Post Content

Mary Worth, 6/29/11

So, this might not be the most outrageous moment in Mary Worth history — nobody died in a fiery car crash, or was lured into a sex den or thrown bodily out of a rehearsal dinner — but it’s delightfully shocking all the same. Mary has decided to help Liza by finding an outlet for her persistent nature! And by “persistent” we means “psychotic.” Liza will be the kind of salesperson who repeatedly calls you to urge you to buy whatever it is she’s peddling, shows up at your work and home unannounced with already filled out paperwork so you can “just finalize that deal we worked out,” and eventually rifle through your trash to find your signature, the better to forge it and close the sale with your consent. She’ll be a millionaire within a year!

Marmaduke, 6/29/11

Speaking of aggressive salespeople, Marmaduke has done pretty well in establishing this magazine shill as threatening with only some sunglasses and a leer. Not that he’ll be trouble for long, as Marmaduke is going to eat him in a minute.

Marvin, 6/29/11

“Oh, and in unrelated news, we dogs have managed to develop bipedalism and opposable digits. Combine that with our powers of telepathic communication and you humans are totally screwed!”

Spider-Man, 6/29/11

“Oh, that’s right, I had to fire everyone at the paper, because of the Internet. Welp, guess I’ll update the blog and call it a night!”

Post Content

Mark Trail, 6/27/11

When is it time to start paying attention to Mark Trail? When the violence starts, obviously! Young John Thrasher suddenly shows the benefits of his military training and steely nerves by announcing his refusal to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, rapidly covering several feet, and then kicking the sheriff in the solar plexus, all while he has a rifle pointed right at him. He shows the benefits of his good breeding and essentially gentle nature by apologizing for this act of derring-do while he’s still in the process of perpetrating it.

There’s been a slight but noticeable uptick lately of Trailian good guys physically assaulting law enforcement officers. To be sure, it’s all to forward the cause of good in the long run, but can this “ends justify the means” philosophy really co-exist with this feature’s traditional straight-arrow morals? Eventually, the strip’s whole universe might devolve into chaos; fortunately, the strip moves slowly enough that by “eventually” I mean “millions of years hence, long after the Earth’s sun becomes a red giant star, wiping out all human life.”

Gil Thorp, 6/27/11

When is it time to start paying attention to Gil Thorp? It certainly isn’t when Gil has some long, rambling confrontation with a school board member at an open meeting, so let’s continue not paying attention to it.

Momma, 6/27/11

The idea of a man’s mother casually asking him about his infidelities is both grotesque and par for the course in Momma, where Mother Hobbes will go to any length to break up the seemingly happy marriage of her eldest son. Still, we can sympathize with her exasperated expression in the final panel, as Thomas is apparently so lame that he can’t think of any way to stray that doesn’t involve the Internet.

Dennis the Menace, 6/27/11

And so began Alice Mitchell’s tragic addiction to prescription stimulants.

Spider-Man, 6/27/11

Ha ha, jokes on you, mysterious “Big Boss”! You can’t humiliate someone who is incapable of experiencing shame!

Ziggy, 6/27/11

Hey, everybody, are you going to enter the Ziggy 40th anniversary contest? Here’s my caption: OH MY GOD ZIGGY IS EATING A CAKE SHAPED LIKE HIS OWN FACE OH MY GOD

Post Content

Spider-Man, 6/18/11

Ah, yes, a character who is despised and rejected despite his super-powers shakes his fist and declares with a twisted visage that someday his tormentors will show some respect! It’s pretty much the origin story of every comic-book supervillain ever created. Are the Spider-Man newspaper comic strip people even vaguely aware of the conventions of their own genre?

Apartment 3-G, 6/18/11

Tommie’s touching reunion with her estranged (?) mother has taken place entirely off-panel, between yesterday and today’s strips. Normally I’d complain about this, but really, it’s a blessing. The only thing that could possibly be duller than a strip about Tommie is strip about Tommie and her boring mother.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/18/11

A sexy, sassy, midriff-baring goth teenager … her sexy, pissy, shoulder-baring mom … the two of them appear to be roughly the same age … looks like Rex Morgan, M.D., is on a collision course for sexy wackiness!