Post Content

Mary Worth, 2/17/14

YESSS YOU GUYS TOMMY’S BACK TOMMY’S BACK TOMMY’S BACK THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING

Tommy’s being all contrite now, but time will tell whether or not this is all just an charade to distract from his future meth-dealing activities. Frankly his hand gestures, culminating in the shirt-grip in panel two, seem a little showy to me. I do like the way even his hair (his sweet, sweet hair, always the source of his power) gets in on the act, his perky flip drooping submissively to show how very sorry he is for everything.

Anyway, Tommy’s back and this is going to be great so be sure to refresh joshreads dot com constantly for Tommy updates.

Apartment 3-G, 2/17/14

The other soap strips, realizing the world’s attention is focused firmly on Mary Worth, are just sort of going through the motions, though I have to admit that I’m actively charmed by what a nothingburger today’s Apartment 3-G is, plot-wise. “We went shopping and got some, uh, stuff! Look, these random multi-colored boxes! ‘They’ were giving things away! Isn’t that nice! Let’s have a good laugh! Ha ha ha!” Meanwhile, everyone ignores the piteous mewling of the baby deer, who hates the indoors but is woefully unprepared for life in the woods where Tommie’s going to dump her next week when she finally gets tired of cleaning up the deer poop.

Slylock Fox, 2/17/14

You know, the thing I always like about Reeky is that he could not possibly care less about you or what you think about him, when it comes to how he dresses or who he steals electricity from or whatever incredibly half-assed excuse he’s come up with about stealing his neighbors’ furniture and burning it for heat. That’s why this elaborately staged alibi is so disappointingly earnest, from my point of view, and it sickens me to think of Reeky stealing a bunch of newspapers from the coin-operated box, laying them out just so in front of his trailer, and setting the empty suitcase by the door with a grin, ready to pick it up and wave it about meaningfully at a moment’s notice. It all implies that he respects other people’s opinions, and also frankly reveals the limits of his abilities to plan anything more elaborate than busting open a mailbox with a baseball bat. We don’t even need to see the headlines to know this is a put-on, because we know that the only people Reeky finds more contemptible than the ones who travel to wussy non-America countries to go to museums or whatever are the ones who think they’re so smart about current events that they need to get newspapers delivered just to show everyone what big brains they have.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/17/14

Haha, wow, well, this is one way to deflect an unwanted cheeseball sexual advance! “My, you certainly are attractive!” “Yes, but my soul is fundamentally broken and repellant.” Naturally, since this is the Funkyverse, our lothario’s lust has only been inflamed by this response.

Family Circus, 2/17/14

“Oh, right, it was about the ‘home!’ Grandma already has a home, mommy, why are are we makin’ her move into another one?”

Post Content

Beetle Bailey, 2/16/14

Today’s Beetle Bailey is certainly one of the more crushingly realistic commentaries on the nature of work I’ve seen in the comics lately. Sarge, standing in for the cheerleaders of the capitalist order who don’t do much manual labor themselves, urges his underlings to think of work as a intrinsically morally uplifting act. Yet in the final panel we can see that the ordinary soldiers aren’t buying this at all. Killer, most optimistic of the bunch, at least imagines that his window-washing duties might lead to a window-washing career that involves a certain degree of specialized skill and, one would hope, cachet; still, it’s not like he can get excited about it. Plato, ever the philosopher, knows that performing an identical act in a different location isn’t really any kind of change at all. Beetle can only visualize his future life as a reeking expanse of garbage, extending endlessly to every horizon. And Zero has the most harrowing vision: he knows that nobody in the private sector will pay him even minimum wage for the menial tasks that he’s only half-mastered, and that he will certainly starve if he can’t elicit sympathy from cruel-faced strangers.

Panel from the Better Half, 2/16/14

“I suppose lips count as raw meat…”

ha ha but it can’t have really said that

“I suppose lips count as raw meat…”

no check again they wouldn’t dare put that in the newspaper

“I suppose lips count as raw meat…”

but but is he talking about my lips everyone has lips oh my god

“I suppose lips count as raw meat…”

[ENDLESS ENDLESS SCREAMING]

Post Content

Crankshaft, 2/15/14

This week’s Crankshaft “plot” has been far too inane to discuss, involving a reality show called Ice Road School Bus Drivers — it’s like Ice Road Truckers, but for school bus drivers! — filming our characters in action. The producers are no doubt disappointed that Crankshaft didn’t engage in any of the property destruction or reckless endangerment of children for which he’s so famous, but nevertheless, the new reality show stars are getting their reward today: cheap giveaway hats emblazoned with the show’s logo. The drivers’ overjoyed reaction to this is probably the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. “Life doesn’t get any better than this!” proclaims Crankshaft, a man who helped defeat the Nazis in World War II, who has children and grandchildren, who played professional baseball, who overcame his own struggles and learned to read as an adult, who helped pay for a group of underprivileged kids from his bus route go to college. “Life doesn’t get any better than this.” He pulls the ill-fitting cap tightly down onto his head.

Mark Trail, 2/15/14

“I sure hope Trail is what he says he is … for his own good! If he’s a person, like he says he is, then that’s OK! But if he’s an animal, then I’m going to have to taxidermy him. I can’t stop taxidermying animals! But wait … what if a person is a kind of animal? Oh no. Oh NO. My taxidermying fingers are gettin’ itchy!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/15/14

Well, it looks like Sarah was right to be suspicious of her editor, because her editor intends to put her in a cage and let other little kids come and gawk at her while she churns out books. This is quite frankly the best business decision anyone at the museum has made at any point during this storyline.

Mary Worth, 2/15/14

“But let’s not talk about such heavy topics now, Wilbur. Look, I’ve figured out that I can hold a full coffee cup using just my mouth! Pretty neat, huh?”

Pluggers, 2/15/14

All across America’s strife-torn inner cities, members of the Bloods and Crips put down their newspapers with stunned expressions on their faces. “Why are we fighting all the time?” they ask. “No matter what crew we roll with, we’re all pluggers. We are all pluggers.” Consider the peace increased.