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“Hey,” you’re saying. “Not much going on in this week’s Apartment 3-G,” you’re saying. Well, that’s because you haven’t been following the fortunes of the guy I like to call El Sombrero Rojo.

See, on Tuesday, the call went out for extras. “We need a guy in a red hat and a black vest,” said the casting people, and this fellow was just happy to be there.

A couple panels later, they moved him to the foreground. Was it just to provide a counterpoint to the Blaze-Lu Ann conversation? Was he supposed to be looking wistfully at Lu Ann to reinforce the idea that she’s got effervescent good looks? Or were the Apartment 3-G powers that be beginning to notice his undeniable charisma?

Wednesday, he was in the background again, but he was projecting a sort of wry bemusement, or maybe a bemused wryness — anyway, it was the sort of fine-grained character work we’ve now come to expect from Vesty McRedhat.

And now, after he’s paid his dues … he actually gets a speaking part!

Apartment 3-G, 12/8/05

Unfortunately, it involved losing a battle of wills Lu Ann Powers, the dumbest blonde in Manhattan. Nobody said it’d be easy to break into the big time, buddy.

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Apartment 3-G, 11/30/05

Yeah, why is she so down? Maybe it’s because she’s headed out to work, churning out awful press releases, pimping no-talent actors and playwrights, glossing over the crimes of evil multinational corporations — you know, the sort of things that keep New York, the greatest city in the world, humming, and all for a salary that isn’t going to keep a girl in Kate Spade and Jimmy Choo like she deserves. Meanwhile, the two of you, who have selfishly chosen high-paying, zero-stress jobs in the nursing and elementary-school-art fields, get to enjoy a leisurely breakfast over the paper, relaxing in your deeply dowdy but no doubt warm and comfortable robes.

Honestly, it’s like being white, unscrupulous, and upwardly mobile doesn’t mean anything anymore.

I thought that the chatter in the comments this morning had prepared me for the harrowing sight of Mark Trail’s muscular but nippleless torso. I was wrong. Hoo boy was I wrong. No one had mentioned that there was something deeply freaky about his face as well. Is that a shadow cast by his sunken, heroin-addict-style cheekbones, or is he just wearing black rouge? Whatever the case, he joins Dagwood Bumstead in the no-nips hall of fame:

Also, is anyone else as unsettled by the current teenage-jewel-theives-in-fetish-masks plot in the Phantom as I am?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

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Apartment 3-G, 11/13-14/05

Isn’t it intriguing that Mary Worth, Mark Trail, and Apartment 3-G all wrapped up storylines almost simultaneously? And while the first two strips have launched into their new inane plots (Divorce Court: Hand vs. Hand and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Extinct!, respectively), Apartment 3-G has been taking its sweet time getting into gear. Mainly, instead, we’ve been treated to a Margo Magee character study, and that character is not exactly pleasant. Perhaps this is meant to serve to get new readers up to speed on the black, black heart that beats beneath Margo’s perky bosom. It’s been fun watching her alternately taunt those worthy of her scorn (her comical immigrant mother, her long-suffering roommates, the working poor) and wallow in shameless materialism, but it’s hard to see where we’re going to go from here. Maybe on her way home she’ll beat a puppy to death with one of her $500 Manolo Blahnik shoes, just for laughs.

Hopefully the other two Apartment 3-G roomies will get their own meandering, thought-balloon-heavy character establishment bits in the near future. Lu Ann’s will feature her wandering, wide-eyed and baffled, throughout the city, alternately walking into things and swooning over intercheangable WASPy dark-haired men in suits. Tommie’s will take maybe two strips to finish — one if it’s on Sunday.

A few commentors felt that “With money, you get honey” was a merchandise-worthy epigram. I’m more inclined to “My looks — that takes maintenance!” If only CafePress sold makeup mirrors.