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Apartment 3-G, 8/23/12

Hey, sometimes Apartment 3-G plots get a little leisurely, but leave it to Margo to pick up the pace:

Edge City, 8/23/12

Obsessive neurotic Abby Ardin hires a babysitter sight unseen to free her kids from the curse of unstructured time during the last days of their summer. Emily shows up bearing a full complement of Rebel Grrl signifiers and a new drivers license. Abby, too embarrassed to admit second thoughts, leaves Colin and Carly in her care. Hilarious hijinx ensue, but no one is hurt, and everyone Learns a Valuable Lesson. Forward two weeks. Obsessive neurotic Abby Ardin ….

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/23/12

Sheriff Tait interprets “T’ain’t no big thing” as a confession to misdemeanor theft.

Gil Thorp, 8/23/12

Hey, it wouldn’t be summer without incomprehensible sports action in Gil Thorp! This tournament is match play, which counts holes won or tied instead of total strokes for 18 holes. Steve is playing with a 25 handicap, which means he cuts one stroke off his score on every hole, plus a second stroke on the seven most difficult holes. A “net birdie” means he shot par on a difficult hole or birdied a standard hole.

But hey waitaminute. Steve wanted to play in this tournament expressly to trash-talk an opponent. Yet all we’ve seen out of Steve and twosome partner Pat Laske so far is Judge Parker-level politesse and manlove, unless Steve thinks congratulating an opponent on a three-inch putt is the epitome of smack. Frankly, if we don’t see a huge explosion of PTSD-fueled fury by 18, it’s gonna be a big disappointment. Also: “PLOOK.” And isn’t that a lovingly-rendered golf cart?

Curtis, 8/23/12

Jay Leno and Arsenio Hall duke it out for King of Late Night. Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door — oh, no — it’s Jimmy Fallon! PLAP!

— Uncle Lumpy

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The Lockhorns, 8/14/12

One of the twisted, dysfunctional “games” played by George and Martha, the main characters in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is talking about their non-existent son. They each tell stories about him, making things up as they go along to create a fuller picture of him; but, as in all improv, the rule is that each has to take the other’s story as canonical. This is a private game, though, and when Martha starts playing it in front of another couple specifically to annoy George, George retaliates by telling her their fake son died in a car crash.

This is a long way to point out that, like George and Martha, Leroy and Loretta don’t have any children either. So I suppose that whatever just happened in that big box store was some variation on George and Martha’s game — a little less creepy, perhaps, but a lot more expensive.

Curtis, 8/14/12

I’m actually really enjoying this “Curtis and Barry are trapped in an apartment with a dead lady and a bunch of cats” storyline, as it’s the strangest and more interesting thing to happen in the strip since Kwanzaa. Still, I question whether old people actually have more lightbulbs on hand than younger folks, and I also would have enjoyed seeing the Wilkins boys come up with an adult diaper-based escape plan.

Archie, 8/14/12

I’m really looking forward to violent class war breaking out in Riverdale! Which of the town’s proletarians will abandon class consciousness and side with their capitalist oppressors? Reggie? It’ll be Reggie, right?

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Lockhorns, 8/8/12

The Lockhorns isn’t just another comic panel; it’s one of the grimmest and most unsparing glimpses into the ways that the absence of love can wear you down into a sense of misery that’s so all-pervasive that you don’t even realize anything else is possible. I love how dead everyone looks in this panel. Leroy is so far gone he can’t even imagine how pathetic and small his request makes him look in front of a stranger; Loretta is dying of embarrassment but can’t summon up the words to explain why; and the pizza delivery kid, slouched over and numb, gets another glimpse of what appears to be the universal soul-crushing awfulness of adulthood, and is getting a crappy tip to boot.

Curtis, 8/8/12

Just a little whimsy in Curtis, where the Wilkins boys help out an old cat lady with some chores and then she drops dead! The facial expressions in the final panel are so great that I feel comfortable forgiving future Weekend at Bernie’s-style zaniness in advance.

Pluggers, 8/8/12

You’re a plugger if you remember when you used to eat at actual restaurants that served recognizable food, but a fried chicken dinner at one of those places cost like $9 plus tip, whereas you can get a 10-piece Chicken Nugget meal for $6, and sure it’s not “chicken” so much as “processed reformed chicken meat” but you get more of it plus it’s a lot faster and you can order right from your car, what does anyone expect you to do, what do you look like, some kind of big city elitist?

Ziggy, 8/8/12

Ha ha, it’s funny because Ziggy has finally realized he’s a slave to global capital!