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Marvin, 1/22/09

If there’s one thing that Marvin does well repeatedly, it’s come up with some labor-saving gimmick joke that can serve as a template for multiple days worth of material. We all remember the week of pure horror that was “Belly Laffs,” in which each new day proved just how not-funny a joke about women gaining weight when they’re pregnant can get. If there’s anything to console us during this cryspace.com nightmare, it’s that we started in the middle of the week, which means that we have at most two more days of this left.

Also, as a red-headed American, I resent the implication that the lady gingers need to bill themselves as blondes in order to increase their sex appeal. Nobody can dispute the attractiveness of redheads, people! And as a human being with a shred of decency, I am disgusted by the idea of a baby making her profile sexy, what the hell, this is monstrous beyond description.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/22/09

Little Sarah has always been a precocious child, and that, combined with the affluent upbringing her father’s medical practice has provided, may be bringing her down a very dark path, as she seems extremely intrigued by the prospect of joining this wizened alcoholic aristocrat in hunting a wily urchin for sport. “Come, child, let me tell you about the thrills of the most dangerous game!”

Apartment 3-G, 1/22/09

Some people have doubted whether Margo is really as awe-inspiring and terrifying as all that. All I can say is that if any roommate of mine had left me a list of imperative mood verbs like the one seen here, I’d respond less with a resigned sigh and more with a string of obscenities. Either Margo really can kill with her mind, or the surreptitious, never-talked-about sex must be amazing.

Marmaduke, 1/22/09

“Howling at the moon,” ha! Marmaduke is actually summoning his demonic Master to appear and accept the blood sacrifice of these two innocents. Naturally, Marmaduke will carry out this sacrifice himself.

Momma, 1/22/09

Ha ha, Momma called her daughter a tramp! A tramp wearing a tiny, tiny lampshade as a hat.

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Apartment 3-G, 1/21/09

As a native Buffalonian, I resent Margo’s implication that “upstate” is a great place to go bury bodies or answering machines with terrifying messages or whatever else she’s planning to dispose of out there. (Yes, Buffalo is technically Western New York, not Upstate New York, but devout Manhattanites use “upstate” as a blanket term for anything north of Columbia University, and if you need any confirmation of Margo’s devotion, just look at how resentful she is at the very thought of letting the sun go down on her in Schenectady or wherever.) Does she think that the whole state outside of her precious Five Boroughs consists of nothing but decaying, abandoned industrial sites, or vast stretches of barren wasteland punctuated by the occasional slowly collapsing barn, where she can just hide evidence of criminal wrongdoing at will? I mean, she’d be right, but that doesn’t mean that we want snooty urbanites with their fancy New York City corpses messing up all the good hiding spots.

Herb and Jamaal, 1/21/09

Usually Herb and Jamaal’s primary mission is to suck all the fun and enjoyment out of the English language by making it as bland and nonspecific as possible, but I really like this new euphemism for masturbation that it’s introduced today. “I spent the evening in, ‘dating my shadow,’ if you know what I mean.”

Marvin, 1/21/09

Good lord, as if rendezvousing in person with someone you first met online wasn’t already fraught enough, can you imagine if you meet some guy you’ve been chatting with and are sort of excited about, and he turns out to be a literal, actual baby? Especially if he were a loathsome, hateful baby, like Marvin?

Spider-Man, 1/21/09

Spider-Man, well aware of his intellectual limitations, is right to ! in the final panel. If the little boy’s statement is correct, it’s a wonder that Batman can even figure out how to chew.

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Apartment 3-G, 1/19/09

That painful feeling in your neck is comic whiplash, the result of a sudden return to Apartment 3-G’s native New York, since obviously five days is all that can spared on Lu Ann’s adventures in flyover country. And we’ve gotten back just in time, as Margo’s low-cut-white-jumper-over-black-turtleneck combo is clearly her most hideous outfit yet, so it deserves plenty of strip time. Since Tommie isn’t trying to sneak into the apartment at six a.m. with mussed hair and smeared lipstick, she clearly didn’t get lucky last night (unless you count a doctor waxing maudlin about his failed marriage to be “getting lucky”), but I am sort of curious as to why she’s still in her bathrobe while Margo is all bunned up and ready to face the day. Perhaps she was up late enough watching syndicated episodes of Diagnosis Murder to push her to sleep in a bit, while Margo got coked up and spent the entire night furiously reading Tim Mills’ diary and planning her fantasy wedding, and hasn’t even gone to bed yet.

In panel two, Margo appears to be not so much drinking out of that mug as just kind of holding it in front of her mouth and nose. She may just be hiding the fact that after listening to a single complete sentence out of Tommie, she’s already so bored that she has to bite her lips just to avoid dozing off right there.

Mary Worth, 1/19/09

Did you ever have someone break up for you by tearfully telling you that it’s not you, it’s them, and that they need time to work on their stuff without you and it’s better this way, isn’t it, only to accidentally run into them on the street a week later totally holding hands and snogging with some other dude/chick? Because that’s pretty much what Frank is going to feel like when he tunes in to the All Skating All The Time Channel today and sees Mary in in Lynn’s corner, meddling her to victory.

Spider-Man, 1/19/09

Oh my goodness! Spidey is about to be unmasked by his most dangerous and powerful super-foe … Bat Boy!

Ha ha, just kidding, obviously. Spidey has actually managed to knock himself unconscious by accident, and will be unmasked by a random child as he lies supine in a fetid alleyway in a puddle of his own failure. It is a hideously ugly child, though, which may count for something.

Cleats, 1/19/09

Here it is: as far as I can remember, this is the first Cleats that ever made me laugh. Naturally it involves a traumatized child flopped onto the ice, possibly with a broken leg. I think there may be something wrong with me.