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Apartment 3-G, 9/18/08

Enjoy this moment of the Apartment 3-G Crazed Dopeheads On Parade storyline. We’re sliding through deliriously wonderful high camp right now, but we’ll no doubt end up in awful kitsch soon enough.

Beetle Bailey, 9/18/08

I find it kind of poignant that Otto is staring at the newspaper in the first panel, despite the fact that his thought balloon implies that he’s illiterate. I find it kind of confusing that he says “astrology forecast” instead of “horoscope.”

Gil Thorp, 9/18/08

“But then I noticed she was wearing some kind of terrifying vest-thing with a skull and crossbones on the front and a heart on the back! So now I’m just hiding behind these bushes until she goes away.”

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Crock, 9/17/08

Ever since the infamous Sally Forth-Target-Rush scandal, it’s been important for readers to stay vigilant and call comic artists out when corporate payola corrupts what ought to be a pure art form. Today, we see how brazen some on-the-take comics features can be. This strip was obviously subsidized by Tommy Hilfiger, Fruit of the Loom, or some other underwear manufacturer determined to associate Calvin Klein in the public mind with a disgruntled chicken being boiled alive as part of a terrible joke in an awful comic.

Mark Trail, 9/17/08

Like most people, I pretty much assume that the placement of the stems of word balloons in Mark Trail is some kind of elaborate and long-running surrealist joke. (Mark Trail itself may be an elaborate and long-running surrealist joke, but that’s a topic for a different time.) Anyway, today’s strip takes this little game to what has to be its logical conclusion, as a grinning Mark holds an entire conversation with himself in front of his dumbfounded family. Presumably he’s not letting Cherry get a word in edgewise, because he’s afraid that she’ll burst into tears upon learning that her husband is once again leaving for a new adventure after only about twenty minutes at home, and he has no desire to be befuddled once more by the expression of so-called human “emotions.”

Family Circus, 9/17/08

Ha ha, Jeffy! Mommy was giving you one last chance to convince her that you have too much sentimental value to her to sell, and you failed. I hope you enjoy the garment industry! You’ll be starting on the ground floor, which is to say the basement, where you’ll be chained up.

Pluggers, 9/17/08

Pluggers know there ain’t much point in going to a fancy bar when you can just get drunk at home on bargain booze and pass out on the couch.

The book is there so that this plugger doesn’t stain his shirt when he inevitably vomits on himself, as pluggers are illiterate.

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Herb and Jamaal, 9/16/08

Well hello there, Random Mustachioed Dude Who We’ve Never Once Seen Before In This Feature! The title characters are on a break from their usual hilariously nonspecific antics (Jamaal was available for his contractually obliged appearance in the second panel), so why not just wander in and thought balloon folksily about something or other? That sounds like good cartooning right there!

It’s possible that RMDWWNOSBITF is setting up some no-doubt fascinating story about adoption or something that is really dying to be told in this feature; such a narrative would obviously require a new character as a protagonist, since no one would want to disrupt the lives of the existing Herb and Jamaal crew, who operate like a well-oiled machine of hilarity. On the other hand, if this fellow is just going to show up one day, muse silently about this strange journey we call life, then wander off, never to be seen again, I will have gained a certain respect for this comic.

Mother Goose and Grimm and Monty, 9/16/08

Monty (a strip that I never talk about here, but for which I harbor a certain affection) and Mother Goose and Grimm have both decided to launch into a series of painfully unfunny Sopranos jokes this week. And, really, why not. It’s the 1.25th anniversary of the show going off the air this month, so it’s more topical now than ever.

Spider-Man, 9/16/08

This strip, with its endless television-watching, whining, flu infections, and wholly accidental plot resolutions, can sometimes be a little too intense for newspaper readers. That’s why it’s important for Spidey to take a break every couple of weeks or so and just recap the plot for nobody in particular. Whew, I feel calmer already!

Apartment 3-G, 9/16/08

Damn you, Alan, I’ve sat idly by long enough while you spiraled downward into dope-fueled madness. Today, though, you crossed the line. Why do you denigrate booze? What did sweet, sweet liquor ever do to you? Getting drunk is a lot more than “better than nothing,” OK? It’s how humans have been altering their consciousness long before you and your fancy narcotics came along. Hey, don’t you just drop the thought of getting drunk on the job because you think there might be drugs somewhere around there! Are you listening to me? Oh my God, he’s a monster!