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Six Chix, 10/25/11

Aw, I like the mildly desperate grin that the skeleton is sporting in that costume shop window. “Ladies! Zombies are just as done as vampires! Skeletons are the new hotness! We’re shambling and terrifying and undead just like zombies, but without all that distasteful rotting flesh! Remember the Jason and the Argonauts movie, where he sword-fights with skeletons? Remember how bad-ass that was? SKELETONS! I … no, please, come into the shop … buy some of our skeleton paraphernalia … oh, God, I’m so lonely …”

Gil Thorp, 10/25/11

I’m really truly excited about Gil Thorp tackling the sensitive subject of Asperger’s Syndrome and totally botching it, but for right now I’d like to focus on good ol’ Wildcat, presiding over what appears to be a Milford Booster Club dinner party. Notice that everyone else is casual clothes, while Wildcat is gussied up in a white tuxedo, bow tie slightly askew. Is he coming home from his day job as a croupier? Or will “raising the formality of Milford Booster Club meetings” be his next crusade, right after he finds the Mudlarks a new kicker (precise location on the autistic spectrum unimportant)?

Momma, 10/25/11

Poor spelling is of course something we should be rightfully condemn, but we should at least give these pint-size taggers props for putting up graffiti with a philosophical message, no matter how nihilistic. Most vandalism seeks merely to aggrandize the vandal, or to mark out the territory of various criminal syndicates; these young men have instead proclaimed their bleak worldview to the city. Kudos!

Apartment 3-G, 10/25/11

“Thank goodness, everyone has stopped expecting any sort of achievement out of me. That’s a relief! Guess I’ll slip back into invisibility and quiet desperation once again. Really, it’s what I do best!”

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Family Circus, 10/6/11

Does Ma Keane really feel a need to apologize that her crying infant is showing emotion? “Sorry, Billy, we can’t all be eerily affectless soul-dead monsters like you.”

Gil Thorp, 10/6/11

I want to briefly dip into the already dullsville Gil Thorp fall plot — seriously, it involves the football team’s quest for a kicker, a quest that will inevitably end with the forcible recruitment of the mysteriously squirrely Brody Abro — to point out that Milford actually has a soccer team, one that I don’t believe we’ve ever seen mentioned in the course of a strip ostensibly dedicated to high school sports. I assume that this is because the team isn’t coached by a Thorp, which in turn probably explains why the team is in contention for a championship.

Mary Worth, 10/6/11

Meanwhile, in Mary Worth, the entire week has been dedicated to the trials of leaving a phone message for someone at a hotel. Taste the excitement!

Shoe, 10/6/11

“Ha ha! No, but seriously, we live in a monstrous dictatorship with no respect for human rights.”

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Mark Trail, 9/27/11

Is it possible for a character in Mark Trail to behave in a fashion so detached from the realities of human motivation that he will shock even Mark into self-awareness? To recap: Mountie McQueen is afraid that people will find out that he and his mother are engaged in the odd but (to the best of my knowledge) wholly innocent and legal pastime of putting bands printed with bible verses on the legs of geese. This bible-banding operation was stumbled upon by Andy, a dog who can neither understand what he saw at Mother McQueen’s cabin nor describe it to anyone else. Nevertheless, the risk of exposure is too great, and now Andy must be taken prisoner based on a completely fabricated rabies scare.

Mark’s befuddled “What?” shows that this is one insane thing too much even for a man who deals with insane things without comment every day of his life. If nothing else, one must assume that Andy’s rabies shots are all up to date, seeing as Mark’s live-in father-in-law is a vet. (You’d also think that Andy would have been fixed, too, though the way he scampered off after Princess might imply otherwise.)

Funky Winkerbean, 9/27/11

Oh look, it’s the time of year where Les worries frantically that his Lisa’s Legacy Walk will somehow go awry and fail to keep up its streak of not curing cancer. This year everyone will be pelted by a cold rain, which, if we’re lucky, will mean that after the strip’s next time jump Summer will be running the Les’s Legacy Walk to cure pneumonia.

Gil Thorp, 9/27/11

Was that sports action in panel one too thrilling for you? Don’t worry: in panel two, you only have to hear about a fumble being run back for a touchdown, and can relax by just looking at a guy handing a football to a ref. In panel three, just enjoy a soothing Marty Moon closeup rather than looking at something anxiety-inducing like a successful two-point conversion.

Momma, 9/27/11

Aren’t Momma’s memories of her long-dead husband usually quite worshipful? This strip implies that she held him in as much passive-aggressive contempt as she does her children. Actually, from the dubious way that picture is looking at her, it seems that she’s had his soul preserved in photographic form via dark magic, the better to torment him throughout eternity.