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B.C., 1/12/07

I … I thought B.C. was funny today, kinda. It made me laugh.

I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better in the future.

Judge Parker, 1/12/07

So in between the “Randy Parker gay election smear” storyline and the “Abbey attempts to stop Neddy from going wild in Paris” storyline, Judge Parker’s been giving us little glimpses of this “Old biddy’s butler is sick so she hires a temp butler” storyline, which, I think, hooks up with the others because the old biddy is in Paris and is somehow a relative of Abbey and/or Neddy and will be the sexy twosome’s hostess in the City of Light. Anyway, I’ve been pretty amused by the whole idea of a butler temp agency — believe me, having worked on and off as an office temp to make extra cash while I was in grad school, standing stone-faced at attention awaiting the orders of some septuagenarian aristocrat would probably be more enjoyable than, say, calling a list of phone numbers to make sure they were still fax lines and hearing that horrible SCREEEEEEE every time — but my amusement ground to a halt when I saw the horrifying, soulless visage of “Mr. Hart” in panel three. At best, he’s a cybernetic automaton, impersonating a human for some mysterious purpose; at worst, he’s a demon from below hell, sent to reap the souls of all concerned. Plus, he’s Canadian, so: super scary.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/12/07

Yeah, Niki, you did the “right thing” by calling June. That Elvis was probably going to take you for a “ride.” He’s one shady “character.” He probably … what? Oh, there’s someone here who wants to talk to you:

Margo! Do you kiss your comical immigrant mother with that mouth? I … I can’t control her, folks, I’m sorry.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 1/12/07

What it’s like to be me: I just spent ten minutes staring at this panel trying to figure out if this is the first ever black person in TDIET. Whatever the case, her butt is disproportionately and disturbingly large.

Pluggers, 1/12/07

Plugger refrigerators are full of sexual predators.

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Mary Worth, 1/8/07

MARY’S GOING TO VIETNAM! MARY’S GOING TO VIETNAM! MARY’S GOING TO VIETNAM!

“In person” even! This is too important to take care of via teleconferencing or astral projection!

For some reason I keep thinking of the song “Old Hippie” by the Bellamy Brothers, which my mom loved when I was a kid. It contains the following line:

“Then they sent him off to Vietnam on his senior trip.”

Mary’s sort of doing the same, although her senior status means that she’ll be shouting at locals both because she thinks they’ll understand English if she does and because she’s going deaf.

There are so many awesome possibilities to this plotline that I’m practically overbrimming with joy at them, even though I know that this is Mary Worth and thus only the most boring ones will actually occur. But still, it’s fun to imagine: Will Mary end up lost in a jungle and have to feed herself by hunting and fishing? Will she be kidnapped and forced to work in a Nike sweatshop? Will become a committed Marxist and come home determined to spread Communist revolution in her condo complex?

Better, and actually somewhat plausible: Will she discover that Dr. Jeff is living comfortably in a foreign medical staff compound, is totally startled to see Mary, and when she starts describing how she was brought there by a powerful dream, begins backing away in wide-eyed terror?

In other news, I think it would be funny if Toby were serious about her New Year’s resolution. It’s a little-known fact that last year she helped negotiate an end to Nepal’s Maoist insurgency; this year she has her sights set on just settlements in Sri Lanka and Nagorno-Karabakh. But Mary doesn’t care about that kind of do-gooding nonsense, as she’s made clear in the past; she just needs a damn date to the damn Bum Boat.

B.C., 1/8/07

Johnny, diarrhea jokes make Baby Jesus cry.

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Mark Trail, 11/21/06

If there’s one thing we can count on in this crazy mixed-up world, it’s the deep satisfaction that comes from seeing Mark Trail punch an armed man in the face. Man, that’s good stuff. Note that Mark’s raw power is enough to not only blast Snake into the next panel, but to change his shirt from blue to orange and blow the hair right off the sides of his head. Physics and logic are no match for a Trailian knuckle sandwich. I can’t wait to see how Jake’s sideburns and mullet will react to what he’s got coming to him. Forecasts call for heavy bold lettering for the next few days.

B.C., 11/21/06

I stared at this strip for an awful long time before I finally gave up on it. I sort of assume that any joke about “the real purpose of school busing” is somehow about the evils of the commingling of the races, but I really can’t suss that — or much of anything else — out of the “punchline.” My best guess is that it’s about having sex in the back of a school bus. The line underneath the word “learn” goes right into my soul and shatters my need for everything in this world to make some kind of sense.

Beetle Bailey, 11/21/06

See, it’s like they know computers exist, and have seen them in pictures and know how to draw them, but they’ve never actually used one, so they don’t know about their more obscure features, like the delete key.

Dennis the Menace, 11/21/06

“Or is it a good thing? Imagine if we could pay someone to take care of Dennis … someone other than us … who lived far away … far, far away …”

I’m frankly a little concerned that the Mitchells consider Dennis playing in the next yard over to be “roaming.” That strikes me as a mite overprotective. Watch out, kid, or you’ll end up in up in some kind of subterranean gulag.

Apartment 3-G, 11/21/06

OH MY GOD MOST AWESOMELY AWKWARD THANKSGIVING EVER!!! It actually seems pretty likely to me that, just to add to the discomfort, Gina will somehow invite herself over, thus ensuring that someone — or better, several someones — will be attacked with a turkey-carving implement. I wonder what disaster killed off all of these people’s families, leaving them to spend Thanksgiving with each other. I also wonder what kind of hat Margo will wear to dinner. Maybe she’ll dress up like a Pilgrim!