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Mary Worth, 9/27/12

Haha, Dawn isn’t even making a pretense anymore that her hospital volunteering stint is about leading a more fulfilling or spiritually rewarding life or whatever. You’d think she’d give Mary some kind of boilerplate lead-in about how “helping others is the highest reward blah blah blah” before launching into “LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT JIM THE SEXY AMPUTEE.”

Her new obsessions and her tendency to become monomaniacal about boys may explain the shocking scene here, in which Dawn is grabbing a steaming, fresh-from-the-oven pie plate with her bare hands, with a flimsy paper towel not even covering the entire hot surface. “At last,” she cries, as the odor of bubbling, searing hand-flesh fills Mary’s kitchen, “I won’t remind Jim of what he lost every time I reach to pick up a fork or salt shaker! We’ll be able to meet as equals!” (As you can see in panel two, Mary’s own hands are protected by long gloves made out of human skin.)

Archie, 9/27/12

So … the joke is that, while a teenager might accidentally use a homophone in casual writing, an adult would not? Because, as an occasionally professional editor-type person, let me assure you that there is a flaw in the assumptions here.

Ziggy, 9/27/12

Ziggy’s cat and Ziggy’s fish are sad, because they’re in love and their dreams of someday having a litter-school of cat-fish hybrid horror-children of their own has just been crushed.

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Gil Thorp, 9/17/12

“Let’s put it this way … we only have one bonfire, and it burns forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Constant human sacrifice is necessary to keep the sacred flames alive, but we consider this a small price to pay for its numinous protection. Surely your own Druid ancestors would approve! Oh, yeah, and, like, we get all jazzed up about football too, I guess. But mostly we’re into the searing fire of divine grace.”

Slylock Fox, 9/17/12

Oh, Slylock! Your fancy science knowledge might explain why those balloons popped, but elementary physics will never help you understand why this innocent birthday party for children so quickly turned into a scene of vicious adult accusations and recriminations.

Marmaduke, 9/17/12

Marmaduke has finally succeeded in digging a hole back to the hell-dimension from which he was long ago exiled, and now he plans to climb down a ladder he stole from a fireman he ate and reclaim his awful kingdom.

Ziggy, 9/17/12

The mice who live in Ziggy’s walls are really into whip-its, but tonight things have gotten out of hand.

Wizard of Id, 9/17/12

Sir Rodney’s date caught a venereal disease from a frog.

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Family Circus, 8/16/12

There’s something I find incredibly creepy about the two twin droplets of fluid in this panel — one of them dribbling from Barfy’s tongue, the other running down the side of Jeffy’s face. The similarity between the two seems to hold some hidden meaning, beyond just “This is what a drop of liquid looks like in a cartoon.” Perhaps the key is the unsettlingly knowing look that Barfy is giving Jeffy. The dog seems to be staring straight into the child’s eyes, and assuring him that the two of them are very much alike, that everything that Jeffy has feared and hoped his whole life is true: they may look different and one sweats while the other pants and they walk on different sets of limbs, but the two of them are a genuine pack. “Jeffy, I am your true brother,” Barfy says, in Jeffy’s mind. “These humans, they will never understand you, never love you, like I can. Come, let us run away together, off into the distance. Let’s go poop on somebody’s else’s lawn. You will know true freedom.”

Dick Tracy, 8/16/12

I know I don’t cover Dick Tracy like I used to, but that’s because the new creative team has jettisoned the combination of head-scratching insanity and brutal violence that always drew me to it. Still, I do feel a need to point that they still know how to keep it real! Like, “nurse Dick back to health and then slowly drain his blood” real.

Ziggy, 8/16/12

Haha, someone at Ziggy central sure has some kind of beef with the global financial system! Call me a tool of capitalism if you will, but can’t we all agree that Ziggy is clearly incompetent to run any aspects of his life and maybe his bank should be running his finances for him?

Hi and Lois, 8/16/12

Never has so much entirely justified contempt for two whiny, hapless children been written so eloquently on a noseless, expressionless face.