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Wizard of Id, 5/8/12

It’s really kind of sad that this fearsome, powerful wizard, heir to a long tradition of human beings who have managed to pierce through the barrier separating our mundane world from the realm of magic, having just used his unspeakable powers to bring a poor mortal back from the brink of death, feels a need to make a terrible and barely coherent joke relating to Apple’s electronic gizmos. It ought to be just as sad that cartoonists working on long-established strips that run in hundreds of newspapers around the world also feel the need to make terrible and barely coherent jokes relating to Apple’s electronic gizmos, but, you know, that ship sailed long ago, so it’s hard to feel more than just mild disgust about it at this point.

Family Circus, 5/8/12

Aw, look at that, the name of the mall the Keanes have descended upon sounds like “Bless ’em all,” isn’t that nice? For my money there are not nearly enough mall/all puns out there in the world. For a while, when I lived in Oakland, there was this truck from Lavine’s Heating & Cooling that was often parked near my apartment that featured prominently the company’s URL, kingofthemall.com, meant, I assumed, to indicate that Lavine’s was King of Them All, with “them all” referring to all the HVAC contractors out there (or who knows, maybe it meant all of humanity, but the on-truck marketing copy didn’t seem that grandiose otherwise). I always saw that and thought “Boy, the King of the Mall must be pissed that he didn’t grab that URL when he had the chance.” Anyway, I’m curious as to whether an encounter with the horror of a litter of Keane Kids will make Blessem Mall’s management regret being so universal with their blessings.

Apartment 3-G, 5/8/12

Haha, this some high-quality amateur Freudianism going on right here! Nina’s mother died giving birth to her, so now she’s ambivalent about having a baby because she … never had a mother to love her? Or maybe because she did have a mother, and then that mother died horribly while giving birth to a baby. Just a thought!

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Mark Trail, 5/7/12

It looks like Mark is running out of excuses to avoid his oft-postponed fishing date with Rusty. Ha ha, “check my e-mail,” does Mark even know what e-mail is? He probably overheard some teens talking about it down at the general store once and is now using it as a desperate ploy to avoid spending quality time with his hideously ugly ward. “Uh, sorry Rusty, I talked to my e-mail and it told me that there’s some Indian artifacts being smuggled in the southern part of the state! I need to go find the smugglers, so I guess that fishing trip will have to wait until next month, or something.”

It’s pretty well known that current Mark Trail storylines are pieced together from old art, with dialogue spottily updated to reflect technological advances. This has given us such hilarious moments as Rusty claiming his old-timey camera used a “memory card,” so I look forward to Mark “checking his e-mail” with what is clearly a CB radio.

Hi and Lois, 5/7/12

“I thought it was just a whimsical name, but I can’t seem to hold down any food and I’ve lost 10 pounds in the last three days, so I guess it was made of some kind of deadly poison.”

Gil Thorp, 5/7/12

OK, this is the day when I finally manage to work myself up to get excited about the Gil Thorp spring storyline. Yay, we’ve got … a loss and a rainout? Aw, nuts.

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Crock, 5/6/12

OH SNAP I JUST GOT TOTALLY BURNED! It may have taken six years, but the good people over at Crock have finally noticed that they’re in a feud with me, and have responded appropriately. While the idea that I began my blog as the result of some kind of massive traumatic brain injury would explain a lot of things, the jokes on them: I never had any artistic talent in the first place, suckers!

Of course, if you aren’t me or part of the fairly small slice of the comics-reading public who also reads my blog, this strip would make exactly zero sense to you. Just another Sunday Crock, in other words.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/6/12

That lovingly rendered next-to-last panel sure isn’t going to change the minds of anyone who thinks that the creators of Rex Morgan, M.D., have some kind of sick nostril fetish.

Apartment 3-G, 5/6/12

“So my suspicions are correct: Nina is an eternally undead vampire! At last, a worthy adversary!”