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Dilbert, 5/23/06

Panel one: Trademark minimalist Dilbert art, straight on. Panel two: Trademark minimalist Dilbert art, at a 30 degree angle. Panel three: Trademark minimalist Dilbert art, through a window. Conclusion: You can dress these drawings up, but you can’t really take them out.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/23/06

For everybody’s who’s been waiting since 1971 for Herb and Jamaal’s take on glam rock-inspired androgyny: at long last, your day has arrived. Note cunning use of passive voice in punchline, maintaining the mystery for all of us, for some mysterious and unfunny reason.

Marvin, 5/23/06

Marvin has spent the last week and half lingering on a “Marvin’s grandfather has become obsessed with Sudoku” storyline so mind-warpingly boring that it makes Gasoline Alley’s DMV-a-thon look like the car chase scene in the French Connection by comparison. (The game has been referred to as “Yunoklu” throughout; I imagine that the reasons for this are trademark-related, because they certainly can’t be humor-related.) Today’s episode does have a glimmer of interest, however, in that blind panic has turned one (and only one) of Grandpa’s glasses lenses blue. If you can explain this, you’re a better comics-explainer than I.

Momma, 5/23/06

Hmm, there’s some odd quoting going on here: “Show biz” is quoted when Momma says it, but not when Francis does. I wonder what Finger Quotin’ Margo thinks of that?

Damn, girl, that’s cold.

Cockroach update: Another freakishly huge representative of order Blattodea in the cat’s dish this morning, leading to a humiliating repeat of yesterday’s pathetic drama. That’s twice in two days; in the 36 months of the food bowl sitting in that exact spot, it had only happened once before that. Are the roaches getting smarter? Are they plotting to rise up against us? I’m disturbed. Anyone have any bright ideas on roach control?

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Get Fuzzy, 5/22/06

This strip illustrates both why I love Get Fuzzy and why it’s hard to explain to those who don’t love Get Fuzzy why I love Get Fuzzy. The punchline is a pun, and like even the best of its ilk, is deeply groanworthy. But Bucky’s pun-setup dialogue in panel two is just hilarious to me. I love the rhythm of the sentence: “Lemme tell ya, Pinky, if you don’t have a comfy place to sit, you can just walk right on by the ol’ Russian Lit section.” But if it doesn’t strike you as funny, then there’s no way to make you love it, I suppose.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/22/06

“Yeah, it’s June alright … she’s attached a gadget to my genitals that starts beeping whenever I’m sexually attracted to another man. Damn this stifling heterosexual facade!”

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Sally Forth, 5/21/06

So I got up this morning and stumbled down the hall to my office, which also doubles as the cat’s dining area, and said cat was acting very agitated and weird. It quickly became obvious why: there was a gynormous cockroach, probably two or three inches long, hanging out in her food dish. Hoagie (the cat) will gleefully carry mice around in her mouth and bat them around the floor until they die of some combination of internal hemorrhaging and terror, but she was a little wigged out by the roach, and with good reason, as it was stomach-turning and disgusting and horrifying. The way it scurried happily around the inside of her bowl, looking for tiny food particles to feast on and no doubt leaving little bug poops behind, was deeply disturbing to both of us.

I went downstairs to where my wife was eating her oatmeal, and attempted to convince her with some passive-aggressive whining that she would kill the beast if she really loved me, but she pointed out that (a) she was in the middle of having breakfast and needed to get to work soon, (b) all cat-related chores fell to me, the cat lover, and this fell into that category because the bug was in the cat’s dish, and (c) she had killed the roach she spotted in the basement last night, so I was on my own.

Going back upstairs, I took off my slippers and put on my thickest-soled shoes and a pair of socks, to get as many layers as possible between me and the foul insect. Then I came back into my office, gingerly picked up the bowl (which only sent my six-legged nemesis into a new bout of repulsive scurrying), dumped its contents out on the floor, and then began stomping on the roach repeatedly. Only after I had truly squashed it dead did I notice that I was flailing my hands around and making a high-pitched, girly squealing noise.

I headed downstairs to get a paper towel with which to pick up the corpse. “Sounded like quite a battle,” my wife said, adding, “Don’t bring that thing down here, I’m trying to eat.”

What’s my point? My point is that even I can open a pickle jar. Or at least I can if I use one of those little rubber mat thingies. They save wear and tear on the hands. You should really try one, Ted!