Post Content

Hi and Lois, 6/6/12

There’s really something quite poignant about today’s Hi and Lois. I mean, don’t we all to various degrees believe that, if only we achieve a goal that’s within sight, everything in our lives will get better? If only I got that raise, I wouldn’t be in debt all the time (never mind that your spending tends to expand to match your salary). If only I would fall in love with someone, I wouldn’t be so unhappy (never mind that long-term relationships take work and aren’t just a “happily ever after” fairy-tale ending). If only I weren’t an infant, if only my neuromuscular systems were coordinated enough to allow walking, why, I would be like an all-powerful god! Nothing would be denied me! Never mind that once you know how to walk, you’re expected to walk, with your parents refusing to just carry you all over. Plus Australia is thousands of miles away and surrounded by water. Basically, walking’s for suckers, kid, enjoy infancy while it lasts.

Hagar the Horrible, 6/6/12

Here’s a fun fact: Despite the fact that the Huns ruled a huge empire that dominated central Europe for decades, the Hunnic language was never recorded; the illiterate Huns used Romans as secretaries, who corresponded with other states in Latin and Greek. All we have of Hunnic are personal names and three nouns — not enough to even firmly place what language family it belonged to, let alone translate complex concepts like “surrendering.” Another fun fact: the Huns themselves were a relatively elite group within a multi-ethnic state; in battle, the Huns would have ridden on horseback, as that was the skill that allowed them such military success, and any foot soldiers like the ones depicted here would probably have come from subject peoples, like the Goths or Slavs. Yet another fun fact: the Hunnic empire broke up hundreds and hundreds of years before the advent of the Viking age. Today’s Hagar the Horrible is less historically accurate than I would have liked, is what I’m getting at.

Beetle Bailey, 6/6/12

Apparently General Halftrack’s decades of senility and incompetence have just been a front, covering up his now successful plan to seize control of the U.S. in a bloody coup and rule as military dictator.

Post Content

Judge Parker, 6/5/12

That’s quite the sly and sinister expression Sam’s sporting in the final panel there … almost as if he’s thinking “With the contract signed and the money on its way to Alan’s bank account, I can take these saps up to the Old Cherry Creek Lodge at Payton Crossing, where I dispose of the dismembered bodies of all of my victims! Abbey, please make a note of their names on my ceremonial Clipboard of the Doomed.”

Actually, “The Old Cherry Creek Lodge at Payton Crossing” sounds like a ghastly faux-rustic luxury condo building in a meticulously landscaped and completely soulless exurban development, which, if you think about it, is exactly the sort of place where Sam would stash corpse parts if he were a serial killer.

Spider-Man, 6/5/12

Meanwhile, I love the expression of pure joy on the face of … whoever that is with the microphone in panel two. The broad shoulders and brush-cut imply that he’s a sportscaster who’s been assigned to cover theater as some kind of punishment, and over the course of the first act he was horrified to learn that you’re not expected to or even allowed to offer a stream of loud running patter about a play the way you do at football games. But now something interesting is happening! Something you’re allowed to talk, or at least, whisper, about!

Mary Worth, 6/5/12

Wilbur’s editor is maintaining a poker face, but you know that it was really difficult for him to not dissolve into giggles while saying “Did you fall in love with someone new?” I mean, he’s probably been on the verge of hysterics from the minute Wilbur walked in wearing that suit.

Six Chix, 6/5/12

Ho ho! Turns out Larry’s bad at sex!

Post Content

The Lockhorns, 6/4/12

I guess the “surprise” is supposed to be whatever the brownish glop on Leroy’s plate is, but since every Lockhorns meal involves earth-tone glop of some sort, and since Loretta hasn’t served herself anything, maybe something more momentous has happened. After all, despite endless decades of marital combat and mutual loathing, what could be more surprising than one partner in this hell-union finally announcing that he or she was leaving? It’s always seemed that they can’t imagine a life beyond their endless, claustrophobic war, and so if Loretta really is about to grab her bag and walk out forever, it would explain why Leroy is looking even more slumped over and crumple-faced that usual. After all these years, what will he do? Will he have the capacity to do anything other than stare at the brown glop for hours, as it congeals?

Spider-Man, 6/4/12

My experience with Broadway theaters is fairly limited, but they’re mostly older buildings and often surprisingly small and cramped. So, kudos to the owners of this theater for retrofitting it so well for handicap accessibility that Clown-9 can drive his duckhead-car (which isn’t exactly large but is still significantly bigger than, say, a Rascal mobility scooter) off the street, through the doors, and right up the aisle! Meanwhile, anti-kudos go to the artist of this strip, who apparently realized that they forgot to make Peter visible in panel two and decided “Enh, we’ll just put his face in a weird little circle thought-bubbling out of nowhere.”

Mark Trail, 6/4/12

You better watch yourself there, mister, because littering in America’s majestic wilderness and murder aren’t that far apart in Mark’s moral code! Note in panel one that Mark has a firm grip on his belt — it’s the only way he can stop himself from punching this guy a time or three right now.

Herb and Jamaal, 6/4/12

Looks like Herb’s mother-in-law has been spending some time with her favorite book, Incredibly Bland Aphorisms From History’s Insanest Philosophers.