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Crock, 6/16/14

Somehow, it ain’t like the old days, right everybody? It used to be that when someone said “boombox,” you had a pretty good idea what they meant: a luggable radio with a built-in tape deck, built as large as it could get while still being portable, so the huge speakers could put out really loud bass. But boomboxes have been out of favor for 20 years, so who even knows what that word means anymore, or what any word means, for that matter. Kids today and their slang and their polysemy make language a baffling morass. Is a boombox a metallic glove now? Sure, why not!

Lockhorns, 6/16/14

This joke, obviously, is some kind or riff on Loretta’s eggs (or maybe biscuits? what pairs with brownish goo that you need to eat with a knife and fork?) being so poorly prepared that they have the consistency of vulcanized rubber; nevertheless, my immediate assumption was that Leroy was referring to Vulcans from Star Trek, which makes sense because obviously the emotional hellscape of his failed marriage is something he desperately wants to escape by whatever means necessary. Perhaps he’s trying to put himself through the Kolinahr, the Vulcan monastic discipline under which the last vestiges of emotion are purged away. “How long does it take to complete the Vulcanization process?” he wonders aloud. “When will I become a creature of pure logic? When will these awful, awful feelings stop?”

Mark Trail, 6/16/14

MARK IS IN AFRICA, everybody, and by “Africa” we mean some nonspecific country in Africa where there is fine dining but also ladies who carry things on their heads. Mark is supposed to be meeting Jacob Hickman to save the rhinos, but Jacob Hickman has been kidnapped so Mark is just going to sulk at his hotel restaurant instead. “Now I’m stuck here! I’m bored! There’s nobody to punch!”

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Family Circus, 6/15/14

Most of us know our parents pretty well, so I guess I’ll believe Billy when he claims that his dad’s “favorite kind of stuff” consists of just horrible pun after horrible pun. That said, though, I’m pretty disappointed by the quality of this pun-map. It’s like Billy started out intending to do one entirely made up of celebrity name puns (and kudos for spanning decades of American celebrity culture, from Orson Welles to Andrew Garfield) but then ran out of ideas and just started throwing in bullshit like “Rock of Ages” and “Sit-Up-Straight” and (ugh) “Great S-Cape.” What I’m trying to say, Billy, is that it’s a bad Father’s Day present if you can’t even keep up the central conceit of your homemade gift for like 15 minutes, and you should be ashamed of it.

Blondie, 6/15/14

But I’ll give Billy this: at least he didn’t jam a ruler into is sleeping father’s gaping maw, in order to figure out how to build a meat-bomb that will occupy every available cubic inch of his gullet.

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Herb and Jamaal, 6/14/14

I’m honestly curious about what the backstory is on today’s Herb and Jamaal, in which Herb has charged into Rev. Croom’s office to angrily challenge his entire belief system. Is this happening after yet another Sunday service that Herb’s family dragged him to, and something in the sermon finally pushed him over the edge until he couldn’t stay quiet anymore? Or was he just sitting at work, stewing over Croom’s unshakeable faith in the unprovable, until eventually he just barged into the Reverend’s office hours (do clergy have office hours? seems like a thing they’d have) demanding that he make room in his mental universe for doubt? At any rate, the final panel proves that Herb is helpless before the power of wordplay.

Apartment 3-G, 6/14/14

Jack’s been going on forever about dealing with some ghosts, and I guess I always assumed he was being metaphorical, but now I’m not so sure? If he comes riding back with the ghost of his dead wife captured in some kind of Ghostbusters-style spectral containment unit, I’ll be willing to forgive a lot about this storyline.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/14/14

Oh, sorry, the God of the Funkyverse isn’t actually trying to stop Wally and Rachel’s wedding, just drive it into Montoni’s, where by immutable law all economic and social activity in Westview must take place. They don’t call Montoni’s “The Wedding Chapel of Love” for nothing! Actually, nobody calls it that, but Funky refuses to stop trying to make it a thing.