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Mary Worth, 11/2/12

It’s disturbing to see Mary sprinkling down weird amoeba-blobs out of her hand onto whatever’s in that tray in the first panel. It’s disturbing to see Dawn struggle to hold up a bowl with two hands, as if it were filled with liquid lead. It’s disturbing to trace back the forearm visible at the right in panel two and realize that there’s no way it connects to Dawn’s elbow, which means that someone has broken into the house and has grabbed Dawn by the back of the head and is shaking her for unknown reasons. But Dawn’s new love interest being desperate to keep her away from water because she reminds him of his dead sister? The idea of him thinking, the first time they have sex, about how his beloved sister will never be out of his life again? That’s not disturbing at all! It’s human nature. We humans are an odd lot, if by odd you mean “capable of unspeakable perversions and psychic pain.”

Apartment 3-G, 11/2/12

I have fallen down on the Reading The Comics So You Don’t Have To front, because I have forgotten to mention that, sometime after their inappropriate workplace massage session was interrupted, Margo and Evan made out. There’s been no indication of what progress if any their relationship has made since then, and I’m going to guess that, based on today’s strip and a certain amount of personal experience, they’ve never really discussed anything and Evan just keeps trying to set up the same sequence of events that have led to smooching in the past. Don’t talk about it Margo, you’re just going to ruin everything!

Hi and Lois, 11/2/12

“And retro’s cool, right? Like this vest I’ve got on? Your dad is pretty cool? Please say that I’m cool.”

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Hagar the Horrible, 10/15/12

“Maybe I shouldn’t have spent the night before I led my men into a brutal, hand-to-hand combat, during which they must either kill or be killed, filling their heads with tales of damned souls, wandering the earth as dim spectres, mere shadows of their former selves. Which thought do you think is more likely to jump into their heads unbidden it the midst of this violent melee: that they themselves will be felled in battle and their shade will live on, with the wounds and terror they feel now continuing for eternity? Or that, for the rest of their lives, every time they feel a prickling on the back of their neck or an unseasonably icy wind across their face, they’ll suspect that it’s the vengeful spirit of a man they cut down, haunting them until they succumb to madness and terror?”

Hi and Lois, 10/15/12

Ha, and if Hi’s face is any indication, he sure has earned the right to use the word “boring”! If Hi’s face is any indication, today was the day when his capacity to feel joy or pain or anything at all really was finally snuffed out by the intense ennui of mindless, soulless corporate dronery. Get used to that face, kids, it’s the only one he can make now!

Slylock Fox, 10/15/12

In order for the Slylockian world anthropomorphic animals to exist, there must be some kind of apocalyptic event in our future and their past, during which the lower beasts achieved sentience and most of the human population was wiped out, presumably violently. Normally I don’t take this personally, but something about today’s strip, in which we learn that these horror-monsters are riding our subway to our Brooklyn, makes me angry. You didn’t build that, hippo-thing! Neither did you, shirt-wearing cat! The thought of the Museum of Natural History, presumably now retooled and dedicated to the animals’ triumph over the now exterminated human race, particularly sickens me.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/15/12

Oh my goodness, I sure hope that “the party business” is the euphemism for prostitution that the writer of Rex Morgan and King Features Syndicate agreed on after several tortuous weeks of negotiations! Junior knows, and so does that cheery looking couple sitting on the bench. “That Junior, he runs the best brothel in San Diego County, doesn’t he, Martha?” “You can say that again, dear!”

B.C., 10/15/12

Hey! I just flew Southwest yesterday, and as usual the flight and service were excellent, and not once did anyone attempt to feed me something that they barfed and/or shat out (sorry, I’ve already grossed myself out enough just thinking about this, not going to look up how gizzards actually work, I’m afraid there’ll be pictures).

Spider-Man, 10/15/12

You know, the modern, Internet-savvy newsroom is a high-pressure, 24/7 operation, so it’s nice to see that J. Jonah Jameson still takes time to humiliate his employees with elaborate, improvised, and extremely sarcastic little skits.

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Spider-Man, 10/8/12

I know there are like thirty-seven wildly differing versions of the Spider-Man mythos occurring across various forms of media at any particular moment, but in the newspaper strip (surely the iteration that’s earning the least for Marvel Entertainment, LLC, and its corporate parent, The Walt Disney Corporation), this is the deal with Spidey and MJ’s living situation: they have an apartment in New York, probably Manhattan, which is implied to be small and crappy even though of course as drawn it’s significantly larger than any New York City apartment not owned by a hedge fund manager. I’ve assumed that this is all they can afford because MJ’s mid-range movie/Broadway star money and whatever spare change Peter earns as a freelance newspaper photographer pretty much cancel each other out.

But! Apparently I’ve been wrong and MJ’s painfully unfunny play made her tons of money and they’re leaving the overcrowded hellhole of New York behind them for some ghastly neo-neo-Georgian mansion just off the LIE, where Peter can wander around the corridors in his tatty bathrobe, complaining not just about how much less he makes than his wife but also about how long it takes for him to commute into the city to get yelled at by J. Jonah Jameson. Really, getting eaten by a tiger would probably be a blessing for both of them at this point.

Hi and Lois, 10/8/12

“We can get totally blotto in front of the kids and they’ll be none the wiser! I mean, I’m high all the time and you don’t ever notice, so it should be easy to fool them. Wait, did I say that last part out loud?”

Funky Winkerbean, 10/8/12

Oh, were you worried that, what with his impending remarriage, Les was no longer haunted by the spectre of his dead wife? Don’t worry, he is super duper extra haunted by the spectre of his dead wife.