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Can’t you just put it on a cart? Are carts forbidden, for some reason?

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Mary Worth, 2/5/13

I’m sorry, I guess we’re supposed to be on the edge of our seats wondering if Mary and John are going to drop their cake “during transfer” (ugh, now I’ve been forced to learn some cake competition lingo, against my will), like the poor, tragic souls in panel one, but all I can see is the majestic waterfall streaming forth from the figure atop the cake, which, let me remind you, is an uncanny replica of Mary herself. Since we can’t get a good look at the details, it’s unclear whether the Mary-figure is standing atop a spring out of which pink water is pouring out, or melting, or vomiting, or urinating, or what, but whatever the case it should guarantee John a Nobel Prize for Cake by the time this competition is done.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/5/13

Whoops, my fault, it’s not so much “secret illegitimate daughter” as it is “daughter from a previous marriage that ended in such an ugly fashion that she was completely cut out of her father’s life to the extent that his child with his next wife never met or even knew about her.” Funky Winkerbean: ALWAYS more depressing than you initially give it credit for.

Spider-Man, 2/5/13

How boring is the spider-themed super-heroics game these days? So boring that MJ literally falls asleep in the middle of a description of it.

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The naked panels

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Pluggers and Dennis the Menace, 2/4/13

Yup, it’s true: somethings “just happen,” no matter how much you’d like them not to! Take nudity, for instance. Some people are just “born that way,” and by “some people” we mean “literally everybody, every single person ever is born completely naked, with their genitals just out there for anyone to look at.” So filthy! So disgusting! So hard to understand. Eventually, we get old enough to understand the concept of shame — “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” — and we look back at our early, exposed days in horror, but we can’t blot them out with a crayon, no matter how hard we try. The Fall of Man, Dennis: that’s the most menacing thing there is.

Apartment 3-G, 2/4/13

I had a good laugh over the idea of a generic “Manhattan General Hospital,” but it turns out it’s a real thing! Or was. Was a real thing. It merged with Beth Israel Medical Center, in 1964. So I’m assuming that these nurses in their archaic caps are looking for Tommie to warn her that she’s fallen victim to some kind of space-time wormhole and she needs to be very careful not to alter the course of history based on her future knowledge, lest she cause universe-destroying paradoxes.

Mark Trail, 2/4/13

Look, Rusty, you’ve finally gotten to go on a fishing trip with Mark! Too bad it’s a “working trip,” which means you’ve got to scramble around taking pictures for Mark’s article, in violation of all child labor laws! Also, you’re probably going to be kidnapped by “Catfish”, FYI.

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Could’ve made this books and gone for the sophisticated laugh, FYI

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Herb and Jamaal, 2/3/13

Boy, this Herb and Jamaal sure was an emotional roller coaster! See, we’re expected to believe that Jamaal is a desperate drug addict who keeps going back to his filthy hippie drug dealer to buy dope. But, haha, don’t worry, it appears that he just enjoys video entertainment and would prefer to go to one of America’s few remaining video stores rather than figuring out how to set up one of these new-fangled internet streaming services! Anyway, since the strip spent seven panels setting up this commercial transaction as surreptitious and shameful, obviously the first thing the reader thinks of in terms of “video titles” is pornography, which makes a reference to the “kiddie section” all the more traumatizing.

Momma, 2/3/13

The thing about the Funkyverse’s endless cavalcade of sadness porn is that the strip is at least self-aware about how grim it is. Momma, by contrast, completely fails to notice the air of desperation that surrounds its characters at all times. Which is to say that the use of “betrays” here creeps me out. Momma is betrayed by her children routinely, of course … but now her own failing body joins the party.

Marvin, 2/3/13

Marvin does this thing where it teases you with the prospect of the title character wandering off in the snow and freezing to death, but, sadly, never really follows through with it.