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Beetle Bailey, 3/10/07

I think the Beetle Bailey installments that put the Halftracks’ soul-crushing sham of a marriage under a microscope are quickly becoming my least favorites (and yes, I’m as surprised as anyone to find that my hitherto blanket distaste towards this strip has become granular enough for me to start having “least favorites”). Anyway, this strip gets extra non-bonus points for contrasting the General’s for once seemingly genuine concern about his wife’s health with Mrs. Halftrack’s bitter “punchline” about her husband’s very serious drinking problem.

She’s one to talk, though, as she’s already holding his bottle of discount hooch before he even gives her the opening for her cutting remark. Presumably she needs to get liquored up before she can emotionally handle having “relations” with her incompetent husband, who openly holds her in contempt.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/10/07

OK, Abbey bringing down Elvis was funny, but Abbey holding the police at bay is ludicrous, and, more importantly, June’s smugness about it is just disturbing. Niki’s straight off the streets, so you know he likes to see the po-po humbled, but June ought to be putting up at least a pretense of respecting the authority of law enforcement. Rex looks fairly dubious in panel one, but as usual has decided that not doing or saying anything is the best way out of any situation.

(Many commentors have suggested that this “police officer” is a phony, part of some larger double game being played by Elvis, Eight-Ball, and their meth-dealing associates. I suppose it’s possible, but I’m not sure if Rex Morgan really has that advanced a twist built in to it, and wouldn’t a hardened criminal be even less afraid of a French Brittany than a cop?)

Crankshaft, 3/10/07

I hate revisiting this “alpha mom” storyline as much as you do, but I do think it’s worth noting that the Crankshaft’s school district uses the Alamo as its bus depot. And has painted it pink.

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Apartment 3-G, 3/9/07

You know, I’ve made fun of Apartment 3-G for being sexless, but I may have to revise that assessment; today’s strip contains a fairly blatant invitation for a quick pre-business-trip Chinese-food-and-screwing session. I’m glad to see that Eric is still attracted to Margo after she’s revealed her hideously mutated claw-hand in panel three.

Archie, 3/9/07

Uh oh! It looks like the Archie-Joke-Generating-Laugh-Unit 3000 is malfunctioning! I’m assuming that “secret” in the first panel is some kind of typo (writo?) for “great”, since it doesn’t make sense in context, and the third panel is clearly supposed to repeat the line from the first. There’s always a few bugs in the system!

Blondie, 3/9/07

Hey, do you know what the least appropriate day would be on which to run a comic that revolves around it being “a brand-new week”? That’s right, Friday!

Hey, do you know what day it is today?

Mary Worth, 3/9/07

Man, you sure don’t have to say much to make Mary Worth feel good about herself. Look at her facial expression and body language in the second panel; it’s like an apotheosis of smugness. “Why … I did! I saved Jeff’s life! I’m a hero! I’m the greatest hero in American history!”

Dennis the Menace, 3/9/07

THAT’S RIGHT, MR. WILSON, YOU TELL ‘EM! BLACK POWER! BLACK POWER!

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Family Circus, 3/8/07

Man, does the total and constant humiliation of Jeffy ever get old? I’m going to go ahead and say “no.” In a normal human family, Grandma would have probably sent clothes a few sizes too big in the expectation that her grandson would soon grow into them; however, since Jeffy’s been the same height for decades and shows no sign of getting any taller, we have to assume that her aim was to drive him ever deeper into self-loathing.

The Phantom, 3/8/07

So the Phantom is in the midst of an incredibly dull storyline involving the kidnapping of Old Man Mozz and some bank robbers who want the seer to [Note: Rest of recap cut because of extreme dullness. –Eds.] Anyway, I’d just like to point out that Kono slipping and falling on the steps of the bank he’s attempting to rob, followed by him cracking his dreadlocked skull open as his eyes roll back in his head, is a pretty gruesome image for the funny pages.

And where is our purple-clad, stripy-butt hero in all of this? Last we saw him, he was lounging in a jungle clearing while his cone-headed midget sidekick was napping on top of an elephant. No, really.

Pluggers, 3/8/07

You heard it here first, people: The only choice available for the radio-listening plugger is “AM” or “FM.” What, you also want to be able to change channels within each band? What are you, some kind of chardonnay-swilling East Coast liberal elitist? In this sense, plugger radios are like the one available in Nazi Germany, which were also pre-set to a single station. Although my guess is that pluggers listen to a lot fewer hateful rants about how the Jews are undermining the purity of the master race and a lot more hateful rants about how the Cowboys really need to get more free agent help for their offensive line.

I also note that today’s featured plugger has been banished out of the house entirely, presumably so that his radio listening doesn’t distract his she-plugger mate from her “stories.” Either that, or all his furniture has been repossessed and a tree stump is a “plugger easy chair.”

They’ll Do It Every Time, 3/8/07

The looks of pure joy on the faces of Loopina’s parents in the first panel at the prospect of a Loopina-free evening are only matched by the wave of obscenity-tinged bile we get in the second. It seems that her parents don’t really like her very much, though that should have been obvious from the mere fact that they named her “Loopina.”