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Gil Thorp, 3/31/10

Oh, look, it’s another Milford team failing to win a title! Yes, there’s been a championship basketball game going on while the red-hot fisticuffs happen elsewhere. The Mudlarks losing again is of course utterly unremarkable at this point — presumably the whole loss exists just to set up the drama of faithless Cassie being shunned by her teammates for abandoning them — but today’s strip manages to offer an intriguing counterpoint to the concept of the uncanny valley — the slopes of the uncanny mountain, perhaps? Panel one disturbs and unsettles with the absence of details on the crowd in the background, as it appears that a tribe of identically black-garbed faceless, hairless automata have shown up to cheer on either Milford or Tilden; but panel three shows us that more detail isn’t necessarily any better, as we are confronted with more of Marty Moon than we ever wanted — the shine of his greasy goatee, the hollowness of his cheekbones, his glassy eyes, each and every one of his molars. We can practically smell his breath (Mr. Boston gin mingled with coffee from the AM/PM, not quite masked by the cloud of Axe Body Spray that hovers around him at all times).

Family Circus, 3/31/10

Ha ha, yes, this is a cartoon about how having four kids and a husband who doesn’t know how to iron would lead any woman to murder, but the thing I find most interesting is the fact that Billy is apparently dressed in a nice shirt and tie, for some reason. Perhaps Mommy can fashion Big Daddy Keane’s mushy, vaguely bunny-fur-like shirt into a makeshift rabbit costume and send him to school in it, and neatly dressed Billy can go into the office. Both problems solved, and we can move on to the question of why Dolly is attempting to brush her hair into the soup.

Herb and Jamaal, 3/31/10

It appears that Jamaal hasn’t quite gotten this “cruising for anonymous gay sex” thing down yet.

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Mary Worth, 3/30/10

Longtime readers know that, while I may dabble with your Luanns and your Blondies, my heart belongs to Mary Worth above all. Thus, the beginning of any new storyline in this strip is a moment of great giddy excitement for me, even though “Wilbur meets his bastard not-son” will be hard to follow up. So far, we’ve gotten Mary foisting her friendship onto a pair of standoffish neighbors with her patented brand of hospitality. (I’m referring specifically to Patent No. 3087330, “System and method for establishing interpersonal relationships via taupe, oblong food-like products.”)

Bonnie and Ernie seem happy enough in panel one, contemplating the “nice spread,” the hilarity of the constituent shapes and colors of which I cannot emphasize enough. Who wouldn’t be all smiles when confronted with a big bowl of whipped potatoes, a tray of whipped sweet potatoes, a bowl of steaming whole unpeeled potatoes, another square tray of unpeeled potatoes, a tiny square tray of something white (eggs?), and a bowl of some mushed up vegetable of some sort? Mmm mmm good! But in panel two everyone’s facial expression has suddenly taken a turn for the grave, as if “getting to know [other humans] better” is something Bonnie and Ernie simply don’t do. Why? What terrible secret do they hide? This is why Mary Worth is so exciting! Because someday, in the next six to ten weeks, we’ll find out, and it will be blander than we can possibly imagine!

One sort of delicate point that I feel compelled to bring up is that Mary’s new friends are both pretty profoundly unattractive, even by the standards of a feature in which ol’ cross-eyes is the resident beauty. Since this strip is about as subtle as a frying pan beating you about the head and neck, forever, obviously their appearance reflects badly on their character; they’re no doubt going to be revealed to be perverts or scam artists, or monsters pieced together from human corpses and reanimated by a crazed scientist eager to play God.

Hi and Lois, 3/30/10

It’s all too appropriate that our blue-haired librarian is wearing a pink scarf. Thanks for destroying everything that’s good in the world with your terrible library, Fidel Trotsky-Tsung!

Spider-Man, 3/30/10

“And let’s hear it for lounging around the house in your underwear and high heels! And for cowardice! Sweet, sweet cowardice!”

Slylock Fox, 3/30/10

In panel one, a delightful band of puppies wants nothing more than to frolic and play with this laughing child. In panel two, the lad is about to be torn limb from limb by a vicious pack of feral dogs.

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Yes, your comments of the week are here! Or, more accurately, your comments of the last couple weeks, collected at various times by me and Uncle Lumpy, with significant gaps in the periods during which comments were being monitored for funniness. But still, I think you will appreciate them! Here the comment out of this batch judged most worthy:

“Aw, c’mon, nobody in Hootin’ Holler has ever heard of — much less seen or eaten — an avocado. And if by chance they had, they’d spell it ‘avercodder.'” –jvwalt

And your very funny runners up!

“I’m intrigued by the emptiness of the upper calendar page, which would ordinarily contain a picture of some kind. I was going to make a joke about this, but now I realize that it is in fact a photograph of the gleaming white, featureless background we often see in the Family Circus universe, which is what the Keanes know as ‘scenery.'” –Poor Thompson

“In twenty years, which of these two will have a better head of hair, even when she’s dead?” –True Fable

“A3G: This strip is nothing more than an ongoing and perpetual sequence of random and disappointing encounters. Exactly like my life, now that I think about it.” –A. Weldon Berger

“Is that really a gun, or are you just trying to arouse me? Because I have to warn you, only a prescription card will do that.” –bunivasal

“‘Sorry mommy. I didn’t dream about you last night.’ ‘Well, that explains the dry sheets!'” –SF_Reader

Dick Tracy — “Isn’t this always how it goes? You want someone to die, and then when they finally do it’s not as great as you’d hoped.”–TheDiva

Between Friends — “It’s like the Canadian Andy Capp, with coffee instead of Guinness and griping instead of fistfights.” –Rusty

Captain Savarna, Pirate Hunter — “This is simply the best comic in newspapers today. It’s slowed down a bit since the boring purple guy turned up, so I hope he leaves soon.” –Lesser Whark

Crankshaft — “Pam yells out another woman’s name while in bed with Jeff. Don’t get too excited, though.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

Funky Winkerbean — “Funky’s black PT cruiser looks like a cross between a hearse and clown car. How fitting.” –Hank

“This week, Dennis the (Not such a) Menace spring cleans his treehouse — but what sort of stuff is he tossing? Most of it is in silhouette, but among the detritus I see a rubber glove and a tiny homunculus! Was that little scamp performing abortions last summer?” –Len

The Phantom — “What a woman! I’d be blind not to notice! But she’s not Diana! Because Diana is dead, and this one is walking around and breathing and talking and stuff. Unless she’s a vampire! Or a zombie! Is there such a thing as a beautiful zombie? With a boat? She can’t be a vampire, because we’re standing out here in broad daylight — unless she’s one of those sparkly ones from that book Heloise was reading! Or was Kit reading that? I wonder who they borrowed it from; I’ll bet it was Guran! And if I were blind, shouldn’t I be Daredevil instead?” –bats:[

9 Chickweed Lane — “I’m hoping that we find out that this is all BS on Edna’s part. I’m also hoping for a pony. To hedge my bets on which one will come true, I’m buying a saddle and bridle.” –Little Guy

Spider-Man — “Peter Parker gets up late, fails to make breakfast, and reads in the paper that Iron Man has foiled Sabretooth. ‘You know what this means?’ Yes. Six more weeks of winter. Back to bed! –Muffaroo

“Meanwhile, I like to think that Dr. P’s expression in A3G is the sudden realization that the same behavior that is supposed to be endearingly kooky when Zooey Deschanel does it in a movie is, in fact, a sign of bipolar disorder in real life.” –Sebastian

“The horror that is Mr. Sam Driver’s pastel argyle sweater has been well-documented. We need say no more, except that if he had any nerve at all he would have worn a bow tie with it.” –Fashion Police

“I watched the Marmaduke trailer. Then I burst into furious, impotent tears.” –150

Also also! Faithful reader kanomi has created the fabulous Tokyo Sun Ha! Ha! Funny Pages with “Japanese-English” reimaginings of some our favorite comics. Don’t miss Nature Punchman GO! in “Epic River Quest.”

BIG HUGE ENORMOUS THANKS thanks to everyone who put cash in my tip jar over the fundraiser — you’ll all get personalized thanks from me soon! And here is where we would give thanks to our advertisers, were there any to thank! To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot — and how you could be the launch advertiser for our new RSS feed sponsorship — click here.