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Shoe, 8/31/06

The punchline of this joke is at once bland, hackneyed, vaguely sexist, told better elsewhere, and immediately forgettable — classic Shoe, in other words. Of more interest to the comics student is Roz’s wide-eyed, head-bobbling reaction. She looks like the Perfersser just told her that the Health Department is planning to shut her diner down because of a psittacosis outbreak, not because she’s just been fed some dumb “male birds are from Mars, female birds are from Venus” shtick. (By the way, Perfesser, girl birds have feathers, not hair.) Is she not used to this sort of lameness? How long has she been in this damn strip?

The Phantom, 8/31/06

I have to admit to being a little dissapointed with the conclusion of this Phantom storyline, with the Ghost-Who-Yuks-It-Up-With-Midgets seeming pretty blasé about allowing Chatu the Shirtless Terrorist to escape and shirtlessly terrorize another day. Now we know that, for the Phantom, the big thrill is not bringing bare-torsoed ne’er-do-wells to justice, but instead setting things up so that you can really screw with their heads a few years down the line.

Luann, 8/31/06

Hey, everybody! The Toni and Brad Show’s back! Just like we’ve all been waiting for all this time! Right? Right?

Right?

[awkward silence]

In an effort to say something nice, I’ll say this: I like the way Reddy’s eyes are cast sarcastically to the right in the first panel. I’m imagining an elaborate series of electrodes attached to Brad’s ape-like mug so that the li’l safety robot can display a full panoply of lifelike facial expressions.

Mary Worth, 8/31/06

And heeeeere comes the bludgeoning.