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Mary Worth, 2/6/12

Ooh, fancy Nola has fabulous apartments plural, something sure to send condo queen Mary into paroxysms of jealousy. “Why, when you tire of your view of the parking lot from Unit 51, you can cut across the courtyard to Unit 16, just in time to catch the sunset rays peeking over the top of the freeway sound barrier!” Mary has prepared the sort of meal you’d expect for such a fancy guest: a steaming layer of green glop that she’s shoveling out of a shoebox with a trowel. “Dear, would you like some butter on, uh, whatever the hell this is?”

Apartment 3-G, 2/6/12

I’d like to believe that the sudden and pointless brunettification of Nina is a result of ongoing tension between artist and writer over the strip’s direction, and that the latter recently received a memo from the former that read in its entirety “ANCILLARY CHARACTERS WILL NO LONGER INCLUDE WHORISH BLONDES.”

Funky Winkerbean, 2/6/12

Sometimes Funky Winkerbean readers ask themselves, “My God, is there anything that happens in this strip other than misery and death?” Well, sometimes there are terrible malapropisms, delivered by people whose facial expressions make them look like they just received a cancer diagnosis

Curtis, 2/6/12

“He’s not tech-savvy like us kids, who print out emails when we want to show them to someone!”

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Pluggers, 2/5/12

I’m more than a little embarrassed to admit how much time I spent trying to figure out this Pluggers. Was there some site in the Belgian Ardennes where part of the Battle of the Bulge took place that had a name that sounded vaguely like “à la mode?” Eventually I figured out that it was just a dumb pun on “Alamo” because pluggers have only the vaguest sense of history, but know they saw something about couple o’ battles on the History Channel once, and also they eat ice cream compulsively. I HATE YOU MORE THAN EVER PLUGGERS.

Panel from Mary Worth, 2/5/12

One of Mary Worth’s sinister missions is to present brief quotes from radicals and weirdos in an attempt to make them seem bland and unthreatening. Today’s epigraph comes from a parallel universe where John Lennon wasn’t assassinated but instead took up a new career as a corporate motivational speaker.

Panels from Slylock Fox, 2/5/12

Oh look, the snowman is frowning because its very body is liquifying! It’s sad because it’s helpless to prevent its own horrible death, plus there’s some kind of monstrous demon-thing on its head grinning maniacally as it crumbles. This is a whimsical cartoon for children!

Apartment 3-G, 2/5/12

Ha ha, I’m really loving the way that Apartment 3-G, despite its dated aesthetics, is embracing America-in-decline’s warped values. “Whatever, Tommie, I guess saving lives and helping bring new babies into the world is just soooo important that you don’t have the time to churn out some forgettable pop hits that could make you and the multinational conglomerate bankrolling you a crapload of money. I’m not mad, just disappointed.”

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Mark Trail, 2/4/12

Oh my God, can we please spend some time dwelling on the insanity that lurks in the few words bandied about by our cheerful bank robbers, and the abrupt transitions between them?

“Relax, Jamie, we dumped the car we stole…”

[Remember when we got into that car we never saw before, Jamie, and then I made it go without a key? That’s called “stealing.” Kind of like we did with the money! And then we just left on the side of the road, which I like to call “dumping.” Doesn’t that sound more exciting than just “leaving”? More daring?]

“…all we have to do now is hike a few miles to our hideout!”

[That’s why we brought these absolutely enormous backpacks on our crime spree. For the hiking!]

“This is bird hunting country … no one will be looking for us in these woods … We’ll be safe as long as we stay out of sight!”

[They’ll be all, “They dumped their car right near the edge of those woods, but why would they go in there? That’s bird hunting country! Bank robbers wouldn’t go and hunt birds, that’d just be silly.”]

“I hope you’re right, Jeff … I told my wife we were going on a fishing trip!”

[If she finds out that we were in bird hunting country the whole cover story will be blown to pieces! Why wasn’t I kept in the loop about the kind of recreational animal-killing landscape we’d be fleeing through?]

Luann, 2/4/12

When I read this strip, I said to my wife, “Oh, that wacky Knute!” But then I had to clarify that I wasn’t talking about Newt Gingrich. Which brings up an important question: Is the K in Knute silent, as I’ve always assumed? Discuss, as said discussion will certainly be infinitely more rewarding than actually talking about this comic.