Year’s date and Curtis and Barry will be babysat by the most religious woman in th’ world, who will presumably tell them that there’s no mention of any so-called Kwanzaa in the bible and they’ll have to go through an emergency exorcism for even mentioning it.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/30/13

Funky’s son Cory is back from Afghanistan, with his army buddy/fellow comic book aficionado Rocky, with whom he may or may not be romantically involved. When did your dad get so charming, Cory? Probably when he decided he wanted to fuck your girlfriend!

Gil Thorp, 12/30/13

Speaking of unwanted sexual advances, everyone wants to have sex with Wynn Wiley’s sister, who is a very good dancer! That appears to be literally the entire basketball season plot. Should be a fun next couple months!

Mark Trail, 12/31/13

“Mr. Trail, I’m tempted to kill you! I was tempted earlier, during the many, many opportunities I’ve had to do so! Almost as if it would make my life easier, somehow!”

Mark Trail, 1/1/14

But, nope, he’s just going to make Mark carry his canoe for him instead. Say, is that a beehive? We all know about Mark’s special relationship with eusocial insects. Nice knowing you, Jeff!

Apartment 3-G, 1/1/14

What? What could be better? A marriage to an Italian man? A fling with an Italian girl? An explanation as to how the Professor lost fifty pounds and de-aged thirty years? Whatever it is, we’ll all discover it in 2014, together!

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Gil Thorp, 12/13/13

Ugh, guys, the football season Gil Thorp storyline ended up being so boring. Quick recap of how its various plot threads were “resolved”: it turned out that the big guy who never talks never talks because he was trapped in a car wreck with his dead parents for three days as a child, which is why he briefly freaked out when this happened; and Tip the gymnast/cheerleader, having been drafted onto the injury-decimated football team, scored the winning touchdown in the last game of the year by flipping over everyone’s head, gymnast-style. Milford didn’t even make the playdowns, obviously, but they did deny the conference championship to their hated rivals, so that’s worth something, right?

Anyway, basketball season doesn’t look like it’s going to be much better, given that Gil and Kaz are already handing out mental “good effort” awards to guys named things like “Don Stebbins.” I do appreciate Kaz’s attempt to liven things up a bit by dying his hair blue, to be more like the punk rockers he’s pretty sure the kids idolize.

Spider-Man, 12/13/13

Spider-sense: it may not protect you from debilitating blows from your adversaries to the back of your head, but if you’re interested in not lightly bumping into someone in the hallway at the office and getting hints about upcoming workplace personnel changes, it’s the superpower for you!

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Slylock Fox, 12/4/13

Oh, goodie, it’s another Slylock panel that gives us a glimpse of the moment when humans lost control of the planet. Today’s installment is particularly eerie. There is no violence, we hear no screams of terror — that all would come later. No, today we just see a group of animals who have quite abruptly awoken into sapience, and realize that they could just walk out of this pet store any time they wanted. And so they do. “Come, come outside and join us,” say the frog and the parrot, who have already made it to freedom. “Come join us and take the dominion that is our due.”

Crankshaft, 12/4/13

I’m very excited that every single interaction during our visit to the nursing home is going to be super-depressing. “It’s a nursing home … we’re way past festive! We’re dying, don’t you get it? You’re wasting your time!”

Spider-Man, 12/4/13

After being yelled at by J. Jonah Jameson on the local morning show, Spider-Man is now being taunted by children, so I’m in a pretty good mood so far this week.