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Mary Worth, 1/28/11
Oh, man, why is this hilarious “I [heart] Santa Royale” mug not available for purchase at the Mary Worth CafePress store right now? Since the action here is happening in Mary’s condo, I’m assuming that’s her mug, which seems to be rubbing it in the face of the Smith family a bit. “Just showing my civic pride, new friends! Santa Royale is great, unlike your hometown of Goleta, which is of course lousy with kidnappers.”
Crankshaft, 1/28/11
Nobody in the Funkyverse in general and in Crankshaft’s orbit in particular is ever allowed to experience joy of any sort, so, yes, he has every right to be suspicious.
Your comment of the week momentarily, but first, I must share with you an awesome letter to the editor of the Providence Journal that faithful reader Dub Not Dubya shared with me. In it, Mike Fink of Providence earnestly pleads for Rex Morgan, M.D., to be restored to the paper’s funny pages. The best paragraph is this:
Is it just too realistic, and therefore, in fact responsible, for current tastes, editorial or popular? I mean, the anecdotes do raise genuine issues of health and human behavior. True, there is a sort of camp or funky almost unintentional hilarity about its style and content, but on the other hand there is also a timeliness and even truthfulness about the adventures and misadventures of its characters.
But really you should read the whole thing, which also mentions breast feeding, for some reason. Don’t miss it! And the Journal absolutely SHOULD bring back RMMD, it goes without saying.
And now, your COMMENT OF THE WEEK!
“I love the Avengers’ high tech deterrents to someone sneaking in to their headquarters. ‘Let’s turn out the lights and pretend like we’re not here!’” –hogenmogen
And your runners up! Very funny!
“Having solved the mystery of the exceedingly-inept kidnapper, perhaps Mary can turn her crime-fighting skills to discovering who embedded that turbot in the back of Jeff’s skull. From the way he’s clutching his head in the second frame, it looks like he may have suffered a brain injury. This may also explain his apparent insensibility to Mary’s endless litany of self-congratulation.” –Higgs Boatswain
“We have to find some time to spend together, mostly so I can ask you what in the living hell is going on with your jacket lapels.” –Chareth Cutestory
“When they make the movie about Old Butch, they should probably skip the part where a group of rabbits enjoy a spirited game of ‘who can hop closest to the blind dog.’” –Just Bob
“It is possible Lu Ann’s adoptive parents don’t know they adopted her? Maybe she was just put under a cabbage leaf one day and they figured, well, that’s how it always happened before.” –Chip Whittle
“If the best tattoo you can think of is just the initial of your home town in your high school colors, you’re probably not cool enough to look good in a tattoo.” –AndyL
“Margo thinks eating feces ‘sounds delicious?’ Somebody’s been reading my erotic fanfic!” –Doctor Handsome
“I think Jughead is, in his own passive-aggressive way, commenting on the fact that the cast of Archie comics can no longer be considered famous.” –Cotton Candy Beard
“Are we just going to ignore how COMPLETELY adorable it is that Mr. Weatherbee likes Glee? I mean, in the context of this comic, and its superior, too-cool-to-stay-awake-in-geometry high schools kids. Mr. Weatherbee just loves to kick back and relax by watching some musically talented teens who really care about school, who have non-food-based, non-laziness-based problems. And he’s just plain SICK and TIRED of having to tape it!” –Margaret
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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/27/12
Aww, isn’t that sweet? Hootin’ Holler must be the most loving, romantic community on the entire planet. I say this because Barney Google and Snuffy Smith characters wag their tongues and roll their eyes constantly. Look, they’re wagging their tongues right there in the second panel, as they’re talking about people wagging their tongues! I’m glad to learn that these are symptoms of an overabundance of affection, as I had assumed that residents of Hootin’ Holler were just prone to seizures due to some combination of inbreeding and malnutrition.
Archie, 1/27/12
As noted, the current run of newspaper Archie strips consists of reruns from the ’90s, which is fairly clear when you have it pointed out to you. But never let it be said that Archie Comics is simply digging out strips at random from its no doubt enormous archives (side note: I dearly hope that Archie Comics refers to its archives as “the Archie-ives”) and mails it out to the syndicate. No, first they have some entry-level employee make sure there aren’t any blatant anachronisms in the strip and quickly fix them. Fun game: what non-Glee TV show do you think Mr. Weatherbee was originally referring to in the third panel? I’ll bet its name is significantly longer than four letters!
Dennis the Menace, 1/27/12
Dennis seems to think that his baby sitter will find his mastery of bound morphemes menacing! Sorry, Dennis, but this is not the case.
Archie, 1/26/12
I don’t know why, but Jughead’s statement that “a lot of famous people take naps” really bothers me. I mean, I guess strictly speaking it’s almost certainly true, as a nontrivial portion of the human race takes naps, and celebrities are humans, but is there anyone who’s actually famous for their napping? (Rip Van Winkle doesn’t count.)
I’m also unsettled by just how vigorously Jughead is laughing in the final panel. It reeks of desperation. “HA HA HA HA TRIGONOMETRY HA HA HA NAPPING HA HA HA but seriously I need to take a God-damned nap right God-damned now.”
Ziggy, 1/26/12
If you weren’t repulsed by Ziggy before when you thought he was just bald, are you repulsed by him now that you know that his smooth, pasty flesh is completely hairless? Do you think he scoops up big piles of dog hair and makes wigs and merkins for himself, of varying styles? Will you ever be able to stop thinking of it again?
Gil Thorp, 1/25/12
By the way, I’m still totally enjoying the Gil Thorp teen tattoo plot, I don’t care what you think! The latest development is the strange alliance between the transparently gay Lini (who’s against tattoos because, ugh, so tacky) and the assertively Christian Cortez Beecher (who’s against tattoos because Leviticus 19:28). Anyway, if we’re going to have the gay teen saying “Heavens!” and wearing bowties constantly, probably because someone saw it on Glee once or something, I’m pleased at panel three’s revelation that they’re real bowties, not some pre-tied clip-on nonsense. And also I’m going to assume that’s an ironic “Heavens!”
Another fun fact from panel three: Tim Summers thinks that voting, military service, and legal adulthood in general are all nothing but a big pile of garbage.
Family Circus, 1/25/12
Oh, thanks, Jeffy! I had barely noticed your little zipper problem, but now that you’ve called it a “mouth” I can’t stop staring at it, since it looks exactly like a monstrous lamprey-maw leading directly to the infinite blackness of some unspeakable hell-dimension.
Apartment 3-G, 1/25/12
In other news, Lu Ann just told Margo to eat shit! Watch it Lu Ann, you just learned about your real biological parentage, but that doesn’t give you superpowers.
Six Chix, 1/24/12
I’m totally in love with this drunken lump’s extreme level of dishevelment! I especially like the incredibly awkward position he’s passed out in, and the fact that he’s still clutching his precious, precious tallboy, even in unconsciousness. Also, that slice of pizza, just sitting on the couch with no plate or anything and almost certainly permanently grease-staining the cushion, is charming to me in its disgustingness.
But still, ladies! Do not fear that any man you meet on the Internet will be gross! My wife found me online, and I have rarely left any kind of mark on the upholstery in her house in the eight years or so since I moved into it.
Mary Worth, 1/24/12
Well, if against all odds and good taste Mary’s victory lap is going to be extended for another week, I guess having Emily and her family do the worshipping is marginally OK, considering. “It’s good to see you too Ms. Worth! We are so very grateful! And we thought to ourselves, what gift could possibly be adequate to show our gratitude to the God-woman who rescued our daughter? So we now present you the dismembered torso of Emily’s kidnapper, wrapped in a plastic bag for your convenience. A blood sacrifice for you, O divine being!”
Archie, 1/24/12
If you need proof that the current run of Archie strips are repeats from a pre-Internet era, consider this: can you imagine any news event so horrible that would reduce a seasoned TV anchor, cynical to the core and used to smiling his way through whatever words the teleprompter spit out at him, to tears, that you wouldn’t learn about until the six o’clock news? Anything worth ol’ Dan Brenon’s anxiety here — nuclear holocaust, one or more coastal states falling into the sea, a mass outbreak of zombie plague, what have you — would surely have been chatted up on Twitter or something hours ago.
Spider-Man, 1/24/12
Having realized that he’s far too incompetent to defeat or even find Thor, Spidey has decided to seek help from the Avengers, just in time to be four months ahead of the Avengers movie! Anyway, they’ll probably rescue MJ for him, but they’re gonna smack him around a bit first, just for fun.