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Crock, 12/9/12

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think Crock is being portrayed as too cartoonishly evil here. I mean, obviously it’s well established that he’s a villainous, petty dictator, but surely he’s enough of a realist to know that the local religious authorities aren’t going to be actively preaching sin and filth like they’re the Church of Satan or something. Shouldn’t he be pleased that the local priest is going old school and promising to use his money to punish and degrade the church’s enemies, instead of going in for some kind of touchy-feely love-thy-neighbor crap like feeding the poor or something?

B.C., 12/9/12

Plans for a lucrative B.C. Babies franchise where abruptly scuttled when the terrifying character designs were revealed. “So, if we make their arms and legs even stubbier, and glom them onto impossibly squat torsos, and remove their necks, that’s cute, right? Kids will want those dolls?”

Garfield, 12/9/12

You know, Garfield gets a bad rap among comics snobs, but anything that teaches kids that Santa is really a terrifying demon-thing waiting to grab you from behind and drag you down into a terrifying hell-dimension is all right in my book.

Luann, 12/9/12

Left to their own devices, Brad and TJ have turned their backs on God and started worshipping Mammon full-time.

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B.C., 12/8/12

The current B.C. management seems perversely intent on taking the gimmick essentially designed for clip art reuse — “character reads joke out of a book sitting on a rock” — and actually put some effort into it. Should the Wiley’s Dictionary rock be moved down by the seashore, so B.C./Thor/maybe other blond caveman whose name I don’t know can enjoy the pleasant breezes through the beach grass along with his terrible four-word joke? Sure, why not!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/8/12

What does it take to turn Rex’s omnipresent supercilious scowl into an extremely restrained smile? His inferiors recognizing that he deserves free stuff, of course! I’m pretty sure he doesn’t really care about marine mammals one way or the other, but I assume he’ll still sit there in the stands, watching the orca-frolic, thinking “Yes, this … this is my due.”

Apartment 3-G, 12/8/12

Wow, so Greg’s been chosen to play James Bond, one of the most famous and high-profile roles in all of entertainment, and Margo hadn’t heard anything about it? He must have a terrible publicist.

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Beetle Bailey, 11/19/12

I am super excited about being back in the saddle for Thanksgiving Week! What was once a celebration of getting through the year without starving to death has become another opportunity for America to indulge its bottomless appetites, so what better way to get psyched for it than to contemplate Sarge’s insatiable needs, for food, for love for … something. Attracted by the odor of the garbage that’s all over Beetle’s clothing, he waltzes into the kitchen in a fugue state, his eyes closed, his arms ready to hug, or maybe wrap around his prey and hold it down so it can be consumed.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/19/12

Sadder, unsurprisingly, is Funky Winkerbean’s annual Turkey Sale. There used to be a certain manic joy to the Westview band’s attempt to stave off bankruptcy by selling possibly non-USDA-inspected turkeys to unsuspecting saps door-to-door. A cartoonist who starts off writing strips when he’s young generally has young viewpoint characters; if he’s lucky enough to have a job for decades, of course, the viewpoint characters get old and the new young people who get introduced into the cast are feckless morons. And so the current generation of turkey salesmanship is represented by Peruvian Hat Boy here, who wanders dumbly from door to door, mumbling out half-hearted pitches memorized by rote like those dead-eyed children you see on the subway selling boxes of M&M for “school.” I suppose it’s possible that he just had his will to live crushed out of him by endless lectures about the importance of sequential art.

B.C., 11/19/12

Even grimmer is today’s B.C. Ha ha, this turkey has scavenged through the garbage to find the severed leg of one of its kin, and has now crudely attached the dismembered limb to his own chest in order to convince the world that he’s a genetic abomination, because he’s terrified of being killed and eaten!

Archie, 11/19/12

In non-horror news, Miss Grundy is sad that her students don’t know who Savonarola is, which might be more troubling if she were teaching a class about, say, the history of Renaissance Italy in general, or maybe precursors to the Reformation? Because while Savonarola is the subject of a moderately famous painting by Fra Bartolomeo, he was more of a political-religious figure than anything to do with art. On the other hand, kudos to The Savannah Roller, who’s definitely selected one of roller derby’s more obscure pun-names.

Heathcliff, 11/19/12

Heathcliff and his girlfriend, who enjoy elaborate role-play, have hired a bored pizza delivery man to “deliver” Heathcliff, for sex. You can tell the pun fills him with contempt, but work is work.