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Mary Worth, 3/11/15

The Hanna-Sean-Amy-Gordon storyline (haha, just kidding, Gordon was not actually involved in any meaningful way) is finally over, though we can’t say for sure until someone digs it up and puts a stake through its sinister heart. But until then, let’s enjoy the tale of the first time Mary and Jeff met! This might be an enjoyable story to see in flashback, so naturally we’re watching the two of them exposition it to each other over fish- and vegetable-disks at the Bum Boat. I’m a big fan of Mary’s use of the phrase “former bigwig” here. “Obviously I could tell you were a nobody, Jeff, but how was I supposed to know that you used to be somebody? I didn’t see a tag, and you weren’t dressed the part, and you certainly don’t exude confidence or competence of any sort!”

Heathcliff, 3/11/15

The less said about this cartoon, which seems like one of the saddest attempts at combining the syndicated comics character Heathcliff with vaguely whimsical pop-cultural tropes to date, the better, but it does lead me to one of my current favorite obsessions, namely looking up dumb URLs to see if they’re available to purchase. Up until fairly recently, URLs either ended with a two-letter country code, like .ca or .uk, or a fairly limited set of generic codes, like .com, .org, or .gov. Then a few years back some new, much dumber top-level endings were introduced, like .biz and .info, and lately there’s just been a flood of truly moronic ones, one of which is .ninja. This is meant to appeal to serious scholars of the semi-legendary shinobi of Japan’s turbulent Sengoku period the sort of dips who think changing their job title from “web marketing assistant” to “social media ninja” makes them sound cool, but it’s worth noting that the domain name bait.ninja is available for only $14.99 a year, and while I’m not going to buy it, if somebody else wanted to and have it just redirect to this post, I certainly wouldn’t object. Also, and I’m just putting this out there, when you look to see if a domain name is available you get auto-generated suggestions of similar domains you might be interested in, and this is what I got when I checked on bait.ninja:

Spider-Man, 3/11/15

Apparently most of the incidents in this plot had been set up by Peter and Mary Jane to trick Mysterio? Who they didn’t even really know was involved for a lot of it, I don’t think? Nice try at tricking us into thinking these people are smart or capable of forethought, Newspaper Spider-Man.

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Apartment 3-G, 3/10/15

Oh, snap, remember Sam, Margo’s harried and possibly love-struck assistant, whom she summoned out of the narrative ether nearly eight years after his last appearance to cater to her mother’s every insane whim? Well, turns out he’s treating that more as a personal favor and not as part of his no doubt ill-paying job. Frankly, it makes Margo sick, violently ill, hopefully with emphasis on the violent.

Family Circus, 3/10/15

Billy’s pig-nose is making the front of his big melony head look even more flat and squished than usual! I certainly hope that the weight of his backpack caused him to pitch face-first onto the sidewalk, where he lay for several minutes, struggling to right himself.

Crankshaft, 3/10/15

Ha ha, it’s funny because when a woman wants to spend time with a man instead of leaving him to stew in isolation and aimless, thrashing loathing, it’s a trap!

Herb and Jamaal, 3/10/15

This last panel is really great: it’s perfectly capturing the facial expression for “Wait, is he having a stroke or am I?”

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Slylock Fox, 3/9/15

It’s clear that the sapient animals of Slylock Fox used the ruined detritus of our civilization as the building blocks for theirs — why else would that owl judge be wearing a black robe, or that bird juror a necktie? But clearly the cultural material they drew from had gaps. For instance, despite today’s near omnipresence of the Law and Order franchise, apparently not a single episode survived for the entertainment of the triumphant beasts, because otherwise they’d know that the law enforcement apparatus consists of two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. Instead, they have Slylock fulfilling both these roles, and additionally providing entertainment to courtrooms when cases are so open-and-shut as to be boring. Even Shady Shrew is enjoying the performance. “Heh heh, it’s the sun! They’re never going to guess it! Oh, soon I’ll be back in prison, where my freedom of action is restricted but life has an order and structure I’ve never been able to create for myself on the outside. I guess that’s probably why I stole that lady’s bike off her porch in broad daylight.” Anyway, once Slylock’s done here, he’ll head over to a lawsuit involving a doctor whose husband was killed and son terribly injured in a car crash.

Mark Trail, 3/9/15

Ooh, is this Mark Trail storyline going to be about the importance of a work ethic and self-reliance? “Our young beaver knows that support a family, he’ll need to industriously build a dam, using nothing but his teeth, paws, and gumption. Meanwhile, Littlefoot grows fat on the Trail family’s handouts and refuses to even do basic foraging for himself.”

Momma, 3/9/15

Ha ha, it’s funny because Momma’s emotional world is so twisted that her idea of a happy home is one in which her children have gathered together so she can make them all feel bad about themselves! Also, hashtags are … a thing that exists, I guess?

Family Circus, 3/9/15

NO, LADY, DON’T LET HIM TAKE OFF THIS MITTENS AND TOUCH YOU WITH HIS GROSS CLAMMY GERMY SKIN, IT’S A TRAAAAAAP