Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/4/13

Guys, I need to apologize for having not at all covered the current Rex Morgan storyline, which if I had to guess will probably play out as “Sometimes Men Are Also Victims Of Domestic Violence, Like This Guy Rex Went To High School With Whose Wife Tried To Kill Him By ‘Accidentally’ Shooting Him In The Head With A Nail Gun, And Also General Practitioners Are On The Front Line In Spotting Possible Warning Signs Of Abuse.” But of course I couldn’t pass over Rex’s fantastic facial expression in panel three, which is much less “Hmm, wonder how this’ll play out, trying to limit the victim’s social life is a classic abuser move” and more “Ugh, why do they always think we’re friends just because I talk to them in a professional context, I knew I should’ve been a forensic pathologist, you get plenty of peace and quiet down in the morgue.”

Mary Worth, 10/4/13

Ugh, Mary Worth, can we get a little less Mary and Wilbur blah blah blahing about advice column writing and a little more badass meth dealer action? You’ve only got a few days to latch onto all the hardcore meth storyline addicts who have been left without a narrative supplier now that Breaking Bad is off the air, and you’re blowing it.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jeff had better brace himself, because now that Mary’s number one priority has been taken over by Wilbur, he’s been bumped back up to number four. Will he be able to handle the attention?

Family Circus, 10/4/13

The fact that omnipresent government surveillance has become such a natural part of our lives that even children joke about it is almost worse than this terrible, terrible bit of wordplay. Almost.

Post Content

Heathcliff, 10/3/13

Of the 24 blackbirds that had been captured, stunned, and laid atop a disc of pizza dough just before it was shoved into an unbearable hot oven, 23 somehow survived the hellish inferno and emerged with enough strength to fly off when Heathcliff opened the box. They were horribly burned and forever traumatized, to be sure, but at least they had avoided the grisly fate awaiting blackbird number 24. Perhaps it had mercifully succumbed during the baking process; but perhaps it was still conscious, covered in cheese and sauce, too weak to move, but still terribly aware of Heathcliff looking down at it, not even with hunger, just with cool, heavy-lidded detachment. He would be eating that last blackbird, oh yes. In his own time. In his own time.

Spider-Man, 10/3/13

You can’t even imagine how happy I am to see Spider-Man smugly announce he’s going to use one of his bona fide superpowers, and then fail really ostentatiously, while producing a hilarious “NHHHNN” noise. It’s like they wrote this strip just for me! “I loosened it for you” is what you say as a joke when you try and fail to open a pickle jar and then someone else opens it easily, by the way. Anyway, I hope that our poor sad-eyed webbed-up guard was able to derive at least a little bit of satisfaction from this whole scene.

Post Content

Spider-Man, 10/2/13

You can tell that Spidey’s become fully part of Tarantula’s desperate guerrilla army because he’s willing to participate in ethically dubious shenanigans like this. Sure, war is hell, and fake surrenders can help you achieve tactical victories, but at what cost? Once El Condor’s soldiers stop respecting the white flag of truce for their own safety, the bloody insurgency will reach truly gruesome levels of carnage.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/2/13

Lukey looks rightfully horrified as he realizes that the time is quickly approaching for his Reaping, the day when the inhabitants of this desperately poor community decide that he’s not worth keeping alive anymore and ritually tear him to shreds so they can put his remains to whatever use they can. That tongue depressor the doctor’s using? It’s made out of human bone!

Dennis the Menace, 10/2/13

So Dennis heard a new word in school today, but instead of paying the extremely minimal amount of attention necessary to the linguistic context to try to figure out what it meant, he instead came up with an interpretation that would lay the groundwork for an awkward and vaguely sexually charged question for his mother and called it a day. Pretty menacing, all in all!

Marvin, 10/2/13

Never let it be said that Marvin isn’t innovative! It’s not just a strip about urine and feces, you see. Sometimes it’s about vomit! Copious amounts of vomit! Foul-smelling hot dog vomit, washing over people and furniture like an endless flood, like a natural disaster. Ha ha, the vomiting baby’s name was “Hurly,” you see, because of vomit!