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Family Circus, 9/7/09

While my self-respect demands that I ignore Billy’s patented brand of ME ME ME LOOK AT ME idiocy, I am a little curious about just what sort of adult-time activity he’s interrupting. It appears that Mommy and some of her grown-up friends are hanging around the house decked out in what appear to be low-key hipster housewife togs from 1978-ish. The two non-Keanes look somewhat discomfited by Billy’s appearance, and really, why wouldn’t they be; still, I’d like to believe that there’s something vaguely disreputable going on here, possibly involving objects hidden away in those clunky purses, or clandestine ingredients added to the big mugs of International Coffee so casually balanced on the furniture.

Also, I’m curious as to what these ladies are doing over here at Billy’s bedtime. Shouldn’t they be at home reading fairy-tale stories to their own sleepy broods? (The idea that the Keane parents would be associating with non-breeders is obviously unthinkable.) Perhaps it’s actually 3 p.m., which has been established as Billy’s bedtime due to some combination of strict parenting ideas and his extreme obnoxiousness.

Marvin, 9/7/09

I feel like I’m getting kind of repetitive when it comes to Marvin, and I promise to stop the moment it stops serving up nightmare visions that turn my stomach. This strip at least demonstrates a sort of interesting visual effect, which is that all the cues that we associate with cute, adorable babies — grossly oversized heads, short, stubby limbs, a proportionally wider torso — become awful and terrifying when the baby in question is blown up to adult size. The vision of the monstrous Marvin-troll, the same height as his mother but at least three times the mass, with a grossly oversized head and eyes the size of baseballs, is so shocking that it allows us to ignore the even more unsettling fact that he’s berating his mother for dressing all slutty.

Spider-Man, 9/7/09

Since Spider-Man has no super-speed abilities, I question how much safer anyplace he could take MJ to within “seconds” might be. “Sorry, Logan. Had to take the lady to safety by putting her on top of that five-foot-tall pile of boxes inside the same building or place where we’re standing now. Is it a warehouse? I forget. Anyway, you can see her right over there. Let’s wave to her from down here, where it’s ever so much more dangerous!”

Jumble, 9/7/09

I originally read the rather compressed dialogue in today’s Jumble cartoon as “Now they can enjoy their food without sweating.” Because the toxic pesticides these pilots have sprayed all over the picnic tables will cause all of the parkgoers’ pores to close up, a few minutes before their nervous systems just shut down altogether.