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Lockhorns, 4/29/10

You’ve probably wondered: what would be a fouler expression of marital loathing than Loretta killing people and cooking them to feed to her unsuspecting husband? Hiring someone to dig up mouldering corpses from the graveyard, which she then cooks and feeds to her unsuspecting husband? Yeah, that sounds about right. Thanks goodness for his discriminating palate!

Crock, 4/29/10

Usually I’m annoyed by comics that just present two or more characters standing around describing things rather than actually depicting the action. But I have to say that I would much rather see two poorly drawn Legionnaires looking at a white square while standing in a mysterious numbered tube than see a new bride and groom being pelted with bloody chicken viscera in a scene of unimaginable horror, so big thanks to Crock!

Mark Trail, 4/29/10

Cherry has apparently decided that the root cause of the Trails’ terrible sex life is Mark’s terror of sensuality of any sort. Before he can be expected to serve as a satisfying sexual partner to her, he must first start from square one and “work on” himself — possibly while Cherry watches.

Marmaduke, 4/29/10

In I Samuel 18, we learn that the young David, in order to win the hand of King Saul’s daughter Michal, had to provide as a bride-price 100 Philistine foreskins. In order to ascend to the dignity of Demon-King of Earth, Marmaduke must prove himself a more gruesome killer than even the Biblical patriarchs.

Mary Worth, 4/29/10

Mary’s thought balloon today begins The Smuggening, which is crucial, as she can only effectively meddle in the lives of others from a place of superiority. “I also grew up poor, and yet my condo unit isn’t cluttered with stacks of boxes! Hmm, how sad that not everyone has my fortitude of character.”

Pluggers, 4/29/10

Pluggers have nowhere in particular to go and nobody to see, so why not show up for appointments 45 minutes early? The nice lady at the doctor’s certainly can’t leave the her desk, so if I say things to her while I’m waiting, she’ll probably have to talk to me!

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Beetle Bailey, 4/28/10

I’m not sure why the Camp Swampy leadership is so excited about America’s still fragile economic upturn; after all, they’re all career officers with guaranteed government pensions, and improved private sector hiring is likely to make military recruiting more difficult. I guess maybe I shouldn’t be so cynical, and should just accept that these four guys are rooting for our nation’s GDP and glad to see it growing again. It’s also possible that they will take literally any available excuse to get blotto.

The “again” bit doesn’t come as a surprise to me at all, since there have been 10 or so recessions over the 60 years Beetle Bailey has been in print.

Spider-Man, 4/28/10

Spidey is always quick with a quip, but maybe he ought to give a little bit of thought to these one-liners before he lets loose with them. “That’s right, Sabretooth — I was able to successfully hide from you, like the coward I am! That’s why you can’t see me right n — aw, crap.”

Marvin, 4/28/10

Man, Marvin is definitely not disappointing when it comes to this “stand-up comedian grandma” shtick. “My aged, wizened body is falling apart, bit by bit! I feel the stench of death rising up from my own flesh! I could go out at any minute! Seriously, why are all of you laughing?” Also worth noting is that the art is not a repeat of yesterday’s strip, even though it’s just as static and boring. Kudos for that, I guess?

Jumble, 4/28/10

Oh look, it appears I’m in the Jumble again, this time as a counterfeiter? Sorry, Jumble Jeff, as a professional blogger, I already have a license to print money.

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Marvin, 4/27/10

Regular readers of Marvin (a company of damned souls among whom I number) know that the strip takes occasional breaks from poop jokes to churn out multi-day theme weeks, like “Belly Laffs” or “CrySpace” or “Marvin’s Terrible Advice Column For Babies, The Name Of Which I Refuse To Look Up.” One of the least pleasant aspects of these sequences is that they feature jokes that are supposed to be jokes within the strip’s reality. We’re not just being invited to laugh at Marvin’s heavy-lidded antics; we’re expected to celebrate the characters’ own wit when they come up with hilarious “pregnant women get fat” gags. This to me doubles the offense of the whole project; it’s not enough that the jokes aren’t funny, but the structure of the narrative is built around taking the funniness of the jokes as a given, which makes the whole thing fail all the more.

That having been said, I have high hopes for this emerging “Marvin’s grandmother’s stand-up career” sequence. By looking at the expression of naked contempt on her face, we can tell that she has no illusions about the humorousness of her material. The fact that the easily amused and possibly senile residents of her retirement home are laughing uproariously at her litany of old people jokes doesn’t allow her to fool herself into thinking that she’s funny; instead, it just causes her to turn her internalized loathing onto her pathetic audience. If she can maintain this attitude of icy disdain, she shows great promise of becoming an excellent meta-comedian, with her entire act based on her own knowledge of her comic inadequacies and hatred for her fans.

Family Circus, 4/27/10

Speaking of comedic structure, I have no idea whatsoever why this Family Circus is supposed to be funny; however, I know why I like it, which is because Billy is having some kind of full-on manic episode, flinging envelopes of seeds all over the floor and gibbering out semi-comprehensible nonsense. I’m not sure why exactly Mommy, who will be responsible for picking up all those seeds when Billy runs shrieking into the fertilizer section, looks so pleased; maybe she knows that her eldest son’s brief enthusiasm for locally grown nutritious food will have passed within minutes, and she can continue to feed him Top Ramen and Pop Tarts until he’s felled by type 2 diabetes and/or hypertension at age 15.

Apartment 3-G, 4/27/10

This is almost certainly some sort of unnecessarily coy set-up to a “Tommie gets an ambush makeover from I Dressed In The Dark” storyline, but I’d like to believe that Ruby’s describing how, almost without noticing it, she became a phone sex operator.