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Family Circus, 10/23/14

For all its various crimes against taste, humor, and narrative sense, the Family Circus at least treats its pets fairly realistically. Sam, Barfy, and Kittycat don’t exchange wisecracks with the kids in thought balloon form like, say, the dogs in Marvin; they are instead mostly ignored by the children except for when they’re being tormented, which strikes me as an accurate portrayal. Anyway, that all ends today with this terrifying depiction of Kittycat’s facial expression, which proves that he’s definitely in league with Satan, and is perhaps possessed by the Lord of Lies himself. Presumably when the poor creature rejected baptism in the name of Christ, he created a space within himself where the Devil could get in. Now the demon-controlled cat body still purrs in evil joy, even though his heart stopped beating long ago

Funky Winkerbean, 10/23/14

Funky Winkerbean is taking a break from death-terror and gross romance to give us a lighthearted sequence of Les and Funky on their morning jog. (Funky hates jogging but has to get in better shape so he doesn’t die of a massive heart attack, so it’s not a complete break from death-terror, I guess.) Anyway, Les takes this private moment to gently let his friend know that he hasn’t been meeting the pun quota set for every Funkyverse character. “Oh, crap,” thinks Funky. “Uh … it’s a running panter? Panter? Get it, it’s like banter but I’m panting?” Les smirks his approval.

Curtis, 10/23/14

Who can forget those great slang phrases of yore, like “Answer your telephone: ‘This doesn’t concern you!'” Or “I believe the message boy from Western Union is at your door with a telegram: ‘Your opinion is irrelevant!'” Or “A courier from the King has arrived at your castle, bearing a scroll sealed with the royal signet: ‘I don’t need your advice!'” I mean, this strip isn’t up-to-the-minute like Blondie, so we didn’t get a real cutting-edge phrase like “You might want to check your Twitter DMs: ‘Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong!'” But this is still a good approximation of how the kids talk, A+ job.

Marvin, 10/23/14

Marvin has been farting out aggressive, mindless defiance literally since the day he was born.

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Apartment 3-G, 10/22/14

Oh, look, we’re revisiting the other key aspects of the Margo was and I guess still is a publicist storyline, which are that when Margo cruelly rejected Skyler as a potential client, Skyler was cast as the new Bond girl, in a James Bond movie, opposite Margo’s boyfriend, who was playing James Bond, one of the highest-profile movie roles in existence. Naturally she did such a lousy job as his publicist that her own roommates didn’t realize he’d landed the part, and his mom didn’t want to hang out with him on Christmas. Anyway, he went away to England to film the movie and then they … stopped dating? I guess? I guess Skyler is supposed to be gently ribbing Margo on this point — “I don’t have to tell you that, because you ‘worked with’ him, by which I mean your genitals ‘worked with’ his genitals, in a sex way.” I’m not sure if Margo is being haughtily sarcastic in panel two or has just genuinely forgotten what this plot was about. It was all a long time ago!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/22/14

The tragic illiteracy of so many of Hootin’ Holler’s voters goes a long way towards explaining why the community is so poorly governed.

Pluggers, 10/22/14

Pluggers only make the same four recipes over and over again, because they fear change and anything that seems even vaguely exotic. They’re also going to die soon!

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Heathcliff, 10/21/14

I genuinely love that Heathcliff’s owner-child has been so defeated by his cat’s weird, off-putting text-flag antics that he doesn’t even draw attention to them as he walks resignedly home. “Yep, that’s our house. The one with the cat outside it. The meat house. We’re the meat house today, I guess. Better than being the meh house. Yeah, meat, the house is like, made of meat, or full of meat, or something meat, I dunno. Do you wanna hang out together after school again tomorrow? No? That’s OK, I totally understand.”

Blondie, 10/21/14

I genuinely love how sad Dagwood looks in panel three. He’s never once stopped Elmo from just wandering into his house and doing whatever he wants, so presumably he’s bummed out because now his teenage daughter is going to be married to a prepubescent child and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Dick Tracy, 10/21/14

Having finally wrapped up its Little Orphan Annie crossover fake time travel story, Dick Tracy has clearly concluded that mid-20th century nostalgia is the core of its brand. So, why not just spend the next three to six months re-enacting all of Arsenic and Old Lace? I loved that movie, didn’t you?