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B.C., 4/13/12

Hey, let’s talk about jokes, shall we? Let’s say you want to write a joke about about a rabbit who likes hip-hop music. I know, pretty funny, right? Because rabbits hop about? I mean, you know, the Preakness, a legitimate million-dollar horse race with a storied history, couldn’t resist making a rapping pirate Easter Bunny one of their mascots, so really, how could we expect B.C. to resist?

BUT HERE’S THE THING ABOUT JOKES, which is that you need some kind of set up, right? Like, here your set up is “all the animals are telling their favorite kind of music, and we want to the interrogator to be irritated by the cute puns by the time he gets to the hip-hop liking rabbit.” Except! The snake likes grunge music and the turtle likes easy listening, which, unless I am woefully out of the loop about animal stereotypes, have nothing to do with their species. They’re just … arbitrary musical genres. Here’s what the bird-thing should say in the final panel: “Oh, please, say hip-hop! I want the world to make some sort of sense, if only for a moment!”

Baldo, 4/13/12

Aw, Baldo is having a hard time working up the nerve to talk to a girl he likes, so his friend Cruz has brought him a Halloween prop to practice with! I don’t really talk about Baldo very much here, but I do read it every day, and when important things happen, like the title character being encouraged to hump a sex doll dressed as a witch, I feel obliged to bring them to your attention.

Spider-Man, 4/13/12

Well, Spidey, it looks like MJ just woke up without any help from you! “She’s just … someone I rescued — that’s all,” he says. “Yeah, rescued, that’s it.”

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Dennis the Menace, 4/12/12

Yes, ha ha, Dennis tried to annoy Mr. Wilson while Mr. Wilson was going to the bathroom and Mrs. Wilson actually prevented this from happening for once. But wouldn’t it be a million times more awesome if Mr. Wilson had actually snapped and decided he was one of history’s more obscure kings (Louis XI of France, say, known to his people as “the Universal Spider”), had purchased a throne on eBay, and was currently sitting on it in his living room, barking out deranged orders to his nonexistent subjects? It would be a million times more menacing than anything Dennis had ever done, unless you count Dennis’ undoubted contribution to his insanity as the root menacing cause of the situation.

Luann, 4/12/12

In case you’re wondering, Luann has taken a break from its queasy-making storylines about teen sexuality in order to treat us to a queasy-making storyline in which Crystal tries to pee while Knute and Gunther stand right next to her stall and Gunther admires her shoes. (You may consider this to in fact be yet another queasy-making storyline about teen sexuality, but for reasons of my own mental health I am trying very hard not to do so.)

Mark Trail, 4/12/12

“Wait, no, that emphasis is kind of stilted, right? Let me try … ‘We are already here — surprise!’ Yeah, that sounds much more naturalistic. OK, mister, can you say your sentence again? Try to still act surprised when I yell surprise, it makes it more fun.”

Shoe, 4/12/12

“Ha ha, get it, because old people are old, like fossils are old? Old people? Ha ha? Seriously, though, I’m having lots of trouble pooping, so hand over the prune juice pronto.”

Ziggy, 4/12/12

The Home Shopping Network is a for-profit business whose margins depend on its operators taking customers’ payment information as efficiently as possible. They can’t afford to talk to sad, hairless gnome-men calling just because they’re lonely and need to hear another human being’s voice.

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Shoe, 4/11/12

I’m not really sure if the pharmacist in panel is telling Roz that her pills have gotten more expensive or that her dosage has been tripled, but, really, who cares? Roz sure doesn’t! She’s high as a kite! Abusing prescription drugs is awesome, that’s the important lesson here.

Hi and Lois, 4/11/12

I guess Trixie in panel two is supposed to have an “I’m sad because I’m sick” face, but honestly to me it really just looks like it’s an “I’m sad because of what’s in my thought balloon” face. “I can’t even walk yet! I’m such a failure! I can’t coast by on a being a cute baby with stupid hair forever, I need to achieve independent mobility!”

Judge Parker, 4/11/12

“And why should he? I mean, there’s no possible conflict of interest in an elected official taking an extravagant gift from a foreign national who’s heavily involved in several murder attempts in his jurisdiction, after all!”