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Archie, 2/13/14

Good lord, Pop’s facial expression in that last panel chills me to my very core. “That’s right, Archie, Mr. Lodge doesn’t like you,” he thinks. “None of the adults in this town like you. Your time as a teenager, during which social convention demands that we be halfway pleasant and encouraging to you, is almost over. Prepare yourself for adulthood. Prepare yourself for … the shunning.”

Judge Parker, 2/13/14

So we’ve finally met April’s mysterious dying-of-cancer dad and he’s … one of the greatest things Judge Parker has ever seen? I’m not sure if he’s based directly on Hunter S. Thompson or if he’s been filtered through Doonesbury’s Uncle Duke, but he’s fantastic and I want him in every panel from now until the heat death of the universe finally brings this storyline to a close. My only regret is that April has actually drawn attention his tarantula companion; I sort of wish that it had just sat there on his shoulder, unexplained, for the next few weeks’ worth of strips, with everyone he meets reacting to it with silent but visible disgust.

Mary Worth, 2/13/14

Yep, Tommy’s coming back to Charterstone, all right! By the expression on her face you can tell Mary is almost as excited as I am.

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Mary Worth, 2/12/14

It looks like Mary’s encounter with a sad divorced woman and her child was only a warm-up meddle; she merely anonymously paid their dinner bill and moved on. No, Wilbur is about to put her back in the professional syndicated meddler game by once again begging her to take over his Ask Wendy column/persona. You might recall that, after Wilbur had a near-death experience, he started a column about how shlubs like him survive true horrors despite all logic, and so handed his advice column off to Mary, who naturally was driven mad by the power and influence it afforded her. Less than a year later, though, Wilbur had the nerve to eat Mary’s sandwiches but then ask for the column back, to distract him from the fact that his girlfriend had dumped him to spend more time with her meth-addict ex-con son. Mary acquiesced, but now Wilbur is trying to get her to take the column over again, like she doesn’t have anything better to do, which obviously she doesn’t, but still, it’s the principle of the thing. There have been hints this week that maybe Iris is back in Wilbur’s life, along with her amazing drug-dealer son, but we’ve been teased with the prospect before, so I’m not going to hold my breath.

Hagar the Horrible, 2/12/14

By the 10th century, the Vikings had expanded their trade and plundering routes across a remarkably wide stretch of the globe, with Norse voyagers reaching Greenland in the northwest and Constantinople in the southeast. But it’s true, they traveled almost always over water, whether the open ocean in the case of the North Atlantic or the Russian river systems to reach the Black Sea. So, yes, Honi, the Mongols, landlocked deep in the Gobi, are probably not going to encounter any of your kinsmen, and thus are not included among your potential romantic partners. But what about the Finns? The Franks? The Inuit? The Celts? The Rus’? The Byzantines? The Bulgars? The Northumbrians? The Saxons? Why do we always want what we cannot have?

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Wizard of Id, 2/11/14

Valentine’s Day is coming up, everybody! The Wizard of Id has long ago made its position on this beloved, long-standing holiday clear: that it leads directly to grotesque and perverse sexual practices. This year’s cautionary tale includes normal human love, the use of a broomstick as a potentially dangerous sexual aid, tree-fucking, and of course your garden-variety bestiality. The most harrowing aspect is that this full-panel horrorshow is being published three days before February 14th, which means that the rest of the week will be dedicated to increasingly grim sex-nightmares and will conclude with the strip’s entire readership taking vows of chastity and/or suicide.

B.C., 2/11/14

Ha ha, yes, it’s funny because “1982” is a year in the distant past when we all used pay phones and made collect calls? Except it’s in the distant future for the cavemen of B.C.? Or the even more distant past, according to the persistent theory that B.C. takes place in our post-apocalyptic future? Anyway, good joke, B.C., it’s not going to make most readers confused and irritated at having to think about your timeline situation at all. Also, probably the phone should’ve rung at some point.

Spider-Man, 2/11/14

J. Jonah Jameson has gone mad with power and is determined to destroy our hero! Looks like it’s time for Spidey to use his greatest power: running away! THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN!!!!!