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Family Circus, 2/16/15

On Presidents Day, Billy pays lip service to the fact that we live in a democratic republic with an elected chief executive, but his thumbs-down gesture reveals his true desires: to be an autocratic Roman Emperor, with the power to dish out life and death in the gladiatorial arena and indeed anywhere else on his whim.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/16/15

I’m not entirely sure what the joke here is supposed to be, so I’m going to assume it’s that Bull hasn’t had this day set aside in advance at all, and the jerk-off motion he’s making in panel three signals his contempt both for Enormous Midwest University and the concept of making lesson plans in advance.

Shoe, 2/16/15

Not sure what’s grimmer here: the fact that a discussion of torture’s legality is falling under the heading of “current events,” or the horror that Sklyer just inadvertently revealed about his home life.

Gil Thorp, 2/16/15

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: MAX BACON™ WILL BE TAKING WHAT HE THINKS IS ADDERALL BUT IT WILL JUST TURN OUT TO BE SUGAR PILLS

BUT HE’LL PLAY BETTER DUE TO THE PLACEBO EFFECT

IT’LL BE JUST LIKE DUMBO’S MAGIC FEATHER

EXCEPT MAX WON’T FLY, OBVIOUSLY

ALSO ADULTS WILL FIND OUT AND NOBODY WILL BE MAD, FOR SOME REASON

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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!