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Herb and Jamaal, 6/8/06

Jamaal looks like he’s selecting a volume from one of those fake bookcases full of near-identical tomes that shysters stand in front of in late-night TV commercials for law firms specializing in personal injury cases. Maybe the artist originally intended for Jamaal to be watching TV — an environment where his loungewear would be more apropos — but, like Jamaal himself, decided to do a little last-minute semantic shifting. Not that his internal musing on PC names for his loungewear makes any kind of sense anyway. I guess what I’m trying to say is: kids, don’t start with a punchline and then work your way backwards from there. It isn’t going to work out well for you.

Gil Thorp, 6/8/06

Who says the artists over at Gil Thorp aren’t very good? I have never seen a more harrowing look of sheer horror on any comic character’s face than the one that the Rap Dog is sporting in panel two. If anyone wonders how tough a nut Jolene Raptor’s going to be to crack, all they need to do is look into Brent’s glassy, terrified eyes right there.

Apartment 3-G, 6/8/06

“Things like … my roommates’ sexual orientation!” *sob*

You know, Lu Ann’s statement in the first panel would ring truer if we had even a shred of a sense of what Tommie’s personality was like. As it is, I think I can speak for the entire Apartment 3-G-reading public in saying that I have no idea what kind of party would be Tommie’s kind of party. “Tommie, I know you don’t like leaving the house or talking to people. Thanks for making the sacrifice!”

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Dennis the Menace, 6/7/06

Yeah, your grandpa pretty much sounds like a loser, kid. I’m all for good sportsmanship and everything, but if you go around telling your friends stuff like this, I think you are pretty much permanently banned from referring to yourself as a “menace”.

9 Chickweed Lane and Pluggers, 6/7/06

If you had asked me this morning which two features would be using the same joke today, this is not a pairing I would have come up with.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/7/06

Rex looks increasingly agitated as this strip progresses. “God damn them and their medical mumbo-jumbo! Impersonating a doctor is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought. OK, what am I going to do if one of them asks me a question? There’s got to be a way to change the subject of this conversation to ice cream.”

Gil Thorp, 6/7/06

What’s wrong with him? How much time do you have, exactly, Coach?

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Gil Thorp, 5/30/06

“For the love of Christ,” you’ve probably been saying for weeks, “What in God’s name is going on in Gil Thorp?” Well, the sad answer is: not much. We’ve been treated to two or three boring storylines involving surly teenage athletes that have been getting in the way of what we all really want: more of Brent Raptor’s mom. But today’s strip promises big moves in that department. The lady rounding out this coachy foursome joined our cast of lovable misfits last summer, when she used her feminine wiles to get Milford grad/polka disc jockey Von to take care of her little stalker problem. Now she’s going to take on the She-Raptor, which heralds another wacky summer in Gil Thorpistan. Does the “horizon broadening” she has in mind involve getting avocado facials together at the local day spa, or forcible kidnapping at knifepoint? Tune in to find out! I find the whole prospect positively delicious.

Wizard of Id, 5/30/06

Can I admit something to you all? Since I started reading the Wizard of Id on a regular basis last month, I’ve found myself sort of enjoying it some of the time. Admittedly, my expectations coming into it were set very, very low, though this hasn’t enhanced my appreciation of Crock, which I took up again at the same time. The Wiz by my estimation is funny maybe a third of the time, which is a lot better than some strips I could mention but won’t because it would be deeply embarrassing for them.

Anyway, today I had the realization that the installments of this strip I like the best are the ones involving the stablehands, whose conversation inevitably revolves around horse feces and the shoveling thereof, and, in the larger sense, the level of degradation that this brings into their lives. Make of this what you will.