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• And if the mood strikes, you can put some money in my tip jar

Order soon to get yours in time for Christmas. Thank you very much!

Gil Thorp, 12/17/15

Oh man, the ending of this Gil Thorp storyline is probably one of the most disappointing in recent memory, and that’s saying something! Basically Gil yelled at Holly for making the kids feel bad and Holly closed down the production and sent all the reality show people home. It was both anticlimactic and unrealistic, in that whatever line Holly crossed didn’t seem that much worse than all the other lines she crossed, and and also in that Holly seemed to think that she would be able to work in her industry again after essentially shutting down an entire TV show — which, let’s not forget, was already being broadcast and so probably had several more episodes paid for, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. But anyway, actresses, a bunch of liars, amiright? That’s what the TV executives scrambling to fill the hole Welcome Back Carter left in their schedules are thinking, anyway.

Shoe, 12/17/15

The Patented Shoe Heavy Eyelids of Ennui have never been more heartbreaking than they are here. This comic just consists of a television set delivering a joke that people have been telling each other and not laughing at for years, and the Perfesser wants no part of it. He refuses entirely to participate in it. You can see that between panels one and two his wings have slipped off the chair’s armrests and he’s slouched even further down into the cushions. “This is what it’s come to?” he asks us, silently. “No. No more. I want to die.”

B.C., 12/17/15

Hey, kids! Remember Rage Comics, which were popular on 4chan and Reddit around, like, 2009-ish? Well, one of the Rage Comics characters is in a newspaper comic strip! This certainly means, uh, something about something, that’s for sure.

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Gil Thorp, 12/4/15

I know I’ve been neglectful in keeping you up to date on the reality show antics in Gil Thorp, but suffice it to say that Holly and the reality show team are Bad, and the Thorps and their noble student-athletes are Good, except when those student-athletes fall under the siren spell of reality show stardom, at which point they become Bad. Mostly I wanted to point out today’s strip because it encapsulates the sad reality of being Marty Moon: not only does he get turned down for sex, but his getting turned down for sex doesn’t even merit a panel with him in it.

Lockhorns, 12/4/15

It seems kind of weird that the Lockhorns’ mail consists entirely of 4 x 6 pieces of paper, so I’m going to assume that these are actually cue cards with prompts written on them. Bored with their usual range of passive-aggressive interactions, they’re now mixing things up a little bit in an attempt to keep their hell-marriage hell-fresh. “Is this gonna be an ‘I loathe you’ card? Ooh, no, this one is ‘I loathe myself.’”

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Mary Worth and The Phantom, 11/9/15

Oh, dear, it looks like Mary Worth and Heloise, far from embarking on a grand adventure together, are just going to briefly chat in a cab and then go their separate ways. The Phantom strip can’t even bother to spend a whole strip on its own version of Mary and Heloise’s bland pleasantries, cutting away to two panels of the Ghost Who Walks’s elaborate and sadistic gamesmanship. Anyway, it’s good to know that the Phantom, who has a whole room full of priceless treasure and runs an actual diamond monopoly, encourages his daughter to benefit from the kindess of old ladies on fixed incomes.

Spider-Man, 11/9/15

Meanwhile, also in Manhattan, Spider-Man and Namor got into a fistfight and fell into the ocean, and MJ has decided that she’s going to save poor li’l Pharus? Somehow? Without his consent, or the consent of his guardians? I look forward to her bringing him to a doctor, who will say “Young woman, I’m not qualified to cure some kind of pointy-eared … fish … boy!” Or maybe he’ll just bust out the free samples of the new anti-pollution pills that the Pfizer rep brought over and the kid will be fine, and then Namor will feel sheepish and the conflict will be over.

You know who’s not going to be fine, though? The poor Atlantean who’s just had his life-preserving water-helmet shattered by White Lab Coat Lady over there! Sorry dude, I know you were just protecting this poor youth from the surface-monsters, but now you’re going to air-drown after being dispatched with a truly inscrutable witticism.

Dennis the Menace, 11/9/15

The year is 2047. Adult Dennis strips out of his Amazon-issued jumpsuit after completing his 19-hour shift in the vast Amazon Fulfillment Warehouse that occupies most of what was once known as “Ohio.” He nestles into his sleeping-shelf within the 100-square foot Dorm Pod that is his home; as he dims the lights, the last things he sees are the vast, mandatory portraits of Jeff Bezos that dominate each windowless wall. He thinks back to that day long ago, when he made that flippant remark to his mother about shopping — his mother had been reassigned to the Box Assembly Division somewhere in the Dakotas when he was a teenager, he hadn’t heard from her since. He began to think that maybe he had been the true menace, that day.

Gil Thorp, 11/9/15

Yeah, sure, OK, Gil wears a Milford sweatshirt to work pretty much every day, and you might think they all look the same, but he can tell them apart, OK? Mostly by the stains.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/9/15

[48 hours earlier, at the Morgans]

“Look, Rex, I’ve already signed mine. Will you just sign yours?”

“Ugh, will you stop talking if I do?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. What is this about again?”

“Do you really care?”

“I suppose not.”