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Ziggy, 6/7/11

One of the most shameful moments in the life of any social reject comes when they’re offered the chance to join in on the mockery of someone even lower on the ladder than they are. You might imagine yourself a noble defender of nerd solidarity, but too often, after years of feeling the brunt of teasing and cruelty, the opportunity to step to the other side of the social predator/prey line and feel cool, if only for an instant, is too tempting to resist. If you have shred of humanity, you’re haunted by it later — certainly I am, for the few times I briefly switched teams in my dorky adolescence — but I imagine it’s a pretty universal phenomenon.

I bring this up because Ziggy, who is usually the butt of cruel jibes from his various pets, seems to be enjoying the fact that his vicious parrot is mocking the dog, for once. Ziggy, they’ll never accept you. Try to maintain a little dignity!

Hagar the Horrible, 6/7/11

Hagar the Horrible is one of the most violent strips on the comics page, but I’m pretty sure it’s never depicted an actual corpse before. It’s possible that the poor nameless viking’s awful staring eye isn’t frozen open in death, but merely indicative of the shock he’s entered as a result of his massive and almost certainly fatal wounds, but either way this seems especially grim.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/7/11

This is happiest we’ve seen Funky in years. Naturally, it’s because multiple people that he ostensibly cares about are in painful emotional turmoil.

Marmaduke, 6/7/11

Marmaduke was the hero of the game, presumably because he ate all the children on the other team.

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B.C., 5/14/11

If you’re not a regular B.C. reader, you might at first be a little confused as to why the man talking to the one-legged man is standing in some kind of pit. Fear not — there’s a completely reasonable explanation! As you can tell by the fact that the one-legged man is wearing a baseball cap and is addressed as “coach,” our characters are actually in the middle of a baseball game, and the pit is actually a dugout, which is “dug out” of the ground! Ha ha, get it?

If you’re not a regular B.C. reader, you might now expect to me explain literally every other aspect of this cartoon to you. But I can’t! Because it doesn’t make any sense! With the shock collars and … and “your little game of dodge the raptor” … and … buh?

Ziggy, 5/14/11

In other news, an abstract concept seems to have left a literal turd on Ziggy’s doorstep.

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Ziggy, 4/30/11

This Ziggy really just raises a lot more questions than it answers. What is the nature of this “phony,” exactly? Is it a mere stuffed horse, which stands there unmoving, thus providing a singularly unimpressive “ride,” even at the very low proposed price? Or is that a horse costume, with someone inside of it? Either way, is there some significance to the long, lush lashes on the phony’s eyes, which is generally cartoon shorthand for “sexy lady”? And what are we to make of the smiling, guileless expression on face of the phony’s handler? The level of unseemly horror lurking just below the surface of this Ziggy panel is really off the charts.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/30/11

Funky Winkerbean similarly seems to promise some hidden payoff that doesn’t quite come into focus. Are we meant to contrast the present day, when technology is a deadly serious part of even the smallest business’s operations, with the gentler decades past, when nefarious computers were restricted only to video gaming? Or maybe there isn’t any point here at all. Maybe Montoni just got tired of talking to Funky about this computer business, went downstairs, and blew off some steam by playing video games, wiling away the hours before his inevitable tragic death.

Dennis the Menace, 4/30/11

Chicks dig it when a dude just insouciantly chugs down a frosty drink and then stone cold throws the glass on the floor, because he just doesn’t give a shit. Mrs. Wilson knows the score!