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The Lockhorns, 8/25/13

Only one of the multiple Lockhorns panels crammed into the extra Sunday space is worthy of note today, and that’s this mysterious tale of restaurant carnage. How exactly are Leroy and Loretta managing to enrage so many put-upon Olive Garden managers across whatever suburban hellscape they haunt? I mean, usually their bad behavior is restricted to passive-aggressive sniping at one another, and if you kicked out everyone who did that, the restaurant industry would collapse. Moreover, how does Sizzler fit into this scenario? Perhaps the venerable and ailing chain of steakhouses is striking back at the new generation of casual dining franchises that usurped its place it the hearts of customers the only way it knows how: by offering enticements to people to go into the Olive Garden and make a loud, socially uncomfortable scene. Another plant sits by the door and loudly proclaims “You sure wouldn’t see this sort of boorish behavior at a Sizzler! Sizzler: Thinking fresh every day®!” as they’re kicked out. It’s sad that you actually have to go through the charade fourteen times just to get a single shitty Sizzler steak dinner, but I guess it gives Leroy and Loretta an outlet for their agressions that isn’t each other.

Archie, 8/25/13

Most horrible and depressing Archie ever? Probably! The throwaway panels, which make light of partner violence, are bad enough. Then we’re dragged through the ugly truth of Archie’s monogamy-rejecting ways, which are normally played for laughs, as we have to endure Archie and Betty’s excruciating relationship talk in which she discovers that their perceptions of the commitments they’ve made to each other are radically different. And don’t neglect to put the two narratives together: since Archie was trying to borrow money form Veronica, it stands to reason that the “girlfriend” who owes him money is yet another girl, meaning that he’s two-timing (three-timing?) both of our beloved Archie comics gals. Tune in next week when Archie has to explain to the many young women who may think of themselves as his girlfriend about all the STDs!

Heathcliff, 8/25/13

For sheer horror, though, it’s hard to top today’s Heathcliff! The erotic charge of the throwaway panels is bad enough, but then we discover that the Heathcliff has a closet where he keeps the severed and meticulously preserved heads of his defeated cartoon-cat rivals, and some days he wears these heads like a mask in a grotesque triumphalist display.

Judge Parker, 8/25/13

I have to admit, I assumed that this whole “Neddy’s friend has been kidnapped in Niger” plot was going to end in Abbey writing a check for the ransom money, not sure about the ethics of the act, or even about whether the ransom demands were real or just part of a scam Thalia was pulling. But now I’m really looking forward to Sophie leading a team of ex-special ops mercenaries into Niamey, guns blazing. Sure, she doesn’t have much combat experience or training in small unit tactics, but wars interest her, and if she’s able to go from bullied nerd to superstar cheerleader by sheer force of will, surely nothing is beyond her powers of self-fashioning.

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Dennis the Menace, 8/24/13

Dennis dreams of fleas, monstrously huge fleas, fleas the size of dogs, fleas with a terrible thirst for blood that’s proportionate to their size, fleas that sink their awful probisci into hapless, screaming victims and drain them in an instant, then leap dozens of feet after the panicked citizens, covering the distance faster than any poor human can run. Dennis dreams of putting collars and leashes these beasts and bending them to his will, of gathering a bloodsucking army of nightmare-insects. Dennis is clearly increasing his menace levels in a hurry.

Family Circus, 8/24/13

“When will the lustful sin-urges finally leave their bodies and their minds? When will they finally be able to live together in chastity, like you two do?”

Blondie, 8/24/12

The joke is that Dagwood’s dead, right? He used to be alive, but now he’s dead?

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Your comment of the week: behold it, in all its glory!

“Like Jerry Seinfeld once said, ‘What’s the difference between a dentist and a sadist? Newer magazines.’ Wizard of Id could do a whole week of riffs on that: ‘What’s the difference between a barber-dentist and a headsman?’, ‘What’s the difference between a bloodletter and whoever enjoys cartoons about crudely-drawn people chained to dungeon walls for decades?’, etc.” –Kibo

And your runners up! Very funny!

“That last panel is a lot funnier if you imagine that those two hands belong to Mary, who is frantically trying to signal something to Aggie like a baseball coach sending coded messages to the pitcher. ‘If it’s going to go down like this, remember to hit her at the knees … the knees!’” –pugfuggly

“‘God’s wounds, Daddy! Thy garment is most fashionable!’ Wait, too old.” –Windier E. Megatons

“Rusty, does this posture make my cloaca look big? Be honest.” –Gregory

“At first I thought panel 3 showed Bull pushing a football ticket at Funky, and I felt humor. Then I realized it was money, and I wondered, ‘people pay for Montoni’s pizza?'” –Uncle Lumpy dreams of dinosaurs

“I’m glad we have a grandfather who was able to place his soul into Nixon’s corpse.” –word-doctor

“Pluggers lost the remote watching CBS years ago, and now only watch CBS.” –Frippin in the Krotz

“Heathcliff’s neighbor maybe racist against hippos, but Heathcliff is the one using a hippo as a beast of burden. Fight the power, gentle hippo! You don’t have to submit to cat colonialism!” –Lily Sincere

“The neighborhood was indeed changing. The pace became slower, gentler, more concerned with mud baths than with the daily grind. There was time to chew on some reeds, always time for a leisurely swim or simply sink to the bottom of the river and think about your options. Yes, the neighborhood was changing, and for the better. That is, until the lions showed up.” –The Rt. Venerable Pastordan

“You’ve been reading too many comic books, old buddy! Newspaper comics are the wave of the future! This money train is never rollin’ off the tracks!” –Dan

“Laugh it up kid! You just joked your way out of all the fun prescriptions.” –Chareth Cutestory

“The appearance of Grandma merely emphasizes the unsettling, Lovecraftean nature of Family Circus. The melon heads of the Keane Kids are no mere stylistic conceit. No, they really look like that; inheritors of a degenerate skull structure passed down through the maternal line. Bil Keane’s legacy is an endless plea: ‘My wife, our kids, all her damn family are literal sideshow freaks. Damn my uncaring lust for long, shapely legs.'” –damanoid

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