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Judge Parker, 8/2/15

Oh, hey, remember like three and a half months ago (honestly, doesn’t it seem like longer? It seems like a lot longer) when Sam and Dalton where mortal enemies? Welp, now they’re best of friends, and Dalton is just handing over some firearms, as show of fealty. I’m gonna gloss over my coastal liberal anxieties about “licenses” and “permits” and that sort of jive and just focus on the fact that Judge Parker, the soap opera strip where literally nothing ever happens and it happens extremely slowly, is going to be the ultimate test of the Chekhov’s Gun principle. Perhaps it will need to be rewritten for this context to something like “If you hand someone a shotgun in the first act, it needs to go off sometime in the next seven to twelve months, or maybe never if you get distracted by something else.”

Funky Winkerbean, 8/2/15

Ha ha, it’s funny because Holly would love her husband more if he were the funny, charming young man he used to be instead of the bitter old grouch he’s become!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/1/15

Oh, boy, as noted by Uncle Lumpy, deranged industrialist/nanny-marrier Milton Avery is back in the strip! When we last saw Milton a few years back in a plot I seem to have not covered in particular depth, his heart was on the verge of exploding because of his tightly wound business asshole lifestyle. After being vaguely threatening towards Rex for no good reason, it turned out that his real worry wasn’t over his heart, but his brain, which he was convinced was failing him. “You don’t have Alzheimer’s Disease until Rex says you do,” Heather declared, and I don’t remember if Rex weighed in one way or the other but today it’s pretty clear that he has Alzheimer’s Disease, or at least some other flavor of dementia. Looks like we’ve already found the excitiment of this new plot: can a senile and extremely wealthy man’s legal team keep him out of jail after he stabs a household employee to death?

Heathcliff, 8/1/15

Ha ha, yes, phones certainly do have a soporific effect that can smooth out conflict but also the passion of a life truly lived in the moment and OH MY GOD WHY IS THERE A PHONE IN FRONT OF THAT WEDGE OF SWISS CHEESE? Is the cheese alive? Has the Heathcliff creative team decided that, since all animals, predator and prey, are fully sapient in the strip, why not extend this to inanimate objects? Is every Heathcliff panel full of individual consciousnesses embedded in everything, fully aware, unable to communicate, and screaming?

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Just a few comments this week, from when I was back in the saddle, but I think we can all agree that this one is pretty great:

“‘Like a dog to its own vomit…’ Daisy knows what’s up, and she is terrified.” –pastordan

And look at these hilarious runners up!

“The endless pleasant banality of suburban life was finally starting to break Trixie. At least Thirsty had his drinking to dull the torment of their existence but as an eternal baby she wasn’t even allowed that. ‘Disturb me! Terrify me! Make me feel something, make me feel anything!’ For her outburst, for trying to FEEL, a quiet timeout was her only reward. Even the punishments here were boring.” –Escape Zeppelin

“Future Les to Past Les: ‘Thirty bucks, kid. This ain’t a library.'” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“‘Keeping the shark on ice’ will be my new euphemism for sexual abstinence.” –Pozzo

“I love this completely senseless bit of non-plot where Lu Ann talks to an imaginary Margo, walks the street still talking, asks herself why Margo isn’t in the gallery when the gallery is closed (then how did Lu Ann get inside?), and decides to imagine a great little evening for her imaginary Margo. ‘I bet Greg takes her someplace nice, like the Charlie Bird in Soho. I bet they’re listening to jazz and eating their famous blue crab toast! Sigh. I wish Baldy McBaldbald would take me there.'” –Hogenmogen

“Can’t … stop … looking at … Ian’s beard! It’s like a giant pussy willow, or a baby weasel that fell asleep on his chin. I’m really weirded out by it, and yet, I want to pet it and take care of it.” –pugfuggly

“Much like an infant, Lu Ann still hasn’t grasped the concept of object permanence.” –TheDiva

“Y’all are barking up the wrong tree with this ‘Tobey/Ian/Director three-way’ stuff. Ian has clearly been sent out to seek a lover for his wife, and hopes he will be allowed to watch. Spoilers: he will not.” –Purple Prosecutor

“I hear she carved that horse from a larger horse.” –Trey James, on Facebook

“Is this the Glen Keane origin story? Thelma and Bil, having too many mouths to feed, abandoned ‘Billy’ in a Disney amusement park, and the Disney corporation raised him as an animator?” –DAS

“The truly ironic thing about the mass-production sculpting that Toby is doing is that we see in panel 1 that Ian really doesn’t even need another pair of bookends. Toby must therefore be selling them, as part of Santa Royale’s thriving tchotchke industry specializing in clay figurines filled with tequila. Order a bunch online now, from Toby’s Pinatas for Drunks! Our Ms. Bryson will be standing by, to steal your credit card number.” –seismic-2

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