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Phantom, 3/3/15

How much of our day-to-day life is driven by conscious decision-making based on the sum of our life history, and how much by instinct? That is the question the current Phantom amnesiac storyline asks. The Phantom already has assumed many of his old Phantom-habits — crime fighting, journaling — and now he takes on one of the most important: the urge to reproduce himself! Didn’t realize how much the quest for a suitable mate was part of the Phantom mythos, did you? How many of those volumes in the Skull Cave are just full of drawings of various ladies, surrounded by little hearts and “MRS. THE PHANTOM” and “GOOD BREEDING STOCK” written over and over again?

Hey, remember when Chatu kidnapped the Phantom’s wife but let the Phantom believe she was dead, and then the Phantom got all flirty with sexy anti-pirate high seas vigilante Captain Savarna? This strip finds a lot of contrived ways to set up doomed love stories, is what I’m saying.

Spider-Man, 3/3/15

Ha ha, whoops, looks like Spider-Man’s secret identity has been revealed, revealed by some jerk with a bowl cut who used extremely basic observations of Spider-Man’s day-to-day routine to figure it out, in a way that really anyone who cared probably could’ve years ago. How’s our hero going to get out of this one? Maybe everyone is so distracted by the fact (suddenly very obvious in panel three) that Mysterio’s costume leaves nothing to the imagination that they haven’t been listening to anything he’s said for a while now.

Funky Winkerbean, 3/3/15

A corny play on words? That’s not a well-written comic strip punchline. A corny play on words, followed by another character acknowledging how corny that play on words is, followed by some depressing talk that trails off with an ellipsis? That’s a well-written comic strip punchline!

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Heathcliff, 3/2/15

Today’s Heathcliff brings into focus for me one the most irritating aspects of this feature: that the title cat’s personality veers wildly from terrifying murder machine to weirdly forced whimsy with little rhyme or reason. Ha ha, that cat is wearing a Carmen Miranda hat in the dugout! That certainly is a … potential source of amusement? Heathcliff used to play basesball irritatingly, not just cheer it on, so this is really a step down for him to be honest.

Momma, 3/2/15

Whoa, Tina has been blonde for at least the last decade and probably longer, so now we have to ask ourselves: why is she suddenly now raven-haired? My guess is that, based on the overwhelming soul-crushing awfulness of having Momma as her mother-in-law, she’s decided to go full-on goth. The filthy house is not so much a lifestyle choice as a side effect of the overwhelming depression.

Mary Worth, 3/2/14

Oh, wait, what’s that? This wasn’t valedictory wrapping up after all? We’ve got at least another week of Hanna and Amy pretending to be on good terms while passive-aggressively sniping about each other’s choice of spouse and lifestyle? [nods, steeples fingers] PROCEED

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 3/1/15

Look, I mean, she’s a witch, right? She doesn’t subscribe to your ideas of Western science and medicine, but she she has a broom that can fly. So maybe she squeezed some (presumably sapient and terrified) jellyfish over a cauldron and some liquid came out and she called it “blood,” incorrectly! The woman has powers. I would definitely pay good money for her immortality serum.

Marvin, 3/1/15

no

NO

do NOT let Marvin know that urine can be used as a communications method

for the love of all that’s holy

Family Circus, 3/1/15

In retrospect, letting the Keane Kids watch A Clockwork Orange turned out to be a mistake on a number of levels.