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Apartment 3-G, 8/31/09

For too long, Professor Aristotle “The Professor” Papagoras has been denied his very own Apartment 3-G plotline. This is because it’s been hard to come up with a story for him that can match the heart-stopping intensity of such classics as “Margo is a bad event planner,” “Lu Ann visits her parents in South Dakota, apparently, even though we only get to see what’s happening out there like two or three days out of the month,” and “Tommie is too boring to move to Denver.” But it seems that the good professor’s profession will serve as the source of drama in coming months, as he quickly becomes an easy connection for pill-happy tourists looking to soothe their minds by ingesting the best that the pharmaceutical industry has to offer. Having learned just what happens when you come between an addict and their fix, Ari will be cheerfully writing prescriptions to whatever fresh-faced pill-poppers wander into his office.

Crankshaft, 8/31/09

Ha ha, it’s funny because Crankshaft is comparing his job as a school bus driver in a sleepy small middle American town with that of a soldier in Iraq who might be blown to bits with an IED! Of course, he is surrounded at all times by people who want to kill him, with explosives.

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Mary Worth, 8/30/09

Could there be anything more delightful than the third panel of Sunday’s Mary Worth? My guess is no! Mary and Tobey are clearly bombed out of their minds after spending three hours drinking their lunch as usual; Tobey attempts a sloppy high-five in celebration of terrible couples bound more tightly together in dysfunction’s death grip, while Mary leaves her hanging and stares glassily into the middle distance. Things go downhill a bit as she ruminates on all the societal ills that her meddling has somehow failed to rectify, but I love the transition between the penultimate and final panels. Could love help overcome these important problems? As panel three demonstrates, clearly not, because if this is love, then love is repugnant beyond description.

Crock, 8/30/09

Ha ha, the heat is killing him! It’s funny because a prisoner locked in a hotbox and left out to broil in the desert sun would literally die, from the heat.

Marvin, 8/30/09

August 30, 2009, will forever be remembered as “the day Marvin showed us his ass-crack, and nobody stopped him.”

Spider-Man, 8/30/09

Now that family-friendly Disney has purchased Marvel, I’m afraid our saucy NEXT! box will have to stop hinting at hot mutant-on-cyborg-on-spider-bite-enhanced-dude action.

Slylock Fox, 8/30/09

Solution — The chain may be too strong for the saw, but Slylock’s leg isn’t. Slylock will plead for his sidekick to reconsider, but Max will just think back to years of condescension and abuse, and smile.

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Archie, 8/29/09

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m vaguely curious to see if the “Archie proposes to Veronica” storyline percolates its way out to the ass-end of the Archie universe (i.e., the newspaper comic strip). The fact that Archie is doing some woo-pitching leaning right there under the tree onto which a proclamation of the eternal love between Archie Andrews and Betty Cooper was once carved. This ought to presage the trail of broken hearts and ruined lives that will be the only possible acceptable denouement to this ill-conceived plot.

Meanwhile, the specific joke today in today’s strip smacks of the AJGLU-3000’s linear humor algorithm. “ARCHIE-UNIT! YOUR SHIRT-DISPLAY OUGHT TO INCREMENT BY A REGULAR AMOUNT EACH STANDARD TIME INTERVAL! YOU WILL RECEIVE NO FURTHER AFFECTION FROM THIS UNIT UNTIL YOU DON YOUR ‘8’ GARMENT!”

Hi and Lois, 8/29/09

Poor Lois wants nothing more nor less than for Hi to come upstairs and satisfy her sexually, but, being a permanent part of a family-friendly newspaper comic strip, can only express her lust in this stilted and roundabout fashion. At least she isn’t suggesting that they “practice making a baby.”