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Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/5/12

Kudos to Rex Morgan, M.D., for having the main player in its breast cancer plot be not some chipper, beatific saint, but someone who is actually cranky and exhausted the way someone going through chemo actually would be. Today’s strip makes me hope that we’ll be getting a medical marijuana subplot in our California locale; after all, one of the reasons pot is prescribed to cancer patients is to boost their appetite (the munchies used for good, not evil!). Which side of this issue will Rex come down on? He’s actually a notorious medical-issues pinko, what with his support of single-payer health insurance and all, but on the other hand he loves feeling smug and superior to people he thinks he’s better than, which includes all nonconformists and hippies and potheads, so this should make for a hilarious internal struggle.

Mark Trail, 12/5/12

Uh oh, looks like Otto tried to kill Mark but then accidentally killed himself! No, just kidding, Mark will rescue him, of course. The real drama here: Will he immediately be converted to goodness thanks to Mark’s selfless rescue, or will he continue to plot? Will Mark eventually have to punch him, more in sorrow than in anger?

Gil Thorp, 12/5/12

In the last panel, with the bolding and the question mark, the narration box seems to have passed from disinterested observer to outraged Mudlark partisan. Or maybe it’s literally baffled by the ill-drawn tangle of limbs in panel two? “Pass interference? Wait, is Gallagher wrapping his arm around #81, or just kind of whacking at him? What’s going on?”

Dick Tracy, 12/5/12

Dick Tracy is doing some kind of “costumed vigilantes/superheroes” plot, though today it turns out that the whole thing may be a misunderstanding caused by this nice young couple’s eccentric and public sexual roleplay.

Spider-Man, 12/5/12

Over course of this plot, newspaper Spider-Man trufans have been saying, “OK, fine, we’ve had lots and lots of Peter Parker being publicly humiliated by his boss and by his rival, and he’s been literally forced to ‘pretend’ to work as a janitor in order to spy on Kraven. He’s done virtually no Web-slinging and absolutely no successful crime-fighting to speak of. But when do we get to the part of the story where he just yells at the television?” Well, today’s your lucky day, my friends.

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Mary Worth, 12/4/12

Good news, everybody! One-armed Jim didn’t just happen to wander down to the pier because he cured himself of his deep-rooted psychological problems with sheer willpower. No, he overcame his deep terror of the sea and all it represents (i.e., boat-caused amputation and/or death) especially to see Dawn, and rather than using one of the many communication methods she made available to him, he decided to just lurk down by the water until she showed up, so he could startle and unsettle her. Add this to the “I want to protect/sex you because you look like my dead sister” and “I only like you as a friend, that’s why I’m calling you and texting you and emailing you a zillion times a day” and we know that this relationship can only be healthy from here on in!

Crock, 12/4/12

Well, here you have it: what I’m pretty sure is the first Crock I’ve ever laughed at unironically. Naturally it somehow arrives more than six months after the strip stopped being published, which I don’t understand any more than you do.

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Apartment 3-G, 12/3/12

I feel like this is a perfect opportunity to emphasize one of the most unbelievable A3G plot developments in years: namely, that Greg, a vaguely handsome American actor who not only hired Margo Magee as his publicist but also bought a co-op apartment in her so-so building — is the new James Bond. Today’s strip will disabuse everyone of any notions they might have about top-tier actors living a “glamorous lifestyle” or whatever. Nope, here’s Greg late at night, rambling around his apartment, still wearing his electric blue suit jacket, his yellow tie still knotted tight. On his nightstand: a pile of books, a framed picture of his publicist, and an empty jar of protein supplements. He wanders into the next room, wondering, not for the first time, who talked him into the mauve curtains, and what exactly this piece of furniture was that came up all the way to his armpits. Ah, well, it’s a good place to keep heaping glasses of scotch, just waiting for a moment of melancholy.

Family Circus, 12/3/12

I really wish that the joke in this Family Circus panel had made a bit more sense, because then I wouldn’t have stared at it as long as I have. And if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have noticed some unsettling things. Like how Mommy Keane’s hands, shoulders, and bosom seem freakishly large compared to her tiny, reed-like neck and (surprisingly, considering the anatomy of her offspring) smallish head. Or the window, which looks not out onto some soothing winter scene but just into empty, featureless blackness, with a green Christmas wreath/portal floating in the void, beckoning the unwary to pass through into yuletide nothingness. “How ’bout you tell me what you want for Christmas,” says Jeffy, “and then I’ll tell you what I want. And then you tell me what you want.” [Mommy’s head gets smaller] “And then I’ll tell you what I want.” [The wreath begins to spin, emitting a thrum just below the lowest register of human hearing that you can feel in your guts] “Tell me what you want.” [Mommy’s hands are the size of dinner plates now, and her head is no bigger than a golf ball, her tiny mouth moving and squeaking incomprehensibly] “Me want you want.” [madness madness madness CHRISTMAS IS COMING CHRISTMAS IS COMING]