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Luann, 6/19/12
Thank goodness Luann has recently made some ham-handed attempts to condemn bullying, because now we know how to recognize bullying in action. These two friends are playing a trick on someone they don’t like, which will probably leave her feeling humiliated and ashamed! Oh, wait, what’s that? The two friend characters are defined as good within the context of the strip, and the other one is defined as bad? Whoops, sorry, it’s not bullying at all, just a gal who’s too sexy having her sexy feelings turned against her! Sorry for the confusion. We hope that today’s final panel can at least inspire you with erotic feelings as well as deserved satisfaction at this harlot’s comeuppance.
Gil Thorp, 6/19/12
In today’s Gil Thorp, a cunningly placed word balloon labels a teen mom (whom other players’ parents tried to force off the team lest she inspire the other softball players to sluttery) as a MILF, which normally would be pretty horrifying but after that Luann ick it just kinda seems like good clean fun.
Apartment 3-G, 6/19/12
OK, I’ve never experienced labor myself, but my understanding is that one does not go directly from “I am feeling discomfort that could be reasonably construed as the stomach flu” to “Oh my God I am in such excruciating pain that I cannot get myself downstairs to a cab or even crawl into the hallway to alert other people in this apartment building to my plight.” Though I suppose it’s possible that Nina has long ago alienated all her neighbors with her imperious behavior and so she figures it’s better to give birth alone than to beg one of them for help. Anyway, our poor little rich girl seems to be bucking up in the final panel, which is too bad considering that she’s sitting in a rapidly spreading pool of inky blackness, which presumably heralds the arrival of whatever hell-demon is gestating in her womb.
Mark Trail, 6/19/12
“He’ll never be able to outrun us! Not with those absurdly tiny feet!”
B.C., 6/18/12
OK, while we have yet another example of B.C. predator vs. prey antics, with implied family dynamics among eusocial insects to boot, and I’m on the record as enjoying this sort of thing in the past, I’m afraid I cannot fully approve of today’s B.C. Mostly I feel puzzled by the role in the narrative of the tree-dwelling … bear … thing. Did the bear-thing put up the fake foreclosure signs in an attempt to con the bees out of their hive and acquire the delicious honey within? Are the foreclosure signs actually meant to not be fake, and the bear-thing is an agent of the bank that holds the mortgage note on the beehive? Is this some kind of opaque political allegory about the ongoing housing crisis? Does the bear-thing have a primitive axe? When did bears start learning how to use tools? Should we be scared of an army of tool-weilding bears, come to take what’s rightfully theirs, like beehives and our foreclosed homes and who knows what else?
Funky Winkerbean, 6/18/12
“Silence, running-slave! The whole point of bringing you to this state of exhaustion was to leave you too tired to make unfunny puns or forced jokes! Looks like we’ll just have to keep going until you lose your power of speech entirely!”
Apartment 3-G, 6/18/12
“I never read What To Expect When You’re Expecting, so I literally have no idea what happens next! I know at some point I’m going to have to pay for this tiny human to go to college, but everything between now and then is a mystery. Does something come out my hoo-hoo at some point?”
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/18/12
Snuffy can’t clean any of the clocks today, because he was savagely beaten over some gambling debts and is in too much pain to move.
Spider-Man, 6/17/12
You get to a point with these Newspaper Spider-Man villains where you just give up on them ever being actually fearsome and embrace their camp value. Thus I was genuinely delighted to see that Clown-9, in addition to being a goofy dope who drives a duck car and thinks a high-powered squirt gun is threatening and has no higher ambitions of evil than disrupting a Broadway play, also thinks “not” jokes are funny.
Still, the final panel worries me, delightful as it is to see “SPIDEY: 0″ written out explicitly. Is Clown-9 suddenly transforming from a lovable weirdo into something truly terrifying? Is he gaining super-strength, Hulk-style? Is he unveiling some kind of super-weapon? Is he renouncing “not” jokes, which Spidey loves almost as much as he does?
Panel from Slylock Fox, 6/17/12
Whoops, sorry about the permanent injury you suffered from being dragged around by the ears, wholly innocent rabbit! I guess the lesson here is that you shouldn’t act twitchy around cops in Slylock’s thuggish police state.
Lockhorns, 6/16/12
Congrats to Leroy on finding the most absolutely generic packages in the store! Let’s see, I’ll guess that the chips are in the bag, the peanuts are in the little flat box, the pretzels are in the long skinny box, and the beer is in the larger of the two cans? Because Leroy only bought one can of beer, maybe? Anyway, Loretta, don’t be so quick to judge, as we haven’t figured out what’s in the little can yet — it might be a single serving of milk.
Shoe, 6/16/12
I’m on the record as saying that Buzz, Shoe’s angry, confused elderly bird-man, is my favorite character in this strip, which is why I resent the fact that all the other bird-people have apparently abandoned him to just blather his nonsense in isolation. Couldn’t Roz at least put forth the effort of standing there nodding sullenly at his insane ramblings? He’s her most faithful, lowest tipping customer!
UPDATE: Apparently Biz’s name is actually Biz, rather than Buzz? I leave this up as is, as a mark of my shame at being unable to indentify cartoon birds!
Hello, everyone! I must apologize for the brevity of this week’s COTW; I’m actually traveling this week and the next, which means you should be marveling at my ability to keep up the pace of posts! Unfortunately, I haven’t kept up with the comments as I should have; still, I offer to you this gem that I spotted that was undeniably hilarious:
“Tomorrow’s headline will read, ‘SPIDER-MAN SAVES DAY / Day Was in No Jeopardy Whatsoever.’” –Steve
And these runners up, which are also extremely funny:
“As a woman of a certain age, I applaud Gil Thorp for consistently making athletic young people look like eyeball-searing trolls. Hahaha, ugly GT young people! I feel pretty!” –Poteet
“I think Ziggy is trying to convey the essence of 1960′s casualness and cool in that ‘pad’ used to mean ‘hang-out’, or ‘residence’ as a square might say. We also know it’s a ’60′s reference since talking mice are only brought to us either by Disney or hallucinogens.” –Uncle Ritzy Fritz
“Now why don’t you cancel that leave of absence and let your grown daughter go to Italy by herself so she can sort her own shit out? See what I mean, Wilbur? That just came out, unbidden, and felt so right! I don’t think I can get that kind of spontaneous satisfaction from some contrived clockwork bullshit Ask Wendy column.” –Brook Esia
“So now Mark Trail is going to the cops with a soaking wet gum wrapper from his pocket.” –Hogenmogen
“The best part of today’s Ziggy is the fact the guy isn’t even a DNA scientist. He’s just revolted by Ziggy’s family history to the point of supporting eugenics.” –sporknpork
Thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And this is where we’d thank our advertisers — if we had any this week. To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.
Mary Worth, 6/15/12
Well, it looks like I need to stop making assumptions about people! I have always taken it for granted that Wilbur’s advice column was called “Ask Wendy” because there was in fact a “Wendy” persona — a smiling, attractive, late-middle-aged female avatar who served as the public face for the column. Moreover, I assumed that the few dozen elderly shut-ins who made up the column’s core audience would be made profoundly uncomfortable knowing that “Wendy” was really a man with a wispy combover who tucks his too-tight polo shirts into his jeans, and so Wilbur toiled on his column behind the scenes, getting no recognition for a job mediocrely done except for the huge paychecks that everyone in print media gets. But apparently Wilbur is well known to all as the brains behind Wendy, which is why another platituder can’t just be plugged in seamlessly while he jets off to Italy. Except that also means that the new fill-in Wendy will also be visible to readers at home, which means that maybe they’ll like her better, especially if Wilbur’s bold italicized JUST FOR THE SUMMER (…the summer … the summer …) is as foreshadowy as it looks. At least Wilbur has made one vaguely smart business decision: he hasn’t mentioned actually paying Mary anything yet.
(By the way, if you haven’t read this 100% amazing interview with Mary Worth writer Karen Moy about Dawn Weston yet, you really, really need to do so right now.)
Gil Thorp, 6/15/12
Sorry everybody, I just can’t get into this Gil Thorp teen pregnancy storyline, even now that it’s escalated to a mass team walk-off in support of their persecuted teen mom pitcher. I do want to point out that even the narration box has gotten bored and is now experimenting with sassiness. (“Um, not exactly…” is fairly low-level sass, but cut it some slack, it’s just a simple narration box.)
Judge Parker, 6/15/12
“Doesn’t the weather understand that rich people are planning on enjoying themselves outdoors? I’ll have my assistant call God at once and get this all worked out!”