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Dick Tracy, 2/20/11

Wow, do you realize that I haven’t talked about Dick Tracy’s plot in more than 10 weeks? Here’s the sum total of what’s happened in that time: it rained, Dick and his prisoner ended up in abandoned granary, and his prisoner wormed his way out of his chains. That’s it! Of course, this is Dick Tracy, so this action consisted of the same semi-comprehensible catchphrases repeated over and over again and herky-jerky chronology. I assumed, naturally, that all this action took place over about 20 minutes, but apparently it’s been going on for more than a day. It’s possible that all this crazy madness is a hallucination brought on by Dick’s sleep deprivation, but that doesn’t explain the last 40 years or so of what’s gone on in this strip.

The Lockhorns, 2/20/11

Ha ha, so yes, it seems that you can get away with “shitting oneself in fear” jokes in a family newspaper so long as the terrified being is a bird and they poop out eggs instead of poop. I pass over this quickly, pausing only to pray that the people at Shoe don’t get wind of this, because I’m much more interested in why Loretta is out on this hunting expedition with Leroy despite not toting any firearm of her own. Presumably she’s not actually interested in shooting at birds and mostly wanted to wait for Leroy to fail so she could sigh out some heavy-lidded sarcastic rejoinder. So don’t put too much stock in her glum expression; she’s been waiting for this moment, squatting in a duck blind all the while, for hours.

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You know what Friday evening means, don’t you? Of course you do. IT’S YOUR TOP COMMENT!

“Buying real estate to impress the ladies seems to be the theme of A3G lately. I wonder who will buy Tommie an empty lot out in the suburbs. Oh, that’s right. Nobody.” –AndyL

And your hilarious runners up!

“Coming back can be difficult! …Especially coming back from the dead. Oh well, I’m gonna hang myself anyways.” –Alison

“The last panel does appear like a suicide attempt but, then again, I can’t imagine Mary taking her own life. Only her own life, I mean.” –Felix

“‘June tells Rex she’s going home with Berna to deal with Dexter!’ I have no idea what any of that means! But it certainly! sounds! important!” –BigTed

“Rex is donning the Mystical Gauntlet of Opulence. Invisible to mortal wage slaves, it grants him the power of Unbridled Spending.” –Doctor Handsome

“Iris is dead from internal bleeding, because Trey ran into her, literally. No wonder Margo is in such a good mood.” –Nekrotzar

“Does Batiuk even know what an ACL injury is? He seems to think that anything that isn’t cancer can be walked off or healed by a dog.” –Esther Blodgett

“Trey looks more like Margo every day, to the point I have to look at the hair bun to identify which is which. Is that how she reproduces?” –Zaratustra

“You know, I think this Rex Morgan storyline is really going to shine a spotlight on the fact that Rex is not actually a doctor and had his license suspended years ago. After all, there’s absolutely nothing he’s going to be able to do about all the injuries about to crop up now that Wolverine has invaded his strip, seeking the only place less interesting than Spider-Man to hang up his shingle and retire, violently.” –Black Drazon

“For some unknown reason, Spider-Man seems determined to give us nonstop plotlines about freakish mutants getting married. Well, better here than Gil Thorp, I suppose.” –Drew Funk

“In my opinion, The Chambers Affair is one of the best novels this year … which must suck for you, since that’s not the name of your book.” –True Fable

“I’m imagining that each book in Wilbur’s apparently large collection is hollowed out in order to secret sammiches.” –Dood

“I like that the current Mary Worth has managed to capture all the excitement of having lunch with my dad. All Mary has to do next is ask me if I’m going home to play my Gamebox 420 and the experience will be complete.” –Roktober

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Mary Worth, 2/18/11

So, this current Mary Worth storyline: opinions differ about it! Here, for instance, is the complete text of an email I received from my mother yesterday evening:

this is the most boring Mary Worth ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I admit that it’s not the roller-coaster ride of hilarity of, say, Charley or Jill, but it has its subtle charms! I sort of love how Wilbur’s been getting more and more exasperated as Mary continues to not get the awesomeness of Twitter. I mean, he doesn’t even really care for it that much, but since he’s showing Mary how it works, he wants her to be at least a little intrigued.

It’s also fun if you imagine that, in the second panel, they’re talking about Wilbur’s penis.

Anyway, if you want to try to purge that image from your mind, you might want to check out today’s Mary Worth-themed Shortpacked!

Mark Trail, 2/18/11

Mark Trail, meanwhile, continues to entertain in a more straightforward fashion. I’d like to believe that the third panel is taking place in that Coast Guard helicopter’s spacious stateroom, and the red-haired figure in the foreground is the vessel’s commanding officer. He’s watching his bumbling underlings bicker and wrestle over the diamond-less tackle box, and thinking about whether it would save time on paperwork to just “accidentally” shove Ben Smith out the door in mid-flight.

Judge Parker, 2/18/11

The title character from Judge Parker may not get as much time in the spotlight as Sam Driver, but in panel three he proves that he can be just as smug. Remember, kids, the coddled and the privileged start out with an unrealistically high opinion of themselves, so the only way to really stroke their egos is to frame your ass-kissing as “brutal honesty.”

Spider-Man, 2/18/11

So she used to be your finacée … uh huh … and now she is again … right, right … loves you in spite of your past … sure, makes sense … WAIT YOU’RE GOING TO GET MARRIED? OH DEAR GOD!!!!