Cul de Sac: MUSH

Cul de Sac more or less specializes in mortifying.

Sherman's Lagoon: Annoying, henpecking, overbearing woman to watch our child?

Shame shame shame shame shame shame shame.

Mark Trail: I'd like to have him!

The second panel of today's Mark Trail features a finely detailed rendering of the shapely and alluring grouse. And in the foreground of the third panel, we see what is perhaps the most mysterious and frightening creature of them all--naturalists call it a "woman."

Family Circus: He can't hear us anymore, Jeffy. He's dead.

On the other hand, this type of gleeful cruelty does seem somewhat uncalled for.

Drabble: I almost feel bad that I stopped to get my nails done!

This comic is hilarious because women are inconsiderate and superficial.

Crankshaft: We needed Lena to get a strike for us to win, and she threw the slowest ball I've ever seen!

This comic is hilarious because women are really, really, really weak.

Family Circus: Now, can we make him a snow LADY so he won't be lonely?

I think today's cartoon really puts Dolly's ceaseless drive for power in perspective. What we're seeing here is a young girl staring into the face of a deeply ingrained patriarchal hegemony, as symbolized here by her father, three brothers and male dog. They built the snowman without even giving consideration to building a snowlady, because of course all snowmen are male. It's not their fault, really. It's simply all they've ever known. Dolly's trying to change the world here. And who can really blame her?

Get Fuzzy: You realize you're tiny, right?

Every single character in Get Fuzzy talks differently than every other character in Get Fuzzy. Likewise, every relationship between any two characters is different than every other relationship. As today's comic shows, this goes for the bit characters too.

Dennis the Menace: There. See how easy that was?

This cartoon is hilarious because Dennis is teaching Mr. Wilson how to find pornography on the Internet.

Crankshaft: Can I get anyone a beer while we're waiting?

This comic is hilarious because women are really, really weak.

Family Circus: No, Daddy! Let's make him a NON-SMOKER so he'll last longer!

This cartoon is hilarious because snowmen don't get lung cancer and die horribly, but people do.

Crankshaft: Lena throws a slow ball, doesn't she?

This comic is hilarious because women are weak.

Crock: What did you give him?

I've long held that Crock is not a real comic strip. It is, instead, a synthetic comic strip-like product. While I'm not a huge fan of something like Frank and Ernest or Herb and Jamaal, both of those comics read like actual comics. They're hackish, sure, but they're hackish in recognizable ways. They always have a set-up and they always have a punchline. Crock, on the other hand, has neither. It instead just sort of meanders from panel to panel in a way that seeks to imitate what real comic strips look like. While Frank and Ernest is low-grade cheddar cheese, Crock is like a tub of processed cheese-flavored goo.

Given all that, I'm not going to be too hard on today's Crock. After all, this strip has an actual set-up and an actual punchline. Sure, it's hackish and politically ignorant, but the author really seems to have taken some sort of pride in his work for once. Why, I'm not really sure, but good for him anyway!

Indeed, today's Crock just goes to show that anyone can be an ignorant hack if they're willing to work hard enough. There's a lesson here, I'm sure of it.

BC: Humans occupy this planet.

If I can praise Garfield for its bold* stance against global warming, I can praise BC for its bold stance against, well, mostly humor but also possibly global warming, I think?

*For the comics section.

Girls and Sports: Wow! That girl is sooo hot!

I think Girls and Sports just made a moderately interesting observation about gender relations.

This will most likely never happen again.

Family Circus: Wow! So you can build a whole snowman without readin' any 'structions, Daddy?

This cartoon is hilarious because Dolly is cruelly mocking her father, Jeffy's about to get his head crushed, PJ's defecating and Billy has given up on his family and decided to build his own damn snowman.

Monty: It's not working

In which Monty redeems itself.

Marmaduke: Can we do a combo meal with gravy instead of a drink?

Having read the caption before looking at the cartoon, I was, in all seriousness, completely certain that it went with the latest installment of Pluggers.

Mark Trail: We WARNED you to stay out of this end of the lake, old man!

And so anyone under the age of what looks to be about 40 is classified as a young hooligan in the Elrodverse.

This is not surprising.

Pluggers: To a plugger, turning 50 is no big deal ... But a size 50 belt size is a different matter altogether.

Male pluggers generally take pride in their morbid obesity. But this cartoon suggests that even they have their limits. One solution to this problem would be to exercise and eat a healthier diet, but only liberals and women would even consider that radical course of action. There must a be a pill for this kind of thing, right?*

*Thank God for Medicare, amiright?**

**But fuck everyone else.

Betty: Deciding which to pay and when gives me the feeling that I have control over my life.

I am a fan of the quiet-loud joke construction. It's basically the comics section equivalent of the quiet-loud-quiet song format Nirvana made so famous.

Family Circus: Buildin' this snowman won't take long, Daddy, 'cause you have plenty of help!

This cartoon is hilarious because Bill hates spending time with his family.

The Phantom: BLAMM!

Oh my! Could The Phantom be dead?*

*No.

Garfield: Well, the polar ice caps are melting.

Look, I'm not exactly falling down laughing, but Garfield deserves props for even a very mild joke that acknowledges that global warming actually is real* and we should therefore probably do something about it. There's very little upside for Paws Inc. to be writing a comic like this, while there is a very real chance that some stupid people will write into their local papers complaining about the vast left-wing conspiracy this supposedly family-friendly comic is so clearly complicit in. Garfield's enough of an institution that it can no doubt survive occasional assaults like that, but that doesn't mean its writers would necessarily want to endure them at all.

*And not just cause it's hot outside or something.

Family Circus: Daddy! Remember when you said you'd help build a snowman next time it snowed?

What happens when you foist a menace like Jeffy on your other children?

Sweet, sweet revenge.

9 Chickweed Lane: I can tell from your salute.

This comic is hilarious because Edie has given Bill an erection.

Family Circus: Look out, Jeffy!

Having survived the latest attempt on the part of his siblings to murder him in such a way that it could plausibly resemble an accident, Jeffy remains none the wiser.