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Archie, 2/15/15

I know that there are basically like six character designs in Archie, but Archie’s barber looks an awful lot like an adult version of resident nerd Dilton, doesn’t he? I’d like to imagine that Dilton accidentally slipped backwards from the future due to some kind of time travel experiment, and that he’s trapped in the present without his equipment or true identity, forcing him to take a series of jobs he considers beneath him. “Dilton Doiley” is a local high school student, so this future version of him must only go by the alias “Mr. Barber.” His deep-seated rage over his so-called friends’ failure to recognize him, so obvious on his face here, leads him to lash out the only we he knows how: by giving them terrible haircuts.

Blondie, 2/15/15

Usually a Sunday strip’s throwaway panels are connected somehow to the main action, at least thematically. At first I thought the little vignette of Dagwood and Daisy returning from a walk was completely out of left field, but then I figured out what the theme of the strip was: that Dagwood and Blondie will do anything to avoid talking or listening to each other.

Mark Trail, 2/15/15

I for one am pretty psyched that Mark Trail is jettisoning boring nature facts in favor of “unnerving news.” Is an enormous grizzly bear stalking you from less than 100 yards away, right now? Probably!

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Mary Worth, 2/14/15

Say what you will about Mary Worth — say, for instance, that it has committed the worst kind of epigraphic sins, which is throwing up some blurge you found online and just putting “Author Unknown” at the end of it, because if you’re going to use this quote torn so far out of context that you can’t even tell who wrote it, what even is the point of using a quote at all, and anyway about five minutes of Googling would connect the quote with reasonable certainty to Germaine de Staël’s 1806 novel Corinne … wait, what was I getting at? Oh, right, Mary Worth. It has its problems! But you have to respect the fact that this whole Hanna’s-failing-vision-unexpectedly-finds-her-a-love-connection plot has been carefully timed to present us with a delightful Valentine’s Day treat: a storybook wedding! I’m assuming your storybooks include a bored government functionary mumbling vows off of a piece of paper while failing to make eye contact with you, and a bookcase full of dusty municipal codes that nobody’s looked at in years.

B.C., 2/14/15

Meanwhile, over in B.C., Grog is going to … fuck a tumbleweed, I guess?

Hi and Lois, 2/14/15

Thank goodness Hi and Lois is here to show us what this day is really about: no-strings-attached sex between teenagers. Have a romantic weekend, everybody!

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On this Friday the 13th before Valentine’s Day, please enjoy this comment of the week either in terror or love or both, as is your choice.

“A lot of hay has been made of exploitative practices in the banking industry over the past few years, but it’s about time someone went after their cozy relationship with Big Pen. STICK IT TO THE MAN, LOIS.” –Dan

These runners up are also funny/mushy/terrifying:

“Leroy appears to be chatting about Hell with a paunchy, middle-aged ballet dancer. ‘So, hey, Mister Sharpnose, let’s see you do some of those jumpy parts from Swan Lake!'” –Oregonian

“It’s okay, somehow, that humans have gone extinct in this world, because the animals here have carried on our greatest tradition: passive-aggression.” –Joe Blevins

“The only thing worse than starting the week with a peekaboo shot of Shady Shrew’s navel is the vague discontentment that it was meant as a pun.” –nescio

“A shrew weighs about 10g, so those little balloons could be enough. Why Shady is the same size as the gorilla is left as an exercise for the reader.” –Downpuppy

“Look, guys, you’ve somehow managed to develop opposable thumbs and are using transportation devices powered by basic levers. I’d say you’re all winners here!” –BigTed

Rex Morgan, M.D.: “When Rex says ‘That has to be at least an $80,000 car,’ he’s not being impressed — he’s asking June to confirm that it is, indeed, a car worth a minimum of $80,000, since otherwise he’ll have to ask that it be parked elsewhere so as not to lower the tone of his driveway.” –Shrug

“So Kelly has been driving Sarah around in the corpsemobile. Apropos, considering Sarah’s dead, soulless eyes.” –rbmalpha

“I love it when Margo plays dumb. What’s a show? What is this T.V. of which you speak? Who are you and why are you here, wherever the fuck ‘here’ is?! Wait, that last question’s kind of legit.” –Violet

“Outside it’s a beautiful spring day, but inside the bank despair and darkness reigns. Lois, swaddled in thick clothes to keep away as much of the bone-chilling cold as possible, makes an inane inquiry and gets an equally pointless reply from the person behind the counter. As the CCTV camera watches, they look off in the distance, doing their best to ignore both the sinister shadow cast by the cup crammed full with cheap pens and the terrifying black wall that separates them from the rest of the world. This is the hell to which they have been condemned.” –Ekudamram

“‘Getting older has its perks!’ Sean said out loud. Fortunately Hannah cut him off before he could add, ‘If this is a bad decision we probably won’t know ’til we’re dead.’ He felt a wave of relief that he hadn’t shared exactly what he was thinking. After all the wedding day was her day, and he was upstaging her enough already with his sartorial boldness.” –Spunky the Wonder Squid

“Tomorrow in B.C., the guys visit a bakery, where they get caught pinching the loaves. Then on Friday, one of the ants gets accused of cheating at cards when he drops a deuce.” –grsblvnyk

“At parties? I’m sure Lois is a real pistol in the sack. I imagine her, after going through the motions with Hi, laying there in bed. Beads of fake-orgasm perspiration gather on her forehead, her eyes as wide as those circular black dots can be. She turns to Hi and instead of vowing her undying love to him, she gives him a heavy-lidded expression and asks: ‘Why is our son’s name Ditto?'” –James in North Dakota

“I’m totally relaxed for this wedding! My pacemaker prevents my heart from beating too quickly, the Exelon I’ve been taking for Alzheimer’s is keeping me from light headed ecstasy and my arthritic joint pain is preventing me from getting giddy in any way. I … I feel nothing. Just an empty void expanding before me like the grim specter of my approaching death. And that’s … good now? Whatever, I am numb to fear, too. Getting older has its perks!” –Hogenmogen

“I realize that it can be difficult to draw things consistently from different perspectives, but the Mary Worth Trio (trademark pending) goes from looking downright sinister in the first panel to joyous in the second. Are we sure this isn’t some kind of storytelling trick, and what we’re really seeing is a group of similarly dressed villains descending on City Hall right at the same time as Sean and Hanna’s wedding? At least then, we could use ‘narrative convenience’ as an explanation for why Sean came dressed as the Joker.” –Brad

“Even more terrifying than a long-dead historical figure brought back to life through some dark necromantic spell, Momma is trying to force some Lincoln-presidency based puns. ‘Well, Abe, if I may address you, I’d like to make the proclamation that you need to unionize! Eh? Eh?'” –Jack loves comics

“It doesn’t look like Cherry shot that man with the intention of saving anyone. It looks more like she has no impulse control. ‘A pie!’ *eats the pie* ‘A bow and arrows!’ *shoots the first person she sees* ‘A hideous, malformed orphan!’ *adopts the orphan*” –wonkeythemonkey

“I’ve tried like four times to read this Apartment 3-G strip and every time when I get to ‘HMMM…’ it wipes out the past thirty seconds from my brain and I have to start over. Seriously, I can’t even tell you who’s in it or what they were talking about; there is only ‘HMMM’.” –MRTK

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