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OK, so I skipped a day yesterday … so, to make it up, here’s a big mishmosh of stuff from the last couple of days, arright?

Get Fuzzy, 3/7/06

When I was a little kid, I used to think that white people were pink, in the sense that, if I were coloring and I wanted to color in a person who was supposed to be white, I’d reach for the pink crayon. Kinda weird, I know, but I also thought my father was black. (Hey, he has kinky hair and is really swarthy and I didn’t understand genetics, alright?) One day in first grade, this little girl who I had a crush on (to the extent that a six-year-old can understand what a crush is) decided she wanted to color with me, and we were coloring together and then she asked to borrow a pink crayon, and I assumed it was to color one of the people we had drawn, but she started using it to color in the background instead, and then I got upset yelled at her that she wasn’t doing it right, and so she left in a huff. First in a long series of relationships I managed to sabotage from the start. In retrospect, the fact the she herself was black might have had something to do with it. Interracial romance is tough, don’t let anybody tell you different.

Anyway, this may be why my all-time favorite Bucky-deployed anti-Rob slur is “Pinky.” This strip gets special props from me because it manages to use three different variants of the term in four panels.

Gil Thorp, 3/7/06

God damn, but Gil Thorp is awesome. I don’t know what’s wrong with you all that you can’t appreciate it. Where else would you see a high school basketball fan taunt a homeless teen by dressing up as a hobo? North Bend must have a strong drama department, with an emphasis on the Theater of Cruelty.

Mary Worth, 3/8/06

Yeah, she’s a pilot of sorts … the “sort” of pilot who knows how to “fly a plane.” Which is pretty much the usual “sort.” There’s only two possible motivations for Salty Cal’s ripped-from-an-infomercial line in panel two: either he thinks “pilot of sorts” is code for something kinky (and is thus in for a bitter, bitter disappointment) or he’s the first character in the history of Mary Worth who knows how to correctly use sarcasm.

Also, that little sign at the bottom left of panel one, which appears to depict a giant fish playing pinball, is the single greatest bit of incidental art ever to appear in this strip.

Dick Tracy, 3/8/06

I have no idea why this horse is dragging an unconscious German infantry mime through the snow here. I just think it’s funny that Dick Tracy has finally come to terms with the fact that his wrist-phone is no longer cutting-edge technology.

Marvin, 3/8/06

Ha, ha! Marvin’s grandmother thinks Marvin’s grandfather is fat! Oh, that kills me. Really kills me. It makes me feel dead inside. Is this what you have to look forward to after forty years or so of marriage? I can’t wait. The best part is the contrast between her smug smile and his look of utter mortification. I’m surprised she isn’t extending the weigh station metaphor and charging him.

Meanwhile, in Judge Parker, Ned has been weeping one slow-motion, gelatinous tear after another for five straight days:

Also, Rex Morgan? Still gay.

Oh yes, let’s.

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Marvin, 3/11/06

So, when I last was following Marvin on anything resembling a regular basis, it was about a baby and his sarcastic thought balloons. Now I’ve picked it up again years later, and it also appears to be about dogs and their sarcastic thought balloons. What is it about cartoonists and adorable pets and their inner thoughts? I turn to Marvin for baby thought action, damn it. The fact that the babies and dogs can understand one another’s thoughts is an even more disturbing development.

By the way, here’s a lesson for you childless types that I learned the hard way yesterday: if someone tells you an adorable anecdote about their toddler, and you counter with a very similar anecdote about your pet, the parent will not be pleased. Take my word for it.

Anyway, this particular cartoon about the travails of doggie love is deeply incomprehensible to me. There’s an Irish wolfhound that lives in my neighborhood, and it’s roughly the size of a deer; I don’t want to sound prejudiced against interracial love, but the logistics of the dating situation described seem next to impossible if things were to go beyond platonic. Next: armpit hair? Buh? Is this a joke about Irish people (or Europeans, or “foreigners” in general) not shaving their armpits? Is the joke supposed to be that no dog shaves his or her armpits, so Duke is just plain crazy? If so, why bring the freakishly oversized Irish wolfhound up at all? Are Duke’s crossed eyes supposed to be the Universal Comics Symbol for Crazy? Or do they work in conjunction with the tongue to represent Being Grossed Out? The more I think about it, the more I resent it all.

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Marvin and Six Chix, 4/18/06

Boy, here’s a cheery pair. Marvin is funny because, awwww, he’s too young to understand the concept of death! Isn’t that precious? He isn’t constantly stalked by the terrifying specter of his own mortality! How cute!

What on earth have his parents parked him in front of to distract him while they eat/read/have sex/pretend for one precious moment that their life hasn’t been ruined by a baby? Too many inspirational Lifetime movies can warp his tiny developing mind.

Also, if I were forced to wear that hideous grey union suit as a baby, I would have figured out what it meant to die … of embarrassment!

Six Chix, meanwhile, is funny because … well, I guess it’s funny because this old lady is going to die! That’s a knee-slapper, all right. Unlike Marvin, she has a grim, joyless look that says that she’s known all about death for some time, and frankly thinks it’s time to get on with the whole thing. So come on, hellish, grinning demon from the netherword, let’s get this show on the road! We can pick up Tommie’s favorite patient on the way!

Curtis, 4/18/06

If Curtis is going to insist on doing a zany, contrived storyline where Curtis accidentally signs up his dad to give blood, the thing he fears the most, then I have to say I think it’s very clever to do it this way: with the hijinks implied (“I saw it on the news!” “…and the firemen were able to get me down out of the tree!”) rather than actually trying to put everything in panels. Nevertheless, the word “happy” in panel one is smack dab between two of the most inappropriate quotation marks in comics history — and this being Curtis, that’s saying a lot. In fact, I’ve decided that when you abuse the noble quotation mark this badly, you must suffer the wrath of … Quotin’ Margo!

By the way, kids, don’t try to air-quote like this at home; Margo is especially suited for this activity because, as Uncle Lumpy pointed out when I posted the comic this came from, she’s got six fingers on each hand. Yikes!

Get Fuzzy, 4/18/06

OK, seriously Darby, I can’t go down this road with you. Just let me know when you get back from the brink, I’ll be waitin’ for ya.