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So many items of interest to you, the faithful reader, have built up over the past few days that I have bundled them together into a maga-metapost! Perhaps most important: I remind everyone who lives in, or who will be near to, the Tucson, AZ, area on March 7 that you will have an opportunity to meet me! And the lovely and talented Mrs. C.! And Bob Weber, Jr.! We’ll be meeting up at the Kon Tiki lounge at 6 pm (an hour earlier than my initial announcement). (UPDATE: Mrs. C. wanted me to make it clear that we’ll be having dinner.) Here’s the thing: I’m going to be making reservations, so if you plan on meeting up with us, it is imperative that you let me know so that I can make the reservation for the correct number of people! I’m going to make the reservations on Monday, so please e-mail me at bio@jfruh.com before then! Please? Pretty please?

Now, on to the other random bits o’ info!

• Most of you are familiar with the outrageously awesome Reynard Noir, which reimagines Slylock Fox as an ongoing old-school noir film. The site’s creator, Rob MacArthur, was recently interviewed by Kittysneezes.com. A fascinating look behind the scenes! The second part of the interview is where he starts really talking about his site.
• Speaking of Slylock Fox, Bob Weber, Jr., now has his own store at CafePress! I don’t get a cut of any of this stuff, but you should check it out anyway!
• I’ve been hearing rumblings for some time about the coming Luann-based musical, but it all seems to be coming to fruition; apparently there’s going to be a staged reading at San Diego’s New Village Arts Theatre this coming Monday. (Does a “reading” of a musical actually involve singing?) Any faithful readers in the area are desperately begged to attend and report!
• Finally, I’ve been meaning to share this picture and note for a while. Faithful reader Barry encountered Mark Trail himself in the comic strip section of Universal’s Islands of Adventure!

  

  

  “It felt blasphemous to turn Mark Trail’s mighty fist of justice against him,” Barry reports, “but the only way to pose the shot in its rightful Mark-Trail-beatdown-handing-out context would be to have him punching me in the crotch, and Mark keeps his punches above the belt. As any good naturalist should.” Barry also notes that “just up the street was the Spider-Man ride. I tried to stage something there, but couldn’t find any bricks or TV sets handy.”

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Marmaduke, 2/2/08

In the aftermath of the assassination of Julius Caesar, the great orator Cicero became the most important figure in the Roman Senate; after a brief period of political truce, he began a series of increasingly bitter public speeches against Marc Antony, Caesar’s political heir. While these speeches — the so-called Philippics — are regarded as masterpieces of oratory, they also goaded Antony so much that the fragile political peace that held in Rome collapsed; in the ensuing brief but nasty civil war, Cicero was captured and killed by one of Antony’s soldiers. His severed head and hands were displayed in the Roman forum, but legend has it that first Antony’s wife Fulvia berated his head and pricked his tongue with needles as revenge against the invective he had hurled against her husband.

This is a roundabout way of wondering why the hell we can see Marmaduke’s owner’s legs under the table but not Marmaduke’s. My guess is that the family has finally risen up against the tyrannical monster that has ruled their life for so long, and that the matriarch can now say everything she ever wanted to say while he was alive to his enormous, lifeless, detached skull.

Shoe, 2/2/08

I’m guessing Skyler is less than keen to hear about the young, vigorous body you once had, Perfesser. In fact, seeing as I’ve always pegged him as being somewhere in the 10 to 13 range, he probably is less than keen to get bedtime stories from you at all. However old he is, it’s good to see in panel three that he’s already mastered that heavy lidded, life-has-crushed me look that his uncle presents so regularly.

Since we only hear the beginning of this story, the mystery of what happened to Cosmo’s 28-inch waist will probably remain ever mysterious; I wonder if his reluctance to get out of his chair and actually walk to the child’s bedside to read his bedtime story is contributing factor to the loss of his slender middle or a result of the same.

Wizard of Id, 2/2/08

Earlier this week, the Wizard of Id did a particularly egregious variation on its long-running “torture is hilarious” theme, but for some reason I found that less troubling than this strip, in which it’s posited that the best way to end poverty is to physically assault poor people. We can see the unconscious (or possibly lifeless) body of the medieval hobo in the background of panel three, so obviously our brave hero hasn’t taken things to the logical conclusion and eaten him.

Luann, 2/2/08

Well, sure, dad, but you could be terrified and then crushed, which could cause permanent paralysis. Honestly, this is basic first aid that Brad should have learned in his fireman’s training.

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Luann, 1/30/08

Advancing character development in a comic strip is actually a fairly tricky thing to do, and so I give props to Luann for getting Brad out of the house and the fast food industry and into the Fire Department a few years ago. And real-life firefighters face seriously traumatic situations, which, combined with a no-doubt prevailing tough-guy ethic, means that seminars like “Your Mental Health” are important. But could we please see Brad and/or Tony attending fewer seminars and elementary school safety presentations and instead, you know, putting out fires now and then? Chopping through doors with axes, pulling screaming children from burning rooms, leaping out of second-story windows as the smoke billows — and then, when they get back to the firehouse with adrenaline still singing through their veins, letting nature take its course? Even Herb and Jamaal has featured firefighting scenes this month, for Pete’s sake. It would sure be a hell of a lot more interesting than this “saving Toni a seat at the mental health seminar” crap.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/30/08

Hey, let’s check in with our friends in the whimsical Winkerworld! Now-near-deaf former band leader Harry Dinkle and his wife have decided to check out the bright lights of Las Vegas and see what all the fuss is about! But Harry doesn’t gamble, and for some reason he can’t really enjoy himself as he wanders the casino floor, seeing the dead-eyed elderly pouring the last of their savings into bleeping electronic devices designed by teams of experts to fleece them. Then Harry makes a pun! And his wife smirks, or she may just be suffering a stroke.

Gasoline Alley, 1/30/08

Speaking of whimsy, in Gasoline Alley our postal protagonist imagines that if he were murdered by his wife in an argument over money, that would be for the best. This sort of logic is why so many post offices have bullet-proof glass in front of the counters.

Mary Worth, 1/30/08

Ha ha, I like Drew’s pissy little face in panel one, but I love his “Groan!” thought balloon in panel two. It of course puts him in fine company with tweaker Tommie, one of the greatest Mary Worth characters in recent memory. Let’s hope we’re witnessing stage one of his slide into drug addiction!

As for our ad agent lovebirds, is there any dumber romantic scenario than a whirlwind public romance with your boss, particularly if your boss is a possessive weirdo who “accidentally” shows up two hours early for your date? No, nothing good can come of this for anybody involved except for Mary, who is almost certainly at home lining up the platitudes she’s going to unleash once this whole thing goes south.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 1/30/08

Al Scaduto held back his most politically charged work, asking that it only be published after his death.

Also: Thanks to a faithful inside tipster for this story detailing the shocking truth about Gil Thorp’s Andrew Gregory!

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Luann, 12/19/07

Check out Toni’s right hand. Anything weird about it? A little off? No? How about the fact that it appears to be almost two-thirds as long as the whole rest of her arm? I know she’s a cartoon character with, for instance, weird beady little eyes and an impossibly large mouth, but there’s something about her hand that’s creeping me out. Urrrgggh.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really hope Brad and Toni are overcome by the festiveness of their costumes and end up playing “bad Santa and naughty elf.” Not because I want to see or even imagine their erotic congress, mind you, but I just want it over with. Please. The sexual tension between these two is not hot. It’s soooo very un-hot and queasy-making, and the inhumanly large hand ISN’T HELPING. Just do it already, you two, because it will be terrible and awkward and you’ll never do it again and then we can all rest easy.

Spider-Man, 12/19/07

The sad thing is that the six weeks of Google searches to which we’re about be treated are actually preferable to the alternative, which is of course six weeks of Peter Parker whining at the TV. At least Spider-Man will actually be doing something, even if it’s just typing. I love the way the flat-screen monitor is dramatically foregrounded in the final panel, as if to say, “Here, dear reader! Here is the true hero of this strip! Behold, the Internet!”

Slylock Fox, 12/19/07

Remember, everyone, you don’t need to spend big money on tickets to Stomp! You can just recreate it in your own home! Also, children as young as eighteen months can be trained to make margaritas.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 12/19/07

I have a note in my calendar that today’s TDIET is from faithful reader Tili; if so, stand up and take a bow! I am in full solidarity with you, my night owl brother or sister. The Man tells you that you should get up early and go to bed early, but without late night toiling where would we be? This blog would be short quite a few posts, I’ll tell you that much.

Marmaduke, 12/19/07

Do you ever get the feeling that the creator of Marmaduke is just totally bonkers? Well, today’s comic is not going to disabuse you of that notion.

Hey, remember when I speculated on a Sally Forth-Shortpacked crossover? Behold my power over the world of cartooning!

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Crock, 12/12/07

Today’s Crock has plenty of little run-of-the-mill terrible touches — like, for instance, the word balloon in panel two, clearly drawn for three lines of text, but with only two lines of text actually floating in it. But I’m sort of intrigued by the random pink squiggles in the background of the first panel. I’d like to believe that they’re blood streaks on the wall from the last perky thin saleslady who tried to talk smack about Grossie, but it’s more likely that someone was trying to draw some clothing racks in the background to add a little detail to the scene and then suddenly realized that no, wait, this is Crock, what am I doing.

Luann, 12/12/07

I thought that for sheer irritation, nothing could beat the “Dirk and Brad compete for Toni’s affection via the Christmas food drive” storyline from a couple of years back, but now I can see that the “Brad and Toni sublimate their incomprehensible attraction via the Christmas food drive” is going to come close. Brad’s Neanderthal suggestion that a meeting isn’t a date unless he’s paying will presumably blow up in his face when he cruises to food-gathering victory (thanks to TJ coming through with a bunch of cans of Dinty Moore stew that “fell off the back of a truck”), leaving him to enjoy a meal of lobster (which he will adamantly insist is NOT A DATE) and loneliness.

Mark Trail, 12/12/07

Luke Wilson spotted canoodling with mystery woman!

Luke Wilson, star of such Hollywood pictures as The Royal Tenenbaums and Old School, has been seen around town with a mysterious dark-haired and arch-eyebrowed beauty. The picture below was snapped as they left the Ivy last month:

Now reports are coming in that this lady is married — or was, until her husband’s murder last month. Hollywood is abuzz with the notion that Luke, long known as the “not crazy Wilson brother”, might have something to do with the dastardly deed. Though a mustachioed French-Canadian hillbilly has been jailed for the crime, NOAA weather spokesman Mark Trail insists that the Quebecker is innocent. “You exploited a friend of mine’s fiery temper!” Trail was heard to shout at Wilson at a party at Chateau Marmont.

Family Circus, 12/12/07

I’m not sure what exactly those papers are that Big Daddy Keane is holding in his lap, but they look official, what with the seal on top and everything. Let’s hope they’re the forms for committing Jeffy to that special school far away so that nobody has to listen to his idiotic questions anymore.

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Apartment 3-G, 11/28/07

Hmm, perhaps I was too hasty yesterday when I dismissed out of hand the idea that there might be some tension between the A3G narration boxes and the actual narrative. How else to explain panel one, in which we are told that our fearsome foursome are “on the way to the tavern” when in fact they are very obviously standing around in Apartment 3-G’s blandly decorated living room and not going anywhere? The only way they could be less going to the tavern is if they were out on the street walking away from the tavern, though that would be harder to convey in the limited panel space here.

On the other hand, the sudden transition from blinding white to inky black in the second panel is evocative of some kind of movement. Maybe the Professor has whipped up some advanced transporter device, and we’re seeing them walk through a hole in space-time to emerge safely on the tavern’s front steps without having to encounter Manhattan street riff-raff. Or maybe there’s just an entrance to a Prohibition-era secret passageway behind the girls’ kitchen cabinets that connects to every gin joint in town.

Dennis the Menace, 11/28/07

I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen Dennis with a look of obvious panic on his face; I guess it’s also the first time I’ve seen him with his pants down. I’ll stop going further down this incredibly inappropriate road because I mainly wonder how this can be worked into the increasingly awesome The Luck of Dennis St. Michel, Viscount Stokington. If you ever doubted that the combination of Dennis the Menace and Regency pastiche would be completely hilarious, this blog should put your mind at rest.

Mary Worth, 11/28/07

Man, I thought Mary was cold-hearted over the past few days as she allowed him to believe that she had some gentleman caller over so that he’d run over and fight for her honor. Now she continues to thrust her hound at her erstwhile not-lover as the latter’s respiratory passages begin to seize up. The question now is: who will win this battle of wills for Mary’s heart? Chester’s cuter, but Jeff is probably marginally smarter.

In panel one, Mary is waving Chester’s little paw at Jeff to give some veneer of respectability to her blatant attempt to thrust the dog’s genitals in the good doctor’s face.

Luann, 11/28/07

I’d say that this is supposed to be some sort of commentary on how secular iconography is displacing the true religious significance of the Christmas holiday, but this is the same strip that had town tramp Tiffany playing the Virgin Mary in this pageant. Luann headquarters is lucky that it isn’t a smoldering, lightning-struck hole right now.

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Luann, 11/21/07

Pity the poor Luann creative team! In the continuing slow evolution of the strip’s characters, they’ve hit upon a potential gold mind of potential wacky plots: two young men living together, one somewhat impressionable, one somewhat scheming. Normally, you could just lie back and let the hijinks happen. But this is a comic strip that runs in mainstream family newspapers, so all the topics that you’d think of using for this setup — getting girls pregnant, hard drugs, getting into fights, having sex with girls, marijuana, hard liquor, video games, kissing girls, beer, uncleanliness, having physical contact of any sort with girls — are apparently off limits. We’re instead left with TJ’s manic holiday decorating jones, which, while potentially mildly amusing, seems a wee bit out of touch. Couldn’t Santa’s arm fly off in front of some little kids who would then wet their pants in terror at the sight? Oops, pants-wetting: also off-limits, apparently.

Blondie, 11/21/07

This is presumably supposed to be some sort of wry social commentary about how the commercial exploitation of Christmas seems to begin earlier and earlier every year with the stores and the malls and the waddyagonnadoamiright?, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that desperate food addict Dagwood Bumstead would be so in love with Thanksgiving, a holiday whose main ritual is gluttony, that he’d build a series of twisted idols to it. My only surprise is that the Thanksgiving tree isn’t being trimmed with real edible yams and turkey flesh, to be consumed once everything on the table has been crammed down Dagwood’s ravenous gullet. Elmo, who has long settled into the role of Dagwood’s enabler, wants to know how he can assist with the rampant food worship; only Daisy wordlessly questions the madness.

Family Circus, 11/21/07

A good way to keep Dolly in line is to keep her ignorant of actual theology and just tell her that things that annoy you are sins that will damn her soul to hell for all eternity. Other sins in the Keane household: running in the house, staying up past eight o’clock, talking while mommy and daddy are trying to watch TV, and singing Christmas carols at any time.

Pluggers, 11/21/07

“Wait a minute!” I’m sure you said when you saw Pluggers this morning. “Canada? They don’t have pluggers in Canada! How can pluggers live in the land of Hillarycare and a marriage between a dog-man and a rhino-man? Admittedly, this submission came not from the hot-shot big city of Toronto but rather from some little town called ‘Torono’ that I’ve never heard of, but still … Canada?” Well, fear not for your sense of sanity: Idris Mercer is actually faithful Comics Curmudgeon reader Skullturf Q. Beavispants! I actually remember him mentioning this as a potential Pluggers entry in the comments some months back; I’m sure he’s gratified to see his idea acted out by an obese, flannel-clad semihuman. Not that I don’t fully encourage all of you to keep sending your petty gripes to TDIET (and we have plenty coming up in the next couple of months) but the Pluggers code has been harder to crack, and we must salute Mr. Beavispants as a result.

Unlike those who had their entries employed by TDIET, Skullturf was not contacted and told that his idea would be run, nor was he sent a suitable-for-framing copy of the cartoon, because pluggers don’t expect or deserve that sort of consideration.

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Apartment 3-G, 9/27/07

“Here, Margo, you might want to ‘amuse yourself’ over here by my desk. Right in front of this Webcam, which is totally not at all turned on and connected to the Internet. Have fun! Heh heh, ‘twiddle my thumbs’…”

Dick Tracy, 9/27/07

So as far as I know, in a D.C. context “the Rotunda” is the space under the big dome thingie in the middle of the Capitol building, which means that Gretchen just suicide-bombed (is there an active verb form of “suicide bomber?”) Congress, eliminating the legislative branch, throwing the U.S. government into chaos, and presumably ushering in an “emergency regime” that will last indefinitely and be fronted by Dick Tracy, a well-known authoritarian sadist. This will definitely be more interesting than the last few weeks of this strip, which mostly consisted of aimless driving around.

Gil Thorp, 9/27/07

Marty Moon’s days of drunken debauchery must have been a lot wilder than I thought, because it looks like he lost an eye when someone attacked him in a bar fight with a broken bottle. He’s so excited by the Mudlarks’ late-game collapse, he hasn’t even noticed that his glass eye is veering wildly to the right.

Luann, 9/27/07

Never mind the little spat over who gets to be TJ’s “partner”; doesn’t it smell kind of fishy that Brad, an employee of the Fire Department, will be helping secure a no-bid, taxpayer-underwritten contract with said Fire Department for the catering business that he’s secretly moonlighting for? The whole sordid deal will climax with eight weeks of hearings before the city council’s Ethics Subcommittee, at the end of which you will be begging for a return to the “Luann and Bernice fight about Ben” storyline.

Marmaduke, 9/27/07

Is anyone else as creeped out by the name of this butcher’s shop as I am? It’s like, instead of a storeroom or walk-in freezer at the back of the store, there’s just an entrance to a cave. A cave full of meat.

One Big Happy, 9/27/07

It’s been well established that One Big Happy’s Joe is ignorant, and willfully so. Today he’s covering his face in a desperate attempt to block out new knowledge of any sort. This must be heartbreaking to his father, who loves learning so much that he’s chosen to subscribe to the premium digital cable package just so he can get the Algebra Channel.

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Hey kids! Before we launch into today’s comics, I need to back up a bit, because I didn’t give credit where it was due yesterday. Seems that Monday’s TDIET was submitted by faithful reader Klipper an his wife, better known no doubt as Zoe‘s parents!

They’ll Do It Every Time, 9/24/07

It’s OK, Klipper! You can just get up and change the channels with the little buttons on the TV set itself, you know. No need to cuss. Kudos on the green plaid pants, by the way — most people wouldn’t have the nerve to pull that off.

And now on to today!

Archie, 9/25/07

Ignoring the glaring problem with the dates (perhaps the AJGLU 3000 refuses to embrace the papist conspiracy that is the so-called “Gregorian calendar”?), I am quite pleased by the vision of these four teens lined up at the Learning Bar, each with an iconic symbol of their favorite summer activity, to wit:

• Jughead: Surfing.
• Archie: Naked basketball.
• Betty: Being carried aloft on a litter by a team of manservants, one of whom is extra-hunky and shielding her from the hot sun with a fringed umbrella of the type employed the by the queens of the Orient in days of yore.
• Veronica: Putting on her cleverest disguise and prowling the night as the Black Cat, Riverdale’s greatest — and sexiest — rug thief!

Mary Worth, 9/25/07

“Mary, please don’t say ‘I told you so…'” HA HA HA HA HA HA

Poor Drew! He’s managed to botch relationships with two perfectly nice women, he has to go admit to his father’s awful not-girlfriend that she was right, and if this little couch scene is any indication, he probably just walked in on a little Dr. Jeff-Mary make-out time. So in panel two, he’s responding the only way he knows how: by shrugging the most epic shrug that human shoulders have ever attempted. I mean, look at that thing. He’s even putting his knees into it. He’s going to need some long hours at the chiropractor afterwards, but his form is so perfect, it’ll totally be worth it.

Luann, 9/25/07

Actual, not-made-up discussion my wife and I had last night as we were falling asleep:

Me: Hey, does TJ have a job or anything?

Her: He’s a vest salesman! …no, a vest model.

TJ apparently only uses his snazzy sweater vests as formalwear, though: when he’s cooking for his hard-working man, he wears a more casual black button-up white collared number. Today, Brad suggests that his friend might make some extra money by serving as the firehouse’s sexual plaything, a proposal that’s not being dismissed out of hand. Oh, TJ! You’ll do anything to avoid getting a real job!

Apartment 3-G, 9/25/07

Yeah, you know, “family matters.” Like in junior high, when they separated the boys and the girls and showed them filmstrips about “family matters.”

True Margo-watchers know what that vibrating index finger presages. Eric and Nora need to get down on the floor now and cover their heads with their arms if they want to have any hope of coming out of this with their pretty faces intact.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/14/07

Sometimes I get a terrifying moment where I believe I control the comics with my mind and all the nonexistent subtext I go on and on about is actually true, and I had a doozy of one of those when I read today’s Rex Morgan. Sure, it’s the usual “Hey, Rex, let’s screw!” “I think someone’s forgetting our arrangement” routine that we’ve come to know and love, but then everybody’s fun is spoiled by the look of heartbreaking disappointment on June’s face in panel three. Yes, Rex is dashing off, and by taking Nikki with him, it’s check and mate, if you know what I mean; June is once again the lonely point on the triangle. Will the next plotline be about how June needs to strike out on her own to find love, or at least satisfaction? Or will it just be endless pederastic innuendoes about fishing, with that sad, big-eyed face in the last panel floating at the edge of our consciousness for the next six to eight weeks?

Rex’s already feeble desire to have the relations with his wife may have been further dampened by her weirdly elongated neck and oddly shaped head in the first panel. Watch out, Elastic Lass! You need to return your body to its default configuration before interacting with the non-stretchies, or you’ll disturb them!

Gil Thorp, 9/14/07

I knew that high school sports have an essentially religious significance in the God-forsaken burg of Milford, but that didn’t prepare me for the scene of absolute mayhem in the third panel here, which I assume to be a vignette from a football pep rally of some kind. As Gil announces the starters for this year’s team, he seems oblivious to the monstrous geyser of flame erupting from the Earth’s crust just behind him. Presumably, as is the tradition, the student body is celebrating the beginning of football season by gathering in front of the town volcano. They’ve ingested some kind of hallucinogenic root or fungus, so instead of fleeing in terror from the magma, they writhe in a great ecstatic mass, as you can see in the background. Those who are splashed by the ultrahot lava but survive are considered to be marked by the fire gods, and will be permitted to try out for the team next year, which explains why the Mudlarks are all so hideously ugly and/or deformed.

Family Circus, 9/14/07

Wow, Billy really, really cares about music. And about imposing his will on everybody around him. I don’t know what’s more unnerving: the fact that he looks like he’s about to haul off and punch his sister in the face for mishumming some damn Wiggles song, or the fact that Dolly looks sad and scared but also resigned to being punched in the face because, really, she should have learned the melody better before humming it in public.

For Better Or For Worse, 9/14/07

There’s a lot to dislike about this FBOFW. For instance, it’s fairly obviously a new strip, but it’s just as obviously been done in the style of the old strips we’ve been seeing for the past few weeks, which is kind of jarring. I guess the simpler style is supposed to represent “in the past”, but the lettering and the gradients and multiple background characters give it away. It also features that stunning and totally unselfaware Michael Patterson self-regard we’ve all come to know and loathe. But I still kind of like it, because panel four features baby Elizabeth visibly vomiting, and there just isn’t enough puke in the funny pages for my taste.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/14/07

There are generally two kinds of reaction shots in the punchline panel of Snuffy Smith. Either one character is visibly laughing, mouth open and tongue wagging, because the simple folk of Hootin’ Holler don’t need anything more than the corny jokes typical of Snuffy Smith to have a good time; or one character looks frowny-faced and wrinkle-browed, because even in Hootin’ Holler, the best kind of punchline involves someone suffering at least a little bit. But rarely do you see the sort of dumbstruck amazement that’s on the face of Snuffy in panel two here. It’s as if he’s thinking, “Jesus Christ, was this Snuffy Smith built around a frickin’ astrology joke? Seriously?”

Dennis the Menace, 9/14/07

Ha ha! It’s funny because Mr. Wilson doesn’t have any friends!

Luann, 9/14/07

Ha ha! It’s funny because Brad doesn’t have any friends!