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Family Circus, 8/2/08

OK, congratulations Bil, or Jeff, or Jeffy, or Billy age 7, or Glen, or whatever combination of blurred notional and actual people, past and present, I’m supposed to accept as the perpetrator of this comic: you have officially baffled me. After long contemplation, I finally realized what this damn thing is supposed to mean: Pastor Brown is rehearsing his sermon just before he goes out to start the service, ha ha. But my mind took some terrible turns to get there. Did his vision of Christ-like meekness and humility involve hiding from his congregation lest his position of leadership at the pulpit give rise to the sin of pride? Had he attempted to revive the ascetic practices of the early Christians, causing his legs to wither from the years he spent sitting atop a pillar? In the end, I was forced to spend valuable brain energy on this pointless play on words. Pastor Brown may offer you forgiveness, but I won’t.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/2/08

“Ha ha, another underfunded government agency’s going to be on the receiving end of a frivolous lawsuit! Luckily, neither of us work for them, and you won’t catch my daughter going to some hellhole of a public school, so we don’t have to care! Good luck with that, losers! I sure hope one of your employees has enough copious free time to stalk your way out of the predicament.”

Marmaduke, 8/2/08

This would be a good opportunity for one of my usual cheap “Marmaduke eats humans” gags, but in fact it seems more likely that Marmaduke is bringing a human home for his owners to eat.

Dennis the Menace, 8/2/08

“So that’s why we’re practicin’ how to hide a body.”

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Mary Worth, 8/1/08

I’m sorry, did I sarcastically imply that yesterday’s strip, in which a restaurant bill was paid, was some sort of apex of boringness? That was before today, when Toby tried and failed to find a boring documentary and contemplated engaging in e-commerce. It’s not going to get any worse than this, right? Right? Please don’t test me!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/1/08

Oh, those extra-thorough county health officials! Naturally, when inspecting private home for contagious diseases, they also do a careful search for residue from illegal drugs! Because it’s a well known facts that drug-addicted degenerates are also diseased! I’m just sorry we didn’t get to see them give a urine test to a bunch of old gym mats.

Shoe, 8/1/08

So … Senator Belfry wants to take you up in him? Senator Belfry wants you to spend time in a basket dangling from his underside? This is the sort of joke that sounds like it’s supposed to be dirty, but dissolves into incoherence when you think about it for more than 15 seconds. The fact that I spend more than 15 seconds thinking about Shoe is probably one of my major life problems.

I do like the fact that the good Senator isn’t even bothering to sit next to his latest floozy. Because actually making conversation with your mistress is for those losers in the House.

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Mary Worth, 7/31/08

See, this is the sort of strip that people try to confront me with when I refuse to acknowledge that soap opera comics maybe might be a little bit boring. And yet how can you deny the tension that crackles out of these panels? Thrill as Mary and Toby half-heartedly argue over who will pick up the check! Shudder in anticipation as you try to imagine just what kind of paperwork awaits Mary back at her empty, lonely apartment! Gaze in wonder at a restaurant bill that contains only line items for “salad,” “stew,” and “dessert,” perhaps indicating that our ladies have lunched at the restaurant owned by Herb and Jamaal! It’s more exciting than taking a roller-coaster ride through a hail of gunfire while tweaking on crystal meth!

Gil Thorp, 7/31/08

It’s been repeatedly established that Elmer’s Spanish is no better than that of any other American-raised native English speaker who paid little or no attention in his high school Spanish class, so Kings manager Fran Riordan’s “let’s put all the brown guys in one hotel room” is mildly troubling. More troubling, though, is the gang sign he’s flashing in panel one, which may indicate that this so-called “minor-league baseball team” is really a violent organization dedicated to the sale of illegal narcotics. “WEST SIDE, BOYEEE!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/31/08

Taken in isolation, the second panel looks like Rex asking if a concerned citizen’s cellar could be used as a makeshift quarantine ward where the MRSA-infected youth could be locked up until the crisis is solved, possibly by their deaths. But since this is Rex Morgan, M.D., we know from the larger context that he actually just likes having a lot of teenage boys available in one easy-to-find location.

Marmaduke, 7/31/08

Today’s Marmaduke is funnier — by which I mean that it’s actually kind of funny — if you read it in light of the theory that Marmaduke’s owner is actually Hitler on the lam. “Argh, electoral democracy is a degenerate failure! When will these dummkopfs learn that the Volk’s will is best expressed through a single party headed by a single, unquestioned leader?” This scenario still doesn’t explain why he’s only sitting three feet away from his television, though.