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Today’s comics prove that the right weapon can nurture a relationship’s fragile beginning, extend its blissy peak, or bring it to a swift, bitter end — let’s see how!

The Phantom, 3/19/10

Here, Ghost-Who-Walks and Captain-Who-Stalks enjoy a rousing round of armaments-themed flirting. It won’t be long before those torpedo doors fly open, the heavy ordinance rumbles from its below-decks shotlocker, and a gleaming projectile slides its way all snug up inside that smokin’ hot barrel.

Next: BOOM!, a shared cigarette, and lounging around in purple bathrobes.

Beetle Bailey, 3/19/10

Poor Major Greenbrass’s wistful longing for General Halftrack glows soft as a candle beside Sarge’s white-hot torch for Beetle. But still, when stirred by the roar of massed air and ground forces, the Major manages to gin up a heroic narrative exalting his beloved’s pathetic shortcomings to the grand scale of epic failures by history’s other insecure, tyrannical, nutjob runt.

Apartment 3-G, 3/19/10

Drug-addled, vengeance-crazed, and Papagoras-blather-benumbed, Bobbie nevertheless understands illegal commerce better than her mugger-turned-gun-dealer pal! Let’s go over the basics for him:

• Muggers have the upper hand in their transactions; salespeople don’t. Customers won’t cower like your victims did.
• People buy untraceable guns specifically to commit crimes; some of them will get caught. Therefore, do not create traceable associations with your customers!
• This specifically means do not accompany customers into banks, lest you be photographed together. ProTip — wearing a hoodie into a bank will not help you escape attention.
• Don’t confuse your customer by asking why you should trust her: your profession is founded on mistrust. And what’s the worry? That she’ll give you someone else’s cash? Seriously, even if she bails on you, you’re out what — busfare?
• Think ahead: once you give her the gun, why shouldn’t she mug you for her money back? This is Margo’s insane evil stepmother we’re talking about, right?

Mary Worth, 3/19/10

Alas, sometimes the love is real but the artillery only a reader’s earnest fantasy. Could anything less than murder avenge the months of graceless frolicking, the arid Marylessness, and the interminable sandwichery we’ve endured for a payoff as insipid as, “I learned fatherhood from a man who was not my father.” I swear, we had better get a pool party out of this mess.

Speaking of messes, you have to credit the hilarious squalor of the life Kurt fled and now reëmbraces. Bare lath on every wall, mirror cracked in ways mirrors don’t crack, every picture and doorframe askew. Kurt looks glad to see his pregnant girlfriend, though. He must not know the child is Wilbur’s.

Spider-Man, 3/19/10

Yak yak yak ogle yak yak yak yak yak. This is like 9 Chickweed Lane, with bigger chins and less actual fighting.

Crankshaft, 3/19/10

Pam’s pinchlipped scorn gives way to shock that her husband is as big a douche as her father, and that her creators still have no idea how to set up a joke — except for the cruel one they inflict on her, day after endless day.

Hey, Josh is off on vacation out in scenic Undisclosed Location; I’m subbing for the week. If you have site issues, please contact me at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net — to reach Josh personally, try bio@jfruh.com but expect a wait.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Judge Parker, 3/15/10

And so the Mike Manley era begins in Judge Parker! I think we are all looking forward to seeing his work, and he’s got some big shoes to fill. It looks like he’s beginning with a pretty Barreto-esque style, which is natural for a transition, but I hope in the coming months he makes the strip his own, as his predecessor did. My only real complaint is the font in the dialogue balloons — I’m virtually certain that every font on the comics page these days is computer-generated rather than hand-lettered, but this one looks a bit more obvious that I’d like (though, hey, at least it’s not Comic Sans). I do note with some amusement that Sam seems to have the slim, willowy hands of a young Ted Forth.

Family Circus, 3/15/10

I’m sure the intended joke here is that the little melonheads don’t really understand how time and the calendaring process works. Obviously Daddy is supposed to be older than Mommy, as this is the natural order of things, what with Adam having been older than Eve and all. Still, since, the occasional birthday notwithstanding, the Keanes all live in some kind of endless, eternal present. They never age, but the seasons do change (and therefore the months must advance). Is there really any other way to determine age, then, other than location within the only calendar they’ll ever need?

Beetle Bailey, 3/15/10

Ha ha, Beetle prefers the finger to the fist! Seriously, most days this stuff just kind of writes itself.

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Spider-Man, 3/6/10

Oh, in case you were wondering, Spider-Man chose to adopt the costume of a minitunicked spirit being, which could have some amusing results, like an outburst of some of the most misdirected spirituality the world has ever seen. “And God so loved us that He sent us his Messenger, whose wings were golden and wondrous! And this Messenger did help us out once in a while, but often He would mope, or complain, or forget where He was or what He was doing. The disparity in earning power between Him and His wife was always a source of tension…”

Note that, in only his first rescue mission, Guardian Angel is already starting to molt. I certainly hope that Miami’s newest superhero just becomes more and more hilariously bedraggled as this silliness continues.

Beetle Bailey, 3/6/10

“Yes, sweet, sweet unconsciousness! It’s certainly preferable to anything the world has to offer, and it offers a glimpse of how awesome it will be to die and leave this vale of tears behind forever for nothingness’s sweet embrace!”