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Funky Winkerbean, 2/9/11

Oh, thank goodness: I was a bit concerned that yesterday’s strip seemed to skip over Summer’s physical suffering, but today we’re reassured that Funky Winkerbean remains true to its core mission: lingering over the anguish of its characters. Note that Westview paramedics have black crosses on their first aid kits. That’s because they view their main role not so much as saving lives as helping you navigate your inevitable and painful voyage towards death.

Blondie, 2/9/11

Mr. Dithers may be more right than he knows, as I have a hard time believing that Dagwood holds anything more sacred than greasy, fatty, delicious food.

Mary Worth, 2/9/11

Sorry, everyone at Twitter! I know you’ve worked hard over the past few years to make your company a social media powerhouse and all, but now that Wilbur is about to explain to Mary what “tweeting” is, I think it’s best for all concerned if you lay everyone off, give whatever cash you have on hand back to the investors, and quietly shut down your Website, forever.

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B.C., 2/8/11

The reasons why the various human and animal characters of B.C. exist and each have their iron-clad associated schtick are now lost in the mists of time. One thing I’ve always found striking is that the ants always get the jokes most closely associated with the heterosexual nuclear family. This is odd because, out of all the creatures great and small who inhabit the strip, ants have by far the freakiest sex lives. Can you imagine the weird dramatic possibilities of actual ant family life, which starts when a newborn queen flies off with a host of her brothers, all of whom mate with her and then almost immediately die, and the queen spends the next several decades giving birth to her sister-children, who toil as her slaves? It would certainly be more compelling than these two talking about divorce plans or whatever.

Jumble, 2/8/11

Good lord, I’ve seen few expressions more sinister than the one on that vet’s face as he gently pets that champion pup. What are his nefarious plans for it? You might say he has a “CONNECTION TO A SINISTER UNDERGROUND DOG ORGAN TRAFFICKING RING.”

Funky Winkerbean,2/8/11

Oh, hey, it’s been weeks since someone’s life was destroyed in Funky Winkerbean! Here the strip manages to pull of a nice bit of double destruction: Summer’s dreams of basketball glory are figuratively shattered, because the inner workings of her knee are literally shattered. If only we could see the horrified faces of the crowd as they hear that sickening pop!

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Spider-Man, 2/7/11

Whoah, big surprise in Spider-Man today! No, it’s not the fact that newspaper Spider-Man has finally decided to cash in on Twilight mania; that was more or less inevitable. Nor should we be startled by the title character’s braggadocio over his epic sleeping prowess, since we’re all well aware that the sheer magnitude of his laziness is his only distinguishing feature. No, the shocker is that J. Jonah Jameson has decided to transform the Daily Bugle into a British-style tabloid, as we can see in panel two. Unfortunately, on day one the copy desk already used the only Britishisms they knew — “cheers” and “Yanks” and were forced to just slip a placeholding “something” in as the headline’s final word, hoping to cram in some BBC watching in time for tomorrow morning’s edition.

Shoe, 2/7/11

Speaking of the mass media, I’m pretty sure that this is the first time I’ve ever seen ostensible news-bird Cosmo actually perpetrating journalism in this strip. I’m not really sure why he’s filing his story from the Roz’s diner rather than the newsroom, unless the gruesome crime scene he’s describing is actually just off panel, and the characters’ favorite lunchtime spot has become a scene of unimaginable carnage, with corpses everywhere. Gory as the thought is, the strip at least deserves kudos for actually making its bird-world setting integral to the joke, for once.

Mark Trail, 2/7/11

Barely a year after managing to keep an inarticulate interrogative to himself, Mark Trail has apparently learned how to think exclamations without saying them. Soon he’ll be able to construct a sentence complete with nouns and verbs silently, entirely within his own mind — and then there will be nothing he can’t do.

Lockhorns, 2/7/11

Loretta doesn’t want Leroy passing out like last year, so she hid all the booze! Which is frankly pretty cruel. The only thing worse than a birthday party with no guests except the wife you hate is a sober birthday party with no guests except the wife you hate.