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Phantom, 4/28/09

Hey, kids! Remember the Jungle Patrol? This exciting Bangallan law enforcement agency featured into a Phantom storyline from year and change back, in which a lady cop and and waitress shook up that formerly all-male bastion by combining toughness, trigger-happiness, and lady parts. The story lasted long enough to prompt some t-shirtage, then faded into that narrative netherworld where all Phantom storylines go, presumably never to be heard from again.

Except! Today we do hear from these ladies again, as they prepare for another day of imposing law and order on the jungle, by way of patrolling. This reappearance of pre-existing non-Phantom, non-Phantom-relative, non-Guran-or-Old-Man-Mozz characters has pretty much blown my mind, so, sap that I am, I’m actually pretty eager to find out where this is going. Suggestion: the just-concluded-rather-abruptly storyline involved a sexy lady sea captain who seemed determined to make the Ghost Who Flirts her own, despite his married status, and the last Jungle Patrol storyline concluded by having our two feminist pioneers celebrate their empowerment by plotting dreamily to woo their Unknown Commander, so perhaps a four-or-more-way catfight is in our future.

Lockhorns, 4/27/09

“Like, you know, to orgasm.” [rim shot]

Apartment 3-G, 4/27/09

It’s true that I failed to acknowledge Joe’s hilarious umbrella-bludgeoning at the hands of Margo over the past few days; that’s because my job is to comment on the unusual and unexpected, and surely we all knew that when any blunt object is placed in Margo’s hands, a savage beating can’t be far off. On the other hand, who could have predicted that Joe’s ritual humiliation would reach its climax when some character that nobody recognized wandered in and offered to taser him? It’s these little moments of delight that keep us coming back to the comics page day after day.

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Family Circus, 4/26/09

Because I am admittedly a terrible person, the only Family Circuses I enjoy nonironically are those in which current artist Jeff Keane depicts his cartoonified childhood avatar Jeffy as being humiliated in some way, for psychological reasons one can only speculate about ghoulishly. The key to today’s strip is that young Jeffy is peppy and excited throughout the little episode portrayed; only grown-up Jeff seems to remember (or be tormented by) Daddy’s expression of disappointment and Billy’s expression of palpable disgust.

Mark Trail, 4/26/09

“If ash wood becomes unavailable, manufacturers are confident they can find a suitable substitute for making bats … like, say, aluminum! Boy, aluminum bats sure would help break some old batting records, wouldn’t they?”

Marvin, 4/26/09

“And yet they keep pumping me full of children’s Benadryl like it’s Kool-Aid! Why would they … but … so … sleepy … [ZZZZZZ]”

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Crock, 4/25/09

Some might call it inconsistent, but I like my terrible comic strips to keep track of and abide by their ossified, humorless conventions rather than trying to branch out into new comedic structures. Take, for instance, the frequent “Crock talks to his mother on the phone” trope in Crock. Usually we only hear our sinister commandant’s side of the conversation, with his mother’s replies relayed in indirect speech to whatever hapless forgettable character happens to have wandered into the panel. Today is the first time that I can remember actually seeing a word balloon (one so large that Crock has to hold the phone a good foot from his ear) emerging from Crock’s phone. Of course, the punchline is a hilarious reference to terrible institutional food causing an old woman to defecate uncontrollably, so I think we can provide the structural flexibility necessary to allow such a gem to be delivered.

Mary Worth, 4/25/09

“That’s right, Covice! Your nationwide string of broken hearts ends here, thanks the efforts of Bruno and Flaxhair, FraudCops! With the rust-colored jacket of justice and the minty blazer of retribution, they travel the nation, looking for scamsters with tell-tale pencil mustaches to put in the slammer. Sorry we took as long to catch up with him as we did, young lady; you didn’t do anything foolish like, say, give him an enormous sum of money, did you? Because you can pretty much kiss it goodbye if you did.”

Shoe, 4/25/09

The obvious punchline here is actually “Your body has a lot of hair.” I’d like to believe that the form actually used was chosen because it’s mildly funnier, but it may just be that someone finally remembered, apparently between the first and second panels, that the characters in Shoe are birds and thus have no hair at all.