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Apartment 3-G, 2/13/08

Yes, what must he think of you, Lu Ann? Since last we saw your art opening was actually in progress, and “meanwhile” you’re moping around Apartment 3-G, I’d imagine that he’s thinking something like this:

“God damn it, where is that moron? It’s not like these profoundly mediocre fern paintings are going to fly off the walls by themselves; since Margo has gone out of her way to make the show all about Lu Ann and her ghostly inspiration, the least she can do is come down here and sell this crap. She’d better be wearing something low-cut, too, that can only help. I swear to God, I — hey, there’s my connection! Gotta run!”

For Better Or For Worse, 2/13/08

Amusing as it is to see toddler Elizabeth wandering around with a toilet on her head (all the better to prepare for a life of being crapped on by Anthony! Har har!), I’m even more tickled by Ellie’s opening sentence, which sort of implies that her mother worries that she in fact does not plan to potty-train her daughter, but will rather allow her to go through life urinating and defecating in her pants whenever the mood strikes. “We were going to train Lizzie, mom, but you saw what a jerk Michael turned into after we did it. I swear, it’s too bad Freud isn’t alive; he’d have a field day with what learning to poop in a bowl did to that kid’s personality. We figure a lifetime of changing diapers will be a small price to pay.”

Gil Thorp, 2/13/08

“…starts muscling Andrew Gregory…”

“A slick back-door cut…”

“…shakes loose underneath…”

You know, some days this stuff pretty much just writes itself.

Family Circus, 2/13/08

“There’s only one way to figure this out — I’m going to pee on his head!”

OK, that … that was probably unforgivable. But why did they draw Billy fumbling with his fly if they didn’t want me to make this joke, huh? Why? Why do you tempt me, O Family Circus?

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B.C., 2/9/08

HO HO YES, THE POLITICIANS, THEY ARE ANNOYING! THOSE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS, THEY MAKE ME ANGRY! That’s exactly the sort of barbed and targeted attack on people’s closely held beliefs that will get you pulled out of the paper!

Legacy artist, please. Your shit-stirring does not impress. Start writing rambling, incoherent poems about Jesus and/or explaining how Christ came to put out the menorah and then we’ll talk.

Crankshaft, 2/9/08

If there’s one saving grace in Crankshaft, it’s Crankshaft’s total and complete dedication to angry misanthropy. In another kind of strip, this lame punny punchline (I think it’s supposed to be punny, though I admit to being at a loss as to just what “doodle date” is a pun on) would have been issued by a cheery old man in an avuncular fashion; but the ’Shaft’s facial expression in the third panel makes clear his utter disgust for those ink-stained wretches who have the nerve to quit drawing and move down to some nice place in Boca. “You know, I’ve totally screwed up my retirement savings plans and will have to drive a damn bus and deal with children I hate every damn day for the rest of my bile-shortened life, so I don’t see why any of these cartooning jerkfaces should get to enjoy their old age. They can kiss my white, wrinkled, hate-clenched ass.”

Gil Thorp, 2/9/08

Jeez, Gil, you’re lucky Andrew was able to shrug, seeing as his impossibly long and thin body in panel one seems to have been completely de-boned. Honestly, this may be the worst new-head-attached-to-random-body-from-somewhere-else drawing I can remember in Gil Thorp, and it appears in the same panel as someone who’s arm looks to be on backwards.

The dude peeking over Marty Moon’s shoulder in panel three, meanwhile, seems to be on the verge of complete rapture. I know that high school sports is the primary form of entertainment in the blighted wasteland from which the Valley Conference schools draw their student body, but that guy is just too excited about the Mudlark starting lineup. My guess is that Milford’s “spirit squad” has started handing out Ecstasy to fans at the door.

Family Circus, 2/9/08

“You also may be a Neanderthal, with your protruding browridge and subhuman intellect. What I’m trying to say is, we’re selling you to a circus sideshow.”

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Family Circus, 2/3/08

Hmm, Billy, maybe that’s what they teach you in your liberal secular humanist public school, but I have someone here who’d beg to differ. A little someone named Genesis 1:26-7:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

So you see, Billy, there was none of this blasphemous decision-making process that you envision, as God simply copied His own preexisting Face for mankind. And He certainly didn’t request any help from the peanut gallery as you appear to be doing, either. As to where exactly God got His Face from, or as to what need he Has for a human-type Face, exactly, those are the sorts of questions that would get you a good paddling if you were going to the sort of school that made this country great.

Slylock Fox, 2/3/08

After Pearls Before Swine borrowed the Slylock Fox formula a few weeks ago, we should have expected that the PBS gang would make a reciprocal appearance before too long. Followers of Rat and Pig’s adventures probably don’t need any fancy process of ratiocination to figure out just who slammed a tree limb into the back of an innocent bunny’s head for not good reason. More disturbing to me is the Six Differences, where a hungry rabbit has hollowed out a snowman from the inside and is now triumphantly holding his noggin aloft à la the Headless Horseman. Our towheaded youth will be describing this scene to his therapist for years to come.

Judge Parker, 2/3/08

“Sure, let’s have an impromptu lunch date! It’s not like my dying mother isn’t going to still be dying in a few more hours; plus, the longer you linger with me, the better sense I get of how little effort will be expected of me when I actually start working with you!”