2012-11-30

Fred Basset

Fred walks along the street with his eyes closed. Suddenly he comes to an abrupt halt and opens his eyes.
"This is not good!" he thinks.
Quickly he turns his head to look behind him.
"This is so not good!" he thinks.
Four dogs, grinning malevolently, approach from both sides. He's surrounded, there's nowhere to run. Could this be the end of Fred Basset?

No, of course not, nothing bad will happen, this is Fred Basset.

Comic

2012-11-28

Mary Worth

"Be slow to fall into friendship; but when you are in, continue firm and constant." - Socrates

"We've been doing so well..." says a voice from inside the crazily tilted building.

"As friends." says Dawn sadly.

"Jim's anger doesn't sit well with me." she continues, balancing a plate of some unidentifiable brown substance on her palm.
"You care about him." says Mary, likewise balancing a plate of brown stuff.

"He's my friend." says Dawn, reaching toward Mary.

"Just because I don't want to date him doesn't mean I don't care about him." she continues, weighing an imaginary object in her hand. "I hope he realizes that. And I hope he realizes this has nothing to do with his arm."

"What are you going to do?" asks Mary.
"I'll keep calling and texting him..." says Dawn, thrusting her fork at Mary's face. "I'll keep trying!"

Comic

2012-11-26

Marmaduke

Marmaduke lies on top of his kennel, which is stuffed full of pop-corn to the point that it is overflowing and pouring out of the door and covering the grass in front. Some of it is flying through the air, suggesting that it is still popping.

"I think he popped too much popcorn." remarks one neighbour to another, neither of them seeing anything particularly unusual about any of this.

Comic

2012-11-24

Mandrake the Magician

A shadowy figure walks down a staircase toward a woman whose mouth is taped shut.
"!" says the woman.
"Sorry, lady!" says the man dropping his gun and picking up Lothar with one hand and hurling him across the room. Lothar is dressed as Mandrake for reasons too stupid to explain.

Comic

2012-11-22

Rose is Rose

"That's not true, Jimbo!" says Rose, smiling saccharinely. "Peekaboo doesn't have a 'favourite'!"
"If you say so." says Jimbo, eyes closed as he pretends to read the newspaper.

Peekaboo, allegedly a cat, sits on the opposite end of the couch to Rose and stretches his neck over a distance of at least two meters to rub his head against Rose's. A candy cane, musical note, spinning beach-ball and love heart float above them for no apparent reason.

Comic

2012-11-20

Pondering "On The Fastrack"

Once you take a moment to understand it, this comic seems straight-forward enough. The stuff with the unicorn and the flaming hoop and so on is a metaphor for how confusing the Facebook settings can be, right? Simple.

No.

Wendy is looking over Dethany's shoulder. She's looking right at the screen. And what she thinks she's seeing is an obstacle course. There is no way the Facebook settings page could possibly be mistaken for an obstacle course.

The only possible explanation is that the first four panels show what is actually happening on Dethany's computer screen. This is how they use the internet in this world. Somehow these obstacles literally represent Facebook privacy settings.

How does anyone use websites in this world? And if you did manage to get to whatever you were looking for, how would you even know? Is jumping over a fence code for setting your profile to public? Do other sites work this way? Do you use Google by having your avatar perform circus tricks?

Or maybe Bill Holbrook just has no idea what he's talking about, how the internet works, or how to construct a joke that makes sense.

2012-11-18

Apartment 3-G

Later, as Margo trudges up the stairs...

"Hey Margo -" calls Greg Cooper, "long day?"
"Yes... no... whatever." says Margo happily.
"What's wrong, Margo?" asks Greg. "You look heartbroken. Where's your sparkle and spunk?"
"Oh, shut up, Greg." says Margo with a wry grin.

Comic

2012-11-16

Hazel

"Come and get it!" calls Hazel.
Mr and Mrs Baxter line up with their plates to receive their dinner. Behind them, standing on its hind legs, the dog lines up holding its bowl in its forepaws, an expression of abject sorrow on its face.

Comic

2012-11-14

Marmaduke

Two dog-catchers stand with their big nets watching as Marmaduke, seated beside two little green aliens inside a flying saucer, takes off into the sky.

"Remember when this happened before and headquarters laughed their heads off when we reported it?" asks dog-catcher.

Comic

2012-11-12

The Lockhorns

"Here ..." says Leroy, glumly thrusting a bunch of flowers toward Loretta. "Watch these die."

Loretta seems genuinely happy to receive the flowers, but Leroy doesn't even care. What could have been a moment of shared happiness is lost on him.

Comic

2012-11-11

Bizarro

A group of cheerful doctors and a nurse stand by a patient's bed.
"Once in a while," says a doctor, "this job is just plain fun."

The patient is an extraordinarily hirsute bald man. He does not appear to be happy.

Comic

2012-11-04

Wizard of Id

"Oh, man," says Bung to the bartender, "last night's Halloween party was brutal... just give me a water."
"Ugh..." says a child, "water for me, too..."
"Wait, kid!" says Bung. "You didn't..."
"I must have had twenty Kit Kats" says the child.

Meanwhile, the bartender has served them each a glass of some suspicious yellow liquid in which ice does not float.

Comic

2012-11-02

The Pajama Diaries

"What are you drinking?" asks Rob.
"A mocktail." says Jill, attempting to tip it all over herself. Somehow the liquid stays in the glass, in defiance of all sense and reason.
"Non-alcoholic concoction, huh?" asks Rob, in case anyone in the audience is unfamiliar with the term "mocktail".
"Yup." says Jill, swaying drunkenly.
"Wait --" says Rob, "isn't that grape juice?"
"'Mocktail.'" says Jill. "It's after eight, I'm watching Bravo, and we're out of wine."
Again she attempts to throw the drink all over herself, but the drink remains stubbornly inside the glass in flagrant violation of all known laws of physics.

Comic