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Gil Thorp, 1/28/10

Most hilarious image in today’s comics: Steve Luhm’s sweatshirt, tied around his waist and twirling about madly, making him look like he’s wearing a tutu in panel two. Almost as funny: him following up his Sherlock Holmes-style sussing out of Cassie’s lack of growth with some dribbling advice. Shouldn’t she be really good at dribbling, since she’s been the same distance from the ground for the past few years? Also, shouldn’t her actual paid coach have noticed that her dribbling was terrible?

Judge Parker, 1/28/10

Also a hilarious image: Sam reacts to the information that Neddy has decided to move in with her boyfriend — no, wait, I’m sorry, has taken a “live-in lover,” which sounds much hotter — by performing an angry interpretive dance, in which he channels an enraged chicken of paternal vengeance. You can see in panel two that he’s strained his neck in the process, but the important thing is that he’s made his point.

Pluggers, 1/28/10

I was going to make a joke about how pluggers are so old that plugger hypochondriacs think they’re dying of archaic diseases. But then I did a bit of research (NOT ON WEBMD I AM NO PLUGGER) and found out that today, most beriberi cases occur in alcoholics whose drink-ravaged bodies can no longer properly absorb Vitamin B1. Thus, I’m going to go with “Pluggers are all terrible boozer degenerates” instead.

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Herb and Jamaal, 1/25/10

Good lord, Herb and Jamaal, I think it would be best for you to stick with what you know — risible non-specificity — because when you try to make up actual names for the inhabitants of your fictional universe, you fail in discombobulating ways. I admit to being totally baffled as to what image “Who Waa Twang” is supposed to evoke — some horribly misguided attempt to create a Chinese or African name, maybe? I’m also having a bit of difficulty buying Herb, who has two young children and a sprightly mother-in-law, as being old enough to have even as a child enjoyed an art form that had more or less vanished by 1955. It’s possible that he managed to convince a significantly younger woman to marry him, since his diminutive stature might have made him appear younger in her eyes.

One thing I do like is the fact that The Guy Who Played “Who Waa Twang” is still an imperious, self-centered ass, like the movie star he is. Fishing saliva-covered false teeth off of the no doubt filthy floor? That’s for the little people! TGWP“WWT” (as they call him in the tabloids) doesn’t bend over to pick stuff up when there are adoring fans to do it for him, and there always adoring fans to do it for him.

Family Circus, 1/25/10

It’s true that I’ve been on a bit of a Family Circus run of late, but how can I not be when it’s so continually and hilariously cruel? My favorite part about today’s panel is the smug little smile on Billy’s face in the background. Clearly Billy realizes that his little brother is so monumentally stupid that he’s literally forgotten how to walk. Perhaps he’s been out there for days, holding that snowball and hoping someone will come within range; it would explain the pile of snow that’s accrued around his feet.

Gil Thorp, 1/25/10

There’s nothing that turns Gil and Mimi Thorp on more than inappropriately matchmaking with their students! Cassie Corman, for those not following along, is a just-turned-18 senior engaged in a tempestuous and parentally unapproved affair with Ray, a pizza jockey with few social or economic prospects. Obviously her parents will be thrilled when she ditches this lout for Steve Luhm, a college drop-out and high school janitor, who under certain conditions might appear to be marginally higher on the social ladder.

Judge Parker, 1/25/10

Whoah, older Spencer adoptee Neddy will soon at last be returning from her Paris sojourn! And with a new boyfriend to boot. I’m intrigued by Sam’s “How young … and how talented?” question, as he appears to be trying to find the sweet spot between “Neddy is shacking up some some 45-year-old has-been” and “Neddy is molesting a child prodigy.”

Also, when Neddy left for Paris (four years and an artist ago in real time, which is, what, three weeks ago in strip time?) she had some boyfriend to whom she tearfully bid goodbye by doing some kind of cool tongue thing, so there’s sure to be room for drama!

Spider-Man, 1/25/10

Whee, Spidey’s thrilling tales of cowardice continue! “I’ve made myself safe by hiding from Sabretooth! Maybe I could make the city safe … by hiding more effectively! I can’t see anything going wrong with this plan, in the sense that if I can’t see it happening because I’m not around to see it, I won’t know about it!”

Blondie, 1/25/10

“I mean, you might think that a genuine pink-and-purple macaw would be pink and purple! But that’s a rookie mistake.”

UPDATE: Uh, speaking of mistakes, as several commentors pointed out, that’s a pink-and-purple beaked macaw, with the coloring actually pretty good for once. The Comics Curmudgeon regrets the error.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/25/10

Wait, the mule is Looweezy’s aunt? And is also related to her husband somehow? Hootin’ Holler’s kinship networks are even more unsettling than I would have imagined.

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Gil Thorp, 1/23/10

“Help” = all-too-interested-in-high-school-athletes creepster janitor Steve Luhm, obviously, whose stint “helping” the girl’s basketball team will turn out to be even less appropriate than his efforts with the boys.

Family Circus, 1/23/10

This is an illustration of the empathy-free horrors that the Keane Kids have become as a result of their monstrous upbringing, and a good reason why the Keane Kompound must be bombed, from a great height, for the safety of all mankind.

Sally Forth, 1/23/10

Having gone behind Ted’s back to loan family money to her deadbeat sister, Sally knows that she has only one chance to deflect her husband’s anger: to finally cater to his fantasy of having sex with Han Solo. Will Han shoot first in this scenario?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/23/10

Since Hootin’ Holler has long been neglected by the flatlander-dominated government and has never been serviced by any sort of municipal water supply, its impoverished rustic residents have only their own bodily fluids with which to bathe themselves.

Pluggers, 1/23/10

After a plugger dies of a massive coronary, the indelible dents his enormous ass left in the furniture make up the monument he leaves for his descendants to remember him by.