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Garfield, 2/7/12

So, here’s an absolutely true thing: for years now, every time my wife manages to one-up me on something, I say “It’s not a contest” and she dramatically replies “Says the loser!” The first time we did it was spontaneous, and now it’s just one of the catchphrases in the long-running sitcom that our marriage (like, I assume, most long-term relationships) has become. So you can understand why we found this strip both hilarious and unsettling. Still, it’s extremely unnerving to see someone you love say “Obviously Jim Davis is spying on us” with a completely straight face.

Hi and Lois, 2/7/12

Let’s ignore for the moment the whole “who-moved-my-cookie” office-hijinks har-har. For me, the thing that really captures the banality of white-collar life is the poster hanging up in the second panel. I’m assuming that “FF” stands for “Foofram,” the name of Hi and Thirsty’s employer, which I’ve kind of come to love. Remember, nothing boosts workplace morale like printing your corporate logo and “QUALITY” onto an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper and scotch-taping it to the wall of the break room.

Mary Worth, 2/7/12

Not to brag or anything, but it turns out I was 100% correct about Nola’s techniques for turning aside Mary’s meddling. Having volunteered with no prying whatsoever her penchant for nonconsensual nonmonogamy, she can now lean back and simply watch Mary’s head explode.

Mark Trail, 2/7/12

Hey, remember when Tommy told us like six times that he would just leave his jacket lying around in the middle of the woods and Butch the blind dog would stay near it, when for no readily apparent reason Tommy would leave Butch the blind dog out in the woods by himself, and you were all like, “Well, that doesn’t make any sense.” Jokes on you, suckers! This particular Chekhovian gun has fired nicely! I mean, you have to admit that Jeff the bank robber seems like the kind of dude who would just put on some gross old jacket he found lying around in the forest without really thinking about it that much.

Spider-Man, 2/7/12

Meanwhile, Spider-Man has decided to try out this whole “super-heroics” thing, with predictable results.

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Mark Trail, 1/23/12

OK, here’s a thing that has been persistently confusing to me about the current Mark Trail storyline: Tommy keeps insisting that he runs a “dog training business,” which, to an effete urban dweller such as myself, summons up an image of an obedience school where a Cesar Millan disciple explains to you how to establish an inter-creature dynamic within your household that prevents your adorable little Pomeranian from urinating on your newly restored hardwood floors. But Tommy only talks about Butch the blind dog and the rest of his business in terms of hunting, so I guess out in Real American “dog training businesses” are all about training your dog as a hunting companion, seriously, why would you even own a dog if you weren’t going to hunt with it? And so obviously a blind dog would be useless in such a context … unless Mark can prove that Butch has what it takes after all. Of course, the fact that Tommy is so transparently eager to get a 10-minute segment about Butch onto Animal Planet or the Outdoors Channel or Pointing The Camera At Nature or whatever basic cable channel Mark’s friend works for just goes to show that even Real America is desperately in thrall to the coastal media elites.

Hi and Lois, 1/23/12

It’s really quite sad that this is what Hi and Lois think a “quickie” is. And Lois isn’t even fully committed to it! You can’t drink tea at a coffee quickie, Lois.

Apartment 3-G, 1/23/12

Ha ha, Tommie is so boring that Lu Ann is going to call her “Margo” as she waves the MapQuest page she printed out all by herself at her. In the background, the actual Margo sees where this conversation is going and quickly decides to be anywhere else.

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/22/12

Wow, how hardcore is Slick Smitty about committing petty, pointless crimes, constantly? Hardcore enough to sneak out of his own hospital room and steal flowers and chocolates from a heavily sedated goat, for no good reason. One imagines that he had to cradle the the things in his tender and heavily bandaged hands, trying not to grunt in pain at the pressure on his still-healing flesh, all the while leaving an incriminating trail of toeprints behind him. And how do you think he burned his hands in the first place? Probably from trying to steal a hot frying pan from a duck or something. It’s a sickness, Smitty, get help!

When I first read the puzzle question, the detail my mind settled on was that Smitty claimed the flowers and candy were from his girlfriend. I half expected Slylock’s solution to be “Wrong! Slick Smitty doesn’t have a girlfriend. He only stole these gifts to fool the world — and maybe, in the process, to fool himself — into believing that someone, somewhere might love him.”

Panels from Hi and Lois, 1/22/12

Hey kids! You might have heard a lot of socialist talk about how corporate media consolidation is bad! But without it, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy seamless cross-platform entertainment experiences like these, where you can check out the adventures of your favorite licensed characters in multiple media simultaneously. (Just remember, don’t download movies illegally off the Internet, the Internet is full of child molesters and demons.)