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Apartment 3-G, 12/1/11

OMG you guys, it’s retro-fitted continuity in Apartment 3-G! A3G trufans know that way back in the mists of time (i.e., the ’60s) Lu Ann was married to fighter pilot Gary Powers, whose plane was shot down over Vietnam. I look forward to seeing how exactly this all is going to be wedged into the present-day action (for certain limited definitions of “present-day” and “action”) in the strip. Here are some fun facts if you want to feel old and/or bummed about how long America’s current various wars have been happening: if the strip is going to stick with the Lu-Ann-is-a-tragic-war-widow idea, it’s possible to keep this seven-year time frame and still have Gary killed in Iraq or Afghanistan! Hell, I was blogging about this damn strip seven years ago. Oh, God, I’ve wasted my life! (Ha ha, just kidding, time spent obsessing over the minutia of Apartment 3-G has earned me the love of millions and is time well spent, or SO I KEEP TELLING MYSELF.)

Luann, 12/1/11

So yesterday Brad got his job back because a firefighter named “Sanchez” moved to “Spain,” which didn’t seem worthy of comment, but I do feel compelled to make note of his unseemly joy. Although I generally recoil in disgust when Brad and Toni are physically affectionate, it’s just as well Toni smooches Brad into silence when she does, as there’s nothing he could follow up “when” with that wouldn’t be embarrassing. “See, I told you that I’d get my job back through deus ex machina, based on absolutely no effort of my own, if only I waited long enough! Good things happen when you think magically!”

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Mary Worth, 11/25/11

My God, Toby is just not going to let go of this whole Mary-Worth-getting-pickpocketed thing, presumably because it’s the first time in her entire life at Charterstone that she’s gotten to feel even vaguely superior to Mary. Mary Worth, herself no slouch when it comes to dwelling on things beyond reason, is trying to move on — “Hmm, yes, it’s hard to keep track of things when it’s noisy, live and learn, I’m just going to close my eyes and enjoy this tiny spoonful of pie now” — but Toby, desperate to keep the focus on how much better she is at being robbed, is lurching into some weird faux-Buddhist territory. “Mary, the only way to not have one’s material possessions stolen is to possess nothing. Let’s give everything we own away to the poor, or, better, just set it all on fire in the courtyard!”

Mark Trail, 11/25/11

Oh ho, Mother McQueen, you’ve just tripped yourself up! We all know that there were at least two gold bands made: the one Mark found on a goose in Lost Forest, and the one a hunter found on a goose he shot near the Canadian border years earlier. This means one of two things: either Mother McQueen is lying to her new young friends so that they don’t find her gold mine, or that nobody, including the people who publish Mark Trail, can be bothered to keep track of the details of the plots in Mark Trail.

Apartment 3-G, 11/25/11

“I can’t wait to show Lu Ann the nursery for the baby she doesn’t know she’s having yet! Then, once her mind has accepted that, I’ll take her through this door into the traditional Linski Impregnation Chamber. She is the best!”

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Gil Thorp, 11/21/11

Gil may be an incredibly crappy coach, but he’s no dummy! With his team coasting towards a winless season and the booster club in open revolt, he’s got one last chance to save his job, and he’s playing it for all it’s worth. “Sure, we may end the season with the worst record in decades, but we did help one kid with Asperger’s come out of his shell a bit and make friends. And isn’t that more important than some dumb old football game? Who’s gonna be the jerk to say that, huh? Yeah, thought so. See ya next year, when with any luck we’ll go 2-8!”

Apartment 3-G, 11/21/11

“Someone is crying her eyes out in there. It must be Lu Ann! Tommie has used advanced meditation techniques to ensure that she’s incapable of feeling anything stronger than ennui or mild anxiety, and if Margo were moved to tears, her sobs would be drowned out by the pleas for mercy from her hapless victims.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/21/11

Parson Tuttle is of course a notorious fraud without even the rudiments of a theological education, but based on that look of shock in panel two it appears that Parson Dickens isn’t, which will spell trouble for Hootin’ Holler’s beloved clergyman/grifter. “Tarnation, he’s callin’ a vacation a ‘sabbatical’? That’s sullyin’ the name of th’ sabbath — a violation of the fourth commandment! Welp, better gather th’ townsfolk for a good old-fashioned stonin’.”

Momma, 11/21/11

This strip would have been funnier (note that I didn’t say “funny”) if it had hinged on the contrast between Francis’ archaic CRT set and the flat-screen TVs that have pretty much been the only new televisions sold for the better part of a decade. But apparently that would require someone involved in the production of Momma to know that high-tech items like flat-screen TVs exist.