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Ah, relaxing on a Monday night … done with work … maybe I’ll surf the Internet a bit … read the comics — wait, comics? Aw, crap, I knew there was something I was forgetting!

Yeah, uh, let’s do some quick Sunday strips to catch up!

Marvin, 3/16/08

Just when I think Marvin can’t get any more delightfully charming, we’re treated to the spectacle of Marvin’s parents engaging in witty banter as their child stews in a mess of his own creation. I just hope that when time has ravaged my lower GI and urinary systems, I’m capable of making droll witticisms while I wait for my caregivers to clean off the filth.

Doodles by Mac and Sack, 3/16/08

I’m sure little comics-reading children across America enjoyed this week’s Doodles, which featured an adorable little koala unable to sleep because he’s forced to sleep inside the mouth of a monstrous insect-beast, presumably to satisfy his creator’s sadistic sense of whimsy.

Plus, a couple of charming panels:

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 3/16/08

Margo dropping the star-bomb isn’t really news, but Margo cussing because she can’t find her other glove is definitely amusing, and Margo using her gloved hand to point to her non-gloved hand so as to demonstrate the missingness of the other glove makes me positively giddy.

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/16/08

Oh, June, are you sure this is a conversation that you really want to have?

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Apartment 3-G, 3/15/08

Joe strikes me as the sort who was raised in a more genteel and conservative age, and so I assume that he’s referring to Lu Ann, with “friend” standing in as a euphemism for “that woman you have sex with and yet refuse to marry as the laws of man and God demand.” Sure, it seems weird that Joe would have The View Girl Talk showing on his cafe’s TV at whatever hour Alan is rolling in after a rough night of heroin and whoring, but at least we’ve been warned about her promised appearance in advance. Still, I really hope that, when Alan looks up at the TV, he’ll see the smiling face of the only other person in the strip whom he might consider a friend: Jones the beatnik! Maybe there’s a news story about how he was gunned down by the NYPD in a drug bust gone bad; or, better, maybe he’s the star of a new reality dating show where girls will compete to trade their sweet bodies for his dubious charms.

Mark Trail, 3/15/08

Yay, petnappers! Man, Mark Trail hasn’t seen a good petnapping plot since the delightfully gothic backwoods animal-thievin’ tale that we were privileged to read back in the winter of ’05-’06. These animal-ransoming ne’er-do-wells seem like hardscrabble urban working class types rather than yokels per se, and are significantly less grotesque than the last bunch. Do they plan to steal Woods and Wildlife’s prize puppy before the sick little contest winner can lay her feeble hands on it? Or is this pathetic young dog-lover an entirely fictional construct, cooked up by these thugs to lay their hands on one more innocent little creature that they can sell? And, perhaps the most important question of all: Will some noble soul urge them at some point to “please [not] steal any more pets”?

Momma, 3/15/08

The first two panels of today’s Momma do such a good job of recapitulating the origins of the current housing credit meltdown that it seems petty to point out that “You know what darling? You’re pathetic” doesn’t actually constitute a punchline as such, and that the attempt to draw Momma saying this through gritted teeth has only succeeded in transforming her face into a melting, Dali-esque horror.

Crankshaft, 3/15/08

In Crankshaft, the younger characters have finally decided to kill off the elderly hate-demons who dominate and suck all the joy out of their lives.

Slylock Fox, 3/15/08

And in Slylock Fox, the monkeys have finally decided to rise up against us, as deep down we all knew they someday would.

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Marvin, 3/14/08

Tough questions for today’s Marvin:

• Do people normally let their two-year-olds toddle around the house eating entire hamburgers, and presumably leaving a trail of ketchup and half-masticated bun in their wake?
• Isn’t Marvin’s interlocutor old enough that she should be talking for real, and thus be unable to conduct the thought-balloon-based telepathic conversations typical of Marvin’s infant society?
• For that matter, why does she need to open her mouth in panel one to thought-balloon at Marvin?
• Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

Gil Thorp, 3/14/08

Woo-hoo, ladies! That’s how you celebrate a basketball win — with a full-on locker-room orgy, not whatever half-assed smirking is going on in Funky Winkerban. Lisa Wyche (or whoever the vaguely Tommie-faced gal at the far right of panel two is) looks particularly pleased to “celebrate” Milford’s “victory,” if you know what I mean.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/14/08

Ha ha, Rex just got back from his harrowing camping ordeal only to be repeatedly humiliated by his pre-kindergarten-aged daughter. Yesterday she forced him to admit that he was pretty much terrified throughout the whole thing; today she lets him know that his lies and bluster are and always have been painfully transparent. Proving that there’s no doubt about her maternity, at least, she fixes Rex with one of her mother’s patented Icy Stares Of Death™ in panel two, while June looks on approvingly.

Phantom, 3/14/08

So, we’ve got an arms dealer surrounded by heavily armed guards as he sells more weapons — presumably military grade — to some kind of green-clad paramilitary group, and our tough lady cop and waitress are going to break it up with — a handgun and a … stick … of some kind. Um. At least its a long stick. I guess “toughness” isn’t the only quality needed to join the Jungle Patrol; “suicidal insanity” also appears to be on the list.