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Heathcliff, 11/21/14

So Heathcliff being depicted as hanging in the mid-air, on the verge of descending onto some hapless soul with claws unsheathed, is a thing in Heathcliff that happens semi-regularly! This is the first time Heathcliff’s owner-grandma and owner-boy have gotten in on the action, though. Ha ha, it’s funny because Heathcliff’s owner-grandpa has money, and his family is going to tear his flesh from his bones in order to get it!

Funky Winkerbean, 11/21/14

Haha, remember when Bull got offered a job as a college coach and was so rapturously happy that he and his wife threatened to spend the week fucking? Well, instead they spent the week gloating about how much more money he was going to make, but now the job has been cruelly yanked away from him. This is why I think Funky Winkerbean is pretty savvy about its sadness-brand: when you make all your characters intensely unlikable, your readers don’t really mind knowing that only bad things will ever happen to them!

Dennis the Menace, 11/21/14

So … we’re not going to talk about the fact that Margaret is just wandering the streets dressed up as an angel? It’s not Christmas pageant season or anything. She’s obviously experiencing some kind of psychotic break, and all Dennis can do is make a joke about being a “bad boy.” I dub this whole scene pretty menacing in its callous neglect of her mental health.

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Heathcliff, 11/11/14

There’s a lot of things I love about today’s Heathcliff. There is, for instance, the fact that Heathcliff’s owner-grandpa apparently has a blonde toupee that we’ve never seen before; the fact that Heathcliff holds this toupee in such low regard that he dug it out of whatever dark closet it’s been hidden away in for years in order to show everyone exactly what he thinks of it; and the fact that everyone seems to recognize that putting the toupee on a football and then spiking that is meant as a public display of contempt. But my favorite part is the little fist-pump Heathcliff’s owner-child is making as he watches this ritualistic act. “You spike that toupee-football, Heathcliff,” he seems to be thinking to himself. “You spike it. You show that thing. It sucks.”

Beetle Bailey, 11/11/14

Don’t be too quick to thank a soldier today, America: you could be talking to one of the really shitty ones! This is your Veteran’s Day message from Beetle Bailey, America’s foremost military-themed comic strip.

Family Circus, 11/11/14

A true sociopath, who is unable to feel any real empathy for another human being, is likely to view emotional interactions as purely transactional, and those transactions as an opportunity for power plays. Thus little Jeffy has become an emotional mafioso, darkly reminding his mother than she hasn’t paid up in full when it comes to affection and that he’ll be coming by to collect his due later.

Mary Worth, 11/11/14

Nice try, Mary! While you’re distracted and nattering on about how you’ll chauffer Hanna around for the next three years, she’s secretly moved the steering wheel over to her side of the car and is now driving you! You’ll never stop her from driving! Never!

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Judge Parker, 11/10/14

Oh no! Could our super-rich heroes be encountering ill fortune? Actual mild inconvenience? This is insane! Why, they might have to stay in this RV park for literally hours until AAA can come out and fix the engine! After reading the first panel, I was hoping that the Spencer-Drivers were victims of class warfare — that the muttonchopped/combovered RV salesman who unloaded this thing on them knew that he was selling the rich swells a lemon and didn’t care because he was going bankrupt anyway and screw those guys, you know? But it turns out it’s squirrels, which is even funnier. Just a bunch of squirrels, frolicking around the vast Spencer-Driver estate and then chewing through important parts of their machinery with their razor-sharp ever-growing incisors. Even the adorable wildlife is revolting against these insufferable people.

Momma, 11/10/14

Even for a comic that repeatedly dwells on the Oedipal relationship between the title character and her sons, this strip is pretty dark. “Well, Francis, I can’t change your diapers anymore, thanks to the court order, but I still demand satisfaction! What was the most shameful thing that’s happened to you since last we spoke? Spare no details, no matter how disgusting or humiliating!”

Heathcliff, 11/10/14

Hello Kitty is 40 this year! What better way to celebrate than by implying that Heathcliff is fucking Hello Kitty?