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With no easy way to represent a full day every day in just three or four panels, continuity comics develop little collections of stalls and skips. Since most of them are stuck in the doldrums right now (thanks, comics!), let’s take a look at how they do it.

Judge Parker, 3/10/11

Judge Parker lards on peripheral characters and extraneous plot elements until the whole toddering edifice collapses, then just sorta walks away whistling.

Here, the MIT graduate student Rasta chauffeur who reviews all the books for a prestigious publisher argues with the perky but stiffly formal PR genius coed intern he’s known from childhood, whose first boss died in a bus crash, whose “other boss” is giving birth, and who apparently maintains a valuable baseball card collection, about whether he should tell the firm’s owner to let the intern keep doing the thing the owner has no idea she is doing in the first place. The outcome of their discussion is of absolutely no consequence to the “main action”, which consists of the Judge sitting at a table behind a “Meet the Author” sign in a Borders that hasn’t got the word yet. So I’m on the edge of my frickin’ seat, yo.

Hey, remember the buxom multilingual “former” CIA operative who’s going to introduce the shoe-designer’s not-girlfriend to some friends at the World Bank? The one who’s dating the gun-totin’ Junior Judge and being followed by the mysterious shadowy guy, except maybe he’s really following the Judge? Yeah, neither does anybody else. And that was yesterday. That’s just how Judge Parker rolls.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/10/11

Rex Morgan freezes time the way some Eastern mystics do, by practiced, sustained, focused, utter inactivity. Rex and June never do anything — they follow along only to observe, sometimes disappearing for months on end with no appreciable impact on the, um, “action.” In the current story, they’ve subcontracted what passes for a plot to “irresistible force” shrieking hysteric Berna and “immovable object” belligerent loser Dex, who bicker about lottery winnings that are distinctly not in evidence. There’s as much chance this plot will move off the dime as this pair will ever see one.

Gasoline Alley, 3/10/11

Gasoline Alley has aged its characters pretty much continuously since the end of the First World War: check out its timeline. Patriarch Walt — now the sole living U.S. veteran of that war — will be 111 by the end of this month. But the strip still manages to find time for long narratives about the family’s even more distant past, which it gradually wearies of, then abruptly drops. It’s almost as though

Apartment 3-G, 3/10/11

Apartment 3-G stops time by having someone ask about Tommie’s love life — always good for a week or two of slack-jawed staring, and maybe a bonus couple days of weeping.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/6/11

America’s most isolated rural enclave falls at last to the scourge of mef. Soon Jughaid will be raising ‘Tater alone as Snuffy puts up the still for bail and Loweezy gives her sweet love to the Law. At least Hootin’ Holler is safe from mef mouf, due to its residents’ lack of teef.

Mary Worth, 3/6/11

Um, Dawn — if you want to sleep, how about turning your big incesty asphyxiation-play poster around to face the wall? I know I won’t be getting much sleep until you do.

Crankshaft, 3/6/11

To everyone who thinks Ed Crankshaft is a born asshole, he replies: “Assholes are made, not born! Watch me make one out of my son-in-law Jeff, here!”

And in a sign that the idea well at Crankshaft HQ is going dry, the creative process for today’s strip began, “Say, we haven’t done anything with Pam in a long time — there must be something we can do with Pam!”

Judge Parker, 3/6/11

Oh, poo. No murder, no impersonation — just an ambitious intern, “I know I’ve got what it takes”, tedious exposition (“other boss” WTF?), and blah blah blah. How is this different than Sophie’s cheerleader tryouts, exactly? Oh yeah — no audience or professional judging this time around. But hey — Alan’s enjoying the hell out of his Smug Chow, there.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Blondie, 3/3/11

There’s something I’m profoundly missing about today’s Blondie. Mostly, I’m completely befuddled as to what un-thought-ballooned thoughts we’re supposed to understand to be ruminating in the minds of the two characters in the second panel of this strip. Presumably it’s something that makes panel three funny, or at least makes it make sense. Is barber M. Morelli’s weirdly prominent nameplate relevant somehow? Is Dagwood pausing because he believes his dictatorial boss, whose spies are everywhere, might be listening in on him at this very moment? Perhaps he fears that the huge, unbroken pane of glass is a one-way mirror that Mr. Dithers is hiding on the other side of, seething.

Judge Parker, 3/3/11

Oh, look, the demonization of the latest female Judge Parker guest star is proceeding apace! Our formerly pleasant college student suddenly has turned hard-faced and cruel, as she pushes forward with marketing Judge Parker’s terrible thriller despite the death of her boss. Will we find out that Constance literally threw her boss under the bus? Will Constance’s plot end violently, and in turn become fodder for another Judge Parker book, which will be promoted by yet another murderess? I think I’m beginning to understand why the publishing world is in so much trouble.

Apartment 3-G, 3/3/11

Ha ha, I love Trey’s look of fish-lipped horror in panel two as he processes the phrase “life and stuff.” “My God, I thought he was just a rough-around-the-edges working-class guy, but no, he really is quite stupid.”

Mark Trail, 3/3/11

Oh my God, Mark’s been separated from his razor and is starting to show signs of a beard! HE’S BECOME WHAT HE HATES THE MOST.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/3/11

Oh, hey, and someone tried to hire June Morgan as a stripper! So there’s that.