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Apartment 3-G, 1/21/09

As a native Buffalonian, I resent Margo’s implication that “upstate” is a great place to go bury bodies or answering machines with terrifying messages or whatever else she’s planning to dispose of out there. (Yes, Buffalo is technically Western New York, not Upstate New York, but devout Manhattanites use “upstate” as a blanket term for anything north of Columbia University, and if you need any confirmation of Margo’s devotion, just look at how resentful she is at the very thought of letting the sun go down on her in Schenectady or wherever.) Does she think that the whole state outside of her precious Five Boroughs consists of nothing but decaying, abandoned industrial sites, or vast stretches of barren wasteland punctuated by the occasional slowly collapsing barn, where she can just hide evidence of criminal wrongdoing at will? I mean, she’d be right, but that doesn’t mean that we want snooty urbanites with their fancy New York City corpses messing up all the good hiding spots.

Herb and Jamaal, 1/21/09

Usually Herb and Jamaal’s primary mission is to suck all the fun and enjoyment out of the English language by making it as bland and nonspecific as possible, but I really like this new euphemism for masturbation that it’s introduced today. “I spent the evening in, ‘dating my shadow,’ if you know what I mean.”

Marvin, 1/21/09

Good lord, as if rendezvousing in person with someone you first met online wasn’t already fraught enough, can you imagine if you meet some guy you’ve been chatting with and are sort of excited about, and he turns out to be a literal, actual baby? Especially if he were a loathsome, hateful baby, like Marvin?

Spider-Man, 1/21/09

Spider-Man, well aware of his intellectual limitations, is right to ! in the final panel. If the little boy’s statement is correct, it’s a wonder that Batman can even figure out how to chew.

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Apartment 3-G, 1/19/09

That painful feeling in your neck is comic whiplash, the result of a sudden return to Apartment 3-G’s native New York, since obviously five days is all that can spared on Lu Ann’s adventures in flyover country. And we’ve gotten back just in time, as Margo’s low-cut-white-jumper-over-black-turtleneck combo is clearly her most hideous outfit yet, so it deserves plenty of strip time. Since Tommie isn’t trying to sneak into the apartment at six a.m. with mussed hair and smeared lipstick, she clearly didn’t get lucky last night (unless you count a doctor waxing maudlin about his failed marriage to be “getting lucky”), but I am sort of curious as to why she’s still in her bathrobe while Margo is all bunned up and ready to face the day. Perhaps she was up late enough watching syndicated episodes of Diagnosis Murder to push her to sleep in a bit, while Margo got coked up and spent the entire night furiously reading Tim Mills’ diary and planning her fantasy wedding, and hasn’t even gone to bed yet.

In panel two, Margo appears to be not so much drinking out of that mug as just kind of holding it in front of her mouth and nose. She may just be hiding the fact that after listening to a single complete sentence out of Tommie, she’s already so bored that she has to bite her lips just to avoid dozing off right there.

Mary Worth, 1/19/09

Did you ever have someone break up for you by tearfully telling you that it’s not you, it’s them, and that they need time to work on their stuff without you and it’s better this way, isn’t it, only to accidentally run into them on the street a week later totally holding hands and snogging with some other dude/chick? Because that’s pretty much what Frank is going to feel like when he tunes in to the All Skating All The Time Channel today and sees Mary in in Lynn’s corner, meddling her to victory.

Spider-Man, 1/19/09

Oh my goodness! Spidey is about to be unmasked by his most dangerous and powerful super-foe … Bat Boy!

Ha ha, just kidding, obviously. Spidey has actually managed to knock himself unconscious by accident, and will be unmasked by a random child as he lies supine in a fetid alleyway in a puddle of his own failure. It is a hideously ugly child, though, which may count for something.

Cleats, 1/19/09

Here it is: as far as I can remember, this is the first Cleats that ever made me laugh. Naturally it involves a traumatized child flopped onto the ice, possibly with a broken leg. I think there may be something wrong with me.

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Spider-Man, 1/16/09

Most of us actually go out and do things when we’re in college, but once we get older and get married, we mostly just stay at home, watch TV, and bitch about stuff that annoys us. So it perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that newly time-jumped college-age Spider-Man is engaging in a surprising amount of superheroics. Fortunately, the core attribute of the Spider-Man newspaper universe — namely, that everyone there is dumber than a box of hair — remains unchanged. Our hero has been knocked unconscious by a stream of water he unleashed himself, and our “triumphant” villain is driving off in armored car of loot with its rear doors open, allowing said loot to fly out into the street as he makes his getaway.

Dennis the Menace, 1/16/09

Isn’t Dennis’s usual schtick in this context to repeat insulting things his parents have said behind their unsuspecting guest’s back, rather than just letting lose with his own insults? As this is the sort of thing that can laughed off thanks to kids and their darndest-thing-saying ways, I judge it to be less menacing, unless “grapefruit” is some kind of obscure ethnic slur that I’m not familiar with.

Ziggy, 1/16/09

Ha ha, Ziggy asked the star to fulfill some foul, perverted sex fantasy!

Wait, did I say “ha, ha”? I meant “OH GOD I JUST THOUGHT ABOUT ZIGGY’S SEX FANTASIES WHY WHY WHY”

Family Circus, 1/16/09

Aw, isn’t that cute! Jeffy thinks he’s going to college!