Main content:
Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/17/12
“Never mind June being left at home to manage a sexy, charismatic, half-naked drunk lady,” you’re saying to yourself. “This strip needs to focus on its core strengths. Has Rex been a dick about anything lately?” Well, good of you to ask! You might recall that, right after the sadly departed Foster changed his will leaving everything (including $25,000 nobody knew he had) to Rex, he (supposedly) fell down the stairs while under the supervision of (estranged? ex-?) wife Mabel, who was not wise to this sudden will-change. There’s a couple of strange things going on here, and guess which one has been exercising Rex’s mind more? “You’re not implying that Mabel had anything to do with it!? Because if the police decide that she did, that might slow down the implementation of the directives in his will, and obviously nobody wants that!”
Apartment 3-G, 5/17/12
“Do you understand? I killed her!! And once I tasted blood, I couldn’t stop! My mother was the first of my many victims. And now I fear that my baby will start the cycle anew … with me. You have to help me maintain my position as Satan’s High Priestess of Death!”
Ziggy, 5/17/12
Congratulations, Ziggy: You have baffled me. The only scenarios I can wring out of this that make any sense at all are “Ziggy lives in a dystopian future when all forms of life other than people have been wiped out, and it makes him said to see the biodiverse glory that once was” or “Ziggy is watching a show about evolution and is the last survivor of a short, gnomish species of nonhuman primates.”
Crankshaft, 5/17/12
I’ve spent most of my life avoiding golf and golf courses at all costs, so I’m not really familiar with the social mores that prevail in those contexts. Is the sort of angry mob justice that’s looming in panel two typical, or is it just a strong but justified reaction to Crankshaft’s behavior and/or personality?
Slylock Fox, 5/16/12
Here is a sad story from Josh’s past: When I was in seventh grade I had a big crush on this girl in my class, but being a terrifically shy nerd I never actually tried talking to her or interacting with her in any way; I just looked at her all moon-eyed for most of the daily duration of our Social Studies class, during which she sat just a row ahead of me and one seat to the right. One day after about five months of this, instead of rushing off as usual she hung back after class, came up to me, and looked at me intently. With my heart pounding, I could barely believe it when she finally said the words I had been waiting for: “I want you to stop staring at me.”
It turns out that, according to the scientifically unimpeachable facts presented in Slylock Fox, staring intently at someone is not considered an appropriate mating habit among primates! In fact, it makes you a creepy weirdo. I can only hope that this cartoon equips the awkward seventh graders of today with information they can use.
Blondie, 5/16/12
Call me dumb, or slow to pick up on insulting canine metaphors, or something, but it took me a minute to parse the “Ha ha, Blondie is talking about Dagwood like he’s a dog” joke here, primarily because I don’t believe that a “great sense of humor” is considered a dog stereotype? I mean, I understand that the rule of comedy threes requires Blondie to wedge something in after “loyal and well-groomed” that isn’t the punchline “terrific hearing” but might still be said to apply to both potential husbands and potential pets. I admit that coming up with one is tricky. Could it be something about ball-licking, maybe?
Anyway, kudos to the artist for realizing that the off-panel ARF! wouldn’t work if it weren’t clear that the Bumstead family pet weren’t the one ARFing. Daisy looks as if she were actually intended to be in the background from the strip’s conception, or at least has been composited in later with a reasonable amount of skill.
Garfield, 5/16/12
Yes, he exists in the service of a (blessedly subtle) poop joke, but I have to admit that I’m really charmed by this fly-prophet, crazed in messianic ecstasy and willing to invite anyone of any species to the promised land.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/16/12
Good Lord, Smifs, you didn’t think these insatiable chew-rodents would really obey your so-called “laws,” did you? In retrospect, mankind wished a more effectively organized community had been on the front line in the first phase of the bloody Human-Beaver Wars.
Mary Worth, 5/15/12
Wow, so the “Mary is summoned to Gina and Bobby’s surprise wedding, which goes off without a hitch” storyline lasted only three weeks, which has to be some kind of Shortest Mary Worth Storyline record. What could the point of it have been? Was it entertaining in and of itself, even by the fairly low standard of “entertainment” that we can expect from Mary Worth? No! Were we all desperate for closure on the “Gina and Bobby have been reunited and are 100% certifiably in love” plot? Most definitely not! But could their successful reunion and healthy emotional lives serve as a counterpoint to the misery and loneliness that will always afflict the sad and hilarious Weston clan? Now you’re talking!
I feel comfortable telling you (because you all know what a monster I am) that panel two of today’s strip — in which a shlubby, sad Wilbur, combover askew and chest hair on display, slouches away from his daughter, who begs an unfeeling God for mercy — prompted my biggest laugh from the comics so far this week. What might be the source of Dawn’s soul-wrenching sadness? I mean, based on Wilbur’s facial expression and the heartfelt nature of her cry, you’d think it was that Wilbur just told her that they’ve contracted father-daughter cancer and have only six agonizingly painful months to live, but probably it’s just that some boy was mean to her on Twitter.
Dennis the Menace, 5/15/12
“Huh, a little boy running in terror from an enraged, violent adult? Enh, not my problem! I think I’ll just stand here trying to figure out what order to put these three blank index cards in.”
Mark Trail, 5/15/12
HELPFUL CRIME TIP: If you’ve been arrested for murder, and you absolutely must admit to an incident in which you physically assaulted the person who was later killed, try not to get a faraway look in your eye or let a little smile play on your lips, thus making it clear to all what a fond memory this is for you.
Hi and Lois, 5/14/12
An old standby in comics (or any other medium where corny jokes happen) is to have someone feign an inability to parse a completely standard turn of phrase any way but literally. Extremely minor kudos to Hi and Lois for at least portraying Lois reacting with wide-eyed bafflement and distress, exactly as an actual normal human would in this situation. “Wait, did … did Hi really not understand what I was getting at? Oh my God, is he having a stroke?”
Mark Trail, 5/14/12
“So I shot him! Wait, did I say that last part out loud?”
Just as individual Mark Trail strips are created by combining archival clip art, so too are whole plotlines now being generated by mashing previous plots together. In this case, we seem to be in for some combination of “Mark’s friend Johnny Malotte is not guilty of murder even though all the evidence is against him” (which ran from October 2007 to March 2008, and which among other things featured Mark getting this same sort of jailhouse interview, which is usually the privilege of lawyers and clergy) and “Competition between rival fishing camps turns violent” (which ran from December 2009 to April 2010, and in which two forest ruffians beat up a senator). These were of course two of the more awesome storylines of recent memory, so we can only hope that hybridization produces increased vigor so as to provide us with even more entertaining mayhem.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/14/12
Sadly, Snuffy only managed to inspire Li’l Tater with a passion for justice, racial equality, and human rights. Everyone in Hootin’ Holler was outraged.
Judge Parker, 5/13/12
You know I’m a fan of people scowling sullenly in continuity strips, and today’s Judge Parker offers us a doozy! What’s the matter, Sam, are you sad because your once reputable law firm has suddenly become a literary agency for Judge Parker Emeritus’s terrible books and/or a wedding planning consultancy? Ha ha, just kidding, Sam’s law firm has never been “reputable.”
I am intrigued by our first glimpse of the Sam’s new antagonist, Avery Blackstone, who seems more than capable of holding his own in the coming effete-rich-guy-off. “Stewardess, your barbaric in-flight meal has caused minor discomfort to my digestive system! I demand that you vivisect one of the unfortunates in coach in order to fetch me a new one. Quickly now!”
Mark Trail, 5/13/12
I’m pretty sure Mark put all those boring snoresville facts about tuna in the throwaway panels just to make sure that his editors didn’t even bother to read past them to the part where he basically dared comics-reading children around the world to eat dangerous pufferfish. “Yeah, a bunch of nerd scientists are trying to make boring, safe fugu, the kind your mom would eat. What about you? Are you man enough to eat the real thing? The kind that might kill you? You’re not a little baby, are you? Baby want his bottle?”
Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/12/12
Oh, hey, what’s going on in Rex Morgan, looks like it’s just Iris still sadly reading her dad’s memoir and AAAH AAAH AAAH AAAH AAAH AAH! In panel one, it seems that Iris’ face has been removed altogether, only to have a weeping grinning one-eyed horror glommed onto the front of her head in panel two. Has there ever been a comic-book supervillain whose origin story involved whisky and grief? Mabel better watch out at that funeral, is all I’m saying.
Gil Thorp, 5/12/12
Gil Thorp’s horror is subtler but still unsettling. I guess that our single parent pitcher has hit or grazed or come close to grazing the batter with the ball, as a response to anti-single-parent bullying? That’s pretty impressive, considering that in panel two the batter was digging in approximately 12 feet away from the empty patch of dirt where home plate is supposed to be. It still doesn’t explain the awful tangle of limbs emerging at impossible angles from the Goshen gal’s looming crotch in panel three.
Spider-Man, 5/12/12
The second best thing about the current Spider-Man storyline is that all the scripted lines in MJ’s play appear to be exactly the same level of corny and awful as Hardy Laurel’s ad-libs, despite the fact that everyone is acting like he’s desecrating Shakespeare. The best thing about the current Spider-Man storyline is how hilariously petulant Peter looks in today’s final panel. I dearly hope this drawing of him is used for all of his non-masked appearances in the strip from now on.