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Marvin, 3/2/07

All right, Marvin, listen to me: “like that popular toy” isn’t something that any human being would ever in a gazillion years say. An actual human being would say “like Dancin’ Elmo” (and substitute the actual brand name of whatever animatronic Taiwanese-manufactured hunk of plush crap is being demanded by all the little squallers this year for “Dancin’ Elmo”). The only situation in which you’d say “like that popular toy” is if you had a law firm on retainer that was terrified of angering some major toy manufacturing concern vetting your dialogue before you speak it.

Of course, these are all Marvin’s thought balloons, and I suppose that we don’t really know how pre-vocal infants think, so it’s possible that their internal narrative sounds like it was composed by a committee of overcautious corporate lawyers. But I kind of doubt it.

By the way, Floppet, if the way I’m interpreting that last panel is correct, as soon as Marvin starts walking around and shaking his diapered butt vaguely in time to the Barney song, you’ll be finding yourself in a box at the Salvation Army in short order.

Herb and Jamaal, 3/2/07

I find it charming that Ezekiel’s mom looks so horrified that her son is apparently making the essentially arbitrary choice of underwear style by a somewhat whimsical method. Presumably, if she knew the truth — that Ezekiel had gone through some horribly misguided career-selection algorithm that boiled things down to two possible life paths, one of which involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in education expenses for her, the other involving her son being repeatedly punched in the head until he’s left a near vegetable at the age of thirty, and that he’s using random chance to determine which road to take — she’d be totally fine with it.

Family Circus, 3/2/07

P.J. from the Family Circus + pornstar mustache = my weekend ruined, thanks a lot.

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The Phantom, 12/16/06

I’m not going to lie to you: I love love love the Phantom’s always awesome NEXT: boxes. They can be by turns catchy and taunting. This particular example raises the intriguing prospect of NEXT: boxes that consider the ancillary details of the situation being portrayed. Like if the big purple guy is secretly hitching a ride on a military helicopter to Rhodia, and we get NEXT: What’s the weather like there? Or if the Ghost Who Walks is punching out some ne’er-do-wells as faithful Devil looks on, and we’re confronted with NEXT: Heartworms!

This strip is well known for its love of the interrobang, but Denton’s administrative assistant is so startled by the sight of President Luaga’s muscular assertion of executive authority that she’s just plain bangobanging.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/16/06

You know, I’ve always thought of Herb and Jamaal as, if not B.C.-style theocratic or even Family Circus-style churchy, at least kind of church friendly. That was before today, when we saw that the seemingly friendly Rev. Croom is in fact a money-grubbing charlatan. I look forward to future installments, where the good Reverent is forced into a reparative therapy facility after being caught with a male prostitute and boatload of meth, and his flock mostly turns their back on Christ as a result.

Pluggers, 12/16/06

So, pluggers are Bloods, eh? That’s it, I’m joining the Crips.

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Herb and Jamaal, 9/28/06

Herb and Jamaal seems to be laboring under the misapprehension that Jamaal and Yolanda are the Ross and Rachel of the comics pages, and that America is on tenterhooks to see how their mutual but repeatedly thwarted romance, which has been drawn out for literally months and months, will turn out. Apparently the climactic moment has arrived in the form of this disturbing double entendre. I’m assuming that the original punchline involved the phrase “I’d toss your salad for you,” but the prudes at the syndicate cleaned it up.

Gil Thorp, 9/28/06

Who are these people? Don’t know. What’s the background to this little incident? Not a clue. Are they blowing up mailboxes? Yes, yes they are. And that frankly is all I need to know to know that Gil Thorp is awesome.

The Phantom, 9/28/06

So our old friend Walker has broken up a little human trafficking ring. Today, the Ghost-With-Stripy-Butt proves that just because you’re a superhero and defender of justice and human rights, doesn’t mean you can’t also be a condescending prick.