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Crock, 11/3/14

Hey all, remember when Crock creator Bill Rechin died in 2011, and then a year later his son Kevin, who had taken over the strip in accordance with the Legacy Comics Law, declared that working on his dad’s creation made him too sad and he declared that he’d be quitting and shutting the strip down? And there was a note in passing that King Features would make “classic” Crock strips available to “foreign” newspapers for three years, and yet Crock continued to appear in American newspapers, or at least on the King Features site? And the strips that appeared didn’t seem to be particularly “classic”, but looked pretty much exactly like the strips from the decade or so leading up to Rechin’s death? ANYWAY, if you’re like me, you were probably hoping to watch Crock fade away into semi-fond and very vague memories without ever having introduced a black character possibly named “Three” who cheerfully asks people if they “ever do the ‘hip-hop.'” Today’s strip reminds us all that hoping for things only leads to disappointment.

Heathcliff, 11/3/14

I guess as purveyors of cultural/musical stereotypes go, today’s Heathcliff is significantly less problematic than today’s Crock. “These rock and rollers today, they’re all tall skinny white fellas with that ‘mop-top’ haircut, right? Like those Beatles that the girls are all screaming at? Let’s have Heathcliff sit in one of their guitar cases while he begs for change on the subway, that’ll show them. Heh heh, Heathcliff, you truly are the comics pages’ bad boy.”

Apartment 3-G, 11/3/14

Fun fact: Martin did purchase a table! For his apartment. Which is where he and Margo quite obviously are now. Definitely not in a restaurant. Real easy to get a table in your dad’s apartment, Margo. Just saying.

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Mary Worth, 11/1/14

Oh snap, looks like Hanna’s going to be convinced to move into an old folks’ home not because it’s “what’s best for her” or anything, but because it’ll be the fastest way to get her hands on this hot widowed hunk of vest-clad man meat. Just to add to his cred, Sean is still capable of operating a car, so it looks like Hanna won’t have to take the shuttle with all the other losers after all! It would be a truly delicious act of revenge if Hanna’s move to an assisted living facility not only lands her a man, but denies her daughter the free babysitting services she needs to do the same.

Heathcliff, 11/1/14

Sure, lots of aggressively whimsical cartoon cats might make a point of dressing up like Saturn every Saturday, but only Heathcliff would build a huge Saturn-suit, with most of its bulk above his head, in order to really do justice to our solar system’s second largest planet. This is the kind of commitment to a corny shtick that has truly made Heathcliff America’s second-most-beloved feline in the daily comics.

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Herb and Jamaal, 10/31/14

It’s true: feelings can be tricky! Like, for instance, you may feel close enough with your best friend to just ask him about his current emotional state with a new love interest: a pretty intimate question! And yet even so, you might be embarrassed to admit that you like to weave elaborate water-metaphors about feelings, and so instead of sharing them with him and risking embarrassment, you just lean on the counter and smile to yourself, imagining those emotional waves crashing over your head. Don’t tell him what you’re thinking. He can never know.

Blondie, 10/31/14

I guess what bothers me about this is that Dagwood thinks he needs to add a jack o’ lantern to this costume to make it Halloweeny. It’s a costume. Costumes are inherently Halloweeny. Dressing in costume is pretty much what Halloween is about these days. You don’t need to gussy it up with Halloween iconography. Just dress up as a sexy slice of pizza and get on with it, already.

Heathcliff, 10/31/14

GOD DAMN IT

MUMMIES DON’T EAT BRAINS

YOU’RE THINKING OF ZOMBIES

YES THEY’RE BOTH REANIMATED CORPSES BUT THEIR MYTHOLOGY AND CULTURAL HISTORIES ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

MUMMIES PUT CURSES ON YOU AND … UH … SHAMBLE TOWARDS YOU MENACINGLY

AND I THINK THAT’S IT?

ALSO THEIR ROTTING FLESH IS COVERED WITH BANDAGES

DEFINITELY NOT THE SAME AS ZOMBIES, IS MY POINT

GET IT TOGETHER, HEATHCLIFF