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Hi, everybody! I’m back at last. I see you’ve all been having fun in my absence (1270+ comments worth of fun!), but I’m rested and ready, if not tanned, and eager to get back in the blogging saddle.

So, how was your Christmas? Did it feel like it was brusquely shoehorned into someone else’s drama, as in Mary Worth?

Was everybody else busy and you had to get your holiday greetings from someone peripheral and random, à la Abbey the Wonderdog in Rex Morgan, M.D.?

Or were you fobbed off on some generic winter scene that had nothing to do with anyone you know or have even heard of, as in Judge Parker?

Or, perhaps worst of all, did you have to spend the week staring into the dead, soulless eyes of your hideous square-headed family, as in Gil Thorp?

OH FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, MAKE THEM STOP STARING AT ME! AAAHHHHHH!

Ahem. Anyhoo, not a whole lot of great interest to report in the comics, as they mostly treaded water during a low-readership week. The most action took place among the foobs, most of which was easily predicted and won’t be rehashed here. There were a few bright spots, though. Mark Trail featured this happy, non-beaver-slaughtering scene:

I don’t know what’s creepier: the chipper “Thanks for not killing the beavers!”, or the way daddy’s fondling that chicken leg.

Speaking of beavers, Barreto needs to get back to Judge Parker ASAP before Sophie turns into one permanently.

In non-beaver news, Mary Worth can pretend that she’s dreaming about her not-boyfriend, but thought balloons don’t lie: her main interest, as always, is herself.

And in Milford, we learn that the aesthetic requirements for “favorite couple” are shockingly low.

And! You may have missed your chance to give the gift of Comics Curmudgeon gear for Christmas, but Valentine’s Day is coming up! What better way to say “I love you” than a shirt bearing the crazed rantings of a drunk? Faithful reader Genetic Mishap, who designed this logo, here re-enacts this classic scene:

She also illustrates that the shirt also works when you’re not imitating comics characters:

Operators are standing by, so buy yours today!

Finally, let’s get the new year off on a good foot with a tacky joke about cancer:

Funky Winkerbean, 1/1/07

See, they totally set up a great Yul Brynner joke here and then completely failed to follow through with it.

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Apartment 3-G, 12/14/06

You know, I’m not the sort of person who just applies DSM-IV diagnoses to people in the comics … oh, no, wait, that’s exactly the sort of person I am. Anyway, I think it’s pretty obvious that Margo is bipolar. I’m sure Eric is enjoying happy manic Margo right now, but he’d better hang on, because as Tommie and Lu Ann know all too well, he’s in for the ride of his life, and not in the fun, sexy way. The cocaine, of course, does not help.

(Could it be that I’m overdoing the “Margo loves nose candy” jokes? Is such a thing even possible? I’m going to say “no.”)

There’s something very unsettling about the perspective in the first panel. Either that tree really is huge, and it’s about ten feet away, which means Margo couldn’t be gently fondling its branches, or it’s about three feet tall and the bottom of its trunk is floating mysteriously somewhere around Margo’s sternum, or we’re just seeing the very tip of it, pointing downwards, and, in a fit of superhuman strength, Margo’s trying to stuff it into her shopping bag.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/14/06

Note to cartoonists: if you need to have a character in your cartoon explain your joke, your joke has not been deployed successfully.

Mark Trail, 12/14/06

You know, I’m pretty sure that the only reason that Mark adopted Rusty (other than to avoid having ICKY SEX with an ICKY GIRL) was to have a victim for his twisted head games. “Hey Rusty, let’s rescue this wounded beaver! Hey Rusty, what do you want to name your new friend, the beaver? RUSTY! WHY DID YOU TAKE THIS BEAVER OUT OF ITS NATURAL HABITAT? IT’S MISERABLE HERE AND IT HATES YOU!” No wonder the poor kid is so depressed. He looks like the subject of a Margaret Keane painting in that last panel.

The Phantom, 12/14/06

Bangallan President Lamanda Luaga is my second favorite cartoon president (after Teenage Girl President, of course). He already gets mad style points for wearing morning dress at all times; now it appears that that he’s taking off his morning coat in order to beat the crap out of this guy, and I love it. If wanting to see the president personally physically assault a civil servant makes me a Republican, then so be it.

I’m curious about which two laws the president is about to suspend. I’m guessing one pertains to not beating up a government official without a trial of some sort, and the other forbids the president from appearing in public without his morning coat on.

By the way, I know I said I wouldn’t touch the whole Bruce Tinsley thing again, but I would be very much remiss if I didn’t draw your attention to this.

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Funky Winkerbean, 11/29/06

You know, suddenly this is the first Funky Winkerbean sequence I’ve unironically enjoyed since I rejoined the new gloomed up version of the strip. I love the musical notes floating in the air — is it stripper music? Is it Christmas music? Is it somehow, wonderfully, both? I love the way that Santa’s thick black belt, such an iconic part of his thoroughly asexual garb, has suddenly been transformed with a vague aura of S&M. But mostly, I love the way that everyone is leering at sexy Santa with naked lust — except for the mother-to-be, who looks on in unalloyed horror, as if only she can see how very, very wrong this is, and she’s thinking, “My God, has everyone else gone insane?”

Apartment 3-G, 11/29/06

Wow, so yesterday when I guessed that this was Alan’s beatnik buddy I was pretty much kidding, but it looks like it actually is … I think. Just like I think that’s Alan in panel three in the cowboy hat. Or maybe it’s Lu Ann’s cousin Blaze, who’s partial to cowboy wear. Or even Eric Mills, whose Hat Man tendencies might go both ways, if you catch my drift. God damn, this feature would be easier to follow if the men didn’t all look a alike.

Dennis the Menace, 11/29/06

Dennis further erodes his Menace status by getting a co-ed group together and then playing the least threatening game of doctor in the history of prepubescence. Joey, meanwhile, is looking more like a child prostitute with every appearance in this strip.

Judge Parker, 11/29/06

You know, I remember the good old days, when the press would focus on the issues, like the fact that Randy Parker is unmarried and therefore almost certainly a homosexual and thus totally unfit for the bench, instead of feeding the politics of personal destruction and mentioning the fact that the totally heterosexual and not at all gay Reggie Black’s wife’s breath stinks of liquor. Jackals!

Luann, 11/29/06

Wait, Brad was planning on painting his living room black? Did he buy a blacklight and some Cypress Hill posters too? Did he think he was going to star in a spinoff strip called Brad and TJ Are Really, Really High All The Time?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/29/06

When did June become the villain in a Dickens novel? And when did Rex Morgan start shilling for McDonald’s?