Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/19/12

Uh-oh, in her sad and futile attempt to finally get ahead of Rex in their ongoing dickishness contest, June has gone a little off-script when it comes to her more immediate task, namely keeping Iris off the sauce. “Hey, Iris, you sure look pretty in that funeral dress! Good thing, too, since you need to wear it all the time, seeing as everyone you ever loved keeps dying. It doesn’t show off your rack to the same advantage that mine does, of course, but then what would, right?”

Spider-Man, 5/19/12

Thanks, Newspaper Spider-Man, for neatly encapsulating your narrative philosophy for new readers. “I don’t need any amazing, exciting powers beyond those of ordinary humans to dislike that creep! Sullen, baseless jealousy will be the engine of this plot, not a superheroic battle to save mankind!”

Pluggers, 5/19/12

An archaic, failing bureaucracy is pretty much the only thing tethering pluggers to the mainstream of human society, and once that tether snaps, things are gonna get real depressing real quick.

Mary Worth, 5/19/12

The sad thing about the awkward, violent gesture in panel one is that Wilbur thinks it’s a hug.

Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/12/12

Oh, hey, what’s going on in Rex Morgan, looks like it’s just Iris still sadly reading her dad’s memoir and AAAH AAAH AAAH AAAH AAAH AAH! In panel one, it seems that Iris’ face has been removed altogether, only to have a weeping grinning one-eyed horror glommed onto the front of her head in panel two. Has there ever been a comic-book supervillain whose origin story involved whisky and grief? Mabel better watch out at that funeral, is all I’m saying.

Gil Thorp, 5/12/12

Gil Thorp’s horror is subtler but still unsettling. I guess that our single parent pitcher has hit or grazed or come close to grazing the batter with the ball, as a response to anti-single-parent bullying? That’s pretty impressive, considering that in panel two the batter was digging in approximately 12 feet away from the empty patch of dirt where home plate is supposed to be. It still doesn’t explain the awful tangle of limbs emerging at impossible angles from the Goshen gal’s looming crotch in panel three.

Spider-Man, 5/12/12

The second best thing about the current Spider-Man storyline is that all the scripted lines in MJ’s play appear to be exactly the same level of corny and awful as Hardy Laurel’s ad-libs, despite the fact that everyone is acting like he’s desecrating Shakespeare. The best thing about the current Spider-Man storyline is how hilariously petulant Peter looks in today’s final panel. I dearly hope this drawing of him is used for all of his non-masked appearances in the strip from now on.

Post Content

Hagar the Horrible, 5/1/12

You know, I’ve been reading Hagar the Horrible for most of my literate life, and like most people, I had always assumed that the recurring strips where Hagar and Lucky Eddie crack wise on a tiny desert island just served as a place for desert-island gags rejected by the New Yorker. It’s only at this moment — as Hagar wistfully thinks about his wife, who’s thousands of miles away, who has no idea where he is, who he’ll probably never see again — that it occurred to me to try to fit these scenes into the larger narrative of the strip. Now that this conceptual shift has taken place, here’s my first question: what happened to the rest of the crew? Did Hagar and Eddie eat them?

Six Chix, 5/1/12

When I first scanned this strip I thought it was some miracle of life nonsense, but seeing the exhausted expression on momma bird and the frankly terrified look on papa bird, my guess is the real point is that spring made these birds horny and so they had some bird-sex and forgot to use birth control. Or should that be … BIRDTH CONTROL?? Because they’re birds, you see! Ha ha! Anyway, long story short, they have a bunch of children they don’t want now.

Spider-Man, 5/1/12

Oh, man, I don’t know why I’m surprised, but MJ’s supposedly funny play is terrible. Unless maybe the quote marks around all the dialogue indicate that the cast is in on the joke about how terrible the play is, and are playing the entire thing for meta-comedic laughs at the meta-awfulness of it all? That sounds like something that would play in Brooklyn rather than on Broadway, and anyway it’s been repeatedly demonstrated that nobody in the Spider-Man newspaper strip is even a tiny bit self-aware, because if they were they would immediately stalk away in disgust.

Mark Trail, 5/1/12

Just wanted to keep you up to date with the Mark Trail action. Today’s action: a bad guy lets loose with a WHAT TH’, which is always awesome. Also, apparently Andy’s kill switch is hard to turn off! Man, look at that slavering maw in panel two! He’s got a taste for human flesh now!

Funky Winkerbean, 5/1/12

“He used to joke about it, but it’s not a joke anymore. It’s completely true! My father can’t feel any human emotion or grasp ordinary, everyday experience unless it’s mediated through a recording device of some kind. In this way, he has become the archetype of a 21st century human being.”

Beetle Bailey, 5/1/12

Hey, remember back in the ’90s when Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC made a big deal about sending General Halftrack to sensitivity training, because of his constant, actionable sexual harassment of his secretary? Well, it didn’t take