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Judge Parker, 9/11/16

As the Marciuliano Era starts rolling along in earnest over in Judge Parker, I’ve heard some suggestions that Garrick Panini’s vaguely Captain Kangaroo-ish look is a tribute to beloved Mary Worth character Aldo Kelrast, and the fact that he’s been harassing a late-night lady call-in show DJ might cement that thought, though I note that he’s been given a hint of a mullet, so that he conforms with the Trucker’s Code. I think it would be frankly hilarious if the shift in writers means we’re just going to abruptly wrap up all existing storylines and start in on Garrick Panini in earnest. “Detective Lucas! We found a girl! And another girl and two guys! They’re fine! They’re a little shaken up but the experience made the two girls understand that life is fleeting and they’re gonna let bygones be bygones! Also, the girl’s sister’s clothing line launch had a few bumps but her brand is finding a foothold in the market! And her father’s former legal partner’s father’s book’s movie adaptation is in turnaround, and his pregnant wife checked in with a CIA station in Banja Luka and she’s OK too! And I think that’s it! Is there something else? Something with Marie, maybe? Enh, who cares! Let’s talk about this bag of money for the next six to eight weeks.”

Mary Worth, 9/11/16

It’s really too bad Iris didn’t decide to start mothering again back when Tommy was having no problems scoring Vicodin, as he was feeling great and that’s the perfect time for a little low-stress, high-reward parent-child interaction. Unfortunately she’s checked in just in time for the hard part. What swear word do you think has been censored in panel five to spare the delicate sensibilities of the Mary Worth readership? Is it “heck”? Those sensibilities are in fact extremely delicate.

Family Circus, 9/11/16

Looks like the Family Circus-Pokémon Go co-branding had one contractually obligated Sunday strip left! I just want to point out that when it comes to walking dogs, “exercise” is often a euphemism for “opportunity to poop outdoors”; since Billy seems wholly unequipped with waste bags, I’m sad for all those park-goers whose vision isn’t cluttered with VR Pikachus or whatever, who’ll have to see the carnage Barfy and Billy will leave in their wake.

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Family Circus, 9/7/16

We all joke, of course, about the “melonheaded” children of the Family Circus, but we all just assumed their apparent macrocephaly was a quirk of Bil Keane’s art style, now handed down to his son Jeff. How wrong we were. How horribly, horribly wrong. Today we learn that the Keane Kids’ heads are grossly distended due to whatever monstrous science is required to keep them alive indefinitely, as they are transplanted from one child’s body to another — and really, the less time spent dwelling on how exactly those bodies are acquired, the better. “How old was my head in this picture?” Jeffy asks, his immortal life being nothing more to him than an undifferentiated blur of surgeries and tiny bodies that eventually fail and wither.

Gasoline Alley, 9/7/16

Speaking of awful nightmare visions, two members of Gasoline Alley’s extended cast are, for reasons I’m not even going to bother going into here, engaged in a little light accidental-woods-birth action. I’m sure this will turn out fine and not be nightmarish at all, but I am super unsettled by the array of woodland creatures, eagerly watching to see the baby’s head crown with big, adorable, staring, unblinking eyes.

Mary Worth, 9/7/16

“So, wait, you’re telling me there’s a pill … that I can take … when I have an unbearable urge to take another kind of pill? This new pill sounds great! I’m just gonna swallow a whole bottle’s worth all at once!”

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Gil Thorp, 9/5/16

The calendar most of the world uses today is a direct descendent of the one developed by the ancient Romans, but there have been a lot of modifications along the way. For instance, in the days of the Roman Republic, the calendar year was only 355 days long; the Romans knew this was too short, but weren’t exactly sure how long the year was. Twenty-two extra days were supposed to be added into February when necessary, but there was a catch: the Pontifex Maximus, who held Rome’s highest priesthood, decided if the calendar had become misaligned enough from the seasons to make the extra days necessary, and the Pontifex Maximus was always a member of Rome’s political elite. Since a politician’s term of office was the same as the calendar year, a Pontifex Maximus might be prone to add the extra days if he or his allies were in power, or not add them if that would shorten the terms of his enemies. This caused the calendar to become wildly divergent from the natural rhythm of the seasons. Eventually Julius Caesar, who was Pontifex Maximus himself, managed to become absolute dictator of the state, and, based on Greek and Egyptian science, established the 365-day-plus-one-leap-day-every-four-years calendar that we mostly follow today; the situation had gotten so bad that, in order to realign everything, the year of the reboot was preceded by a year that was 445 days long!

This is a long way of saying that, sure, maybe you think that today’s Labor Day, traditionally marking the end of the summer, and that thus we should be moving into Milford’s school year and football season. But nope, that baseball-season plot that we all were pretty sure dragged out over the summer? That was just a really long spring, according to our politco-religious elite (i.e., the creators and distributors of Gil Thorp). Now summer’s here! A summer of beach-centric hijinks! Previous summers gave us Kaz-punching wackiness and Marty Moon getting grifted and senile pro wrestling hijinx, so I’m very much looking forward to whatever we get in the summer of 2016, which, just to make clear, is not over at all, but actually just getting started.

Spider-Man, 9/5/16

Good to see that Ant-Man Scott is still determined to reject the tired superhero tradition of “secret identities”, and plans to blow Spider-Man’s cover, right here on the subway! Anyway, today we learn that Scott is either such a thorough reader of TMZ that he can recognize the nobody husbands of C-level stage and film actresses, or he’s one of the eighteen followers of the sad, abandoned Instagram JJ Jameson made Peter set up during a manic episode that ensued when he learned what Instagram was.

Family Circus, 9/5/16

“Think about it, Mommy, it makes sense. For one thing, Daddy has friends.”