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Apartment 3-G, 8/27/06

And New York loves you, Gina. Except for the part of New York that lives in your apartment building, whom you insist on insulting. Kids these days! With their hairy shirts and inability to filter their ids and whatnot. Still, we all should grateful for Gina, because her inappropriate blabbermouthery generated a rare triple head-bobble in panel four, though if Tommie isn’t secretly enjoying this display, I’ll eat Margo’s hat. Margo, meanwhile, gives us one moment of wounded vulnerability in panel five before launching a patented icy stare at the Professor in the final panel. Gina had better be taking notes right now.

Oh, and what the hell is going on with the word “Frida” randomly appearing on Tommie’s face in the first panel? Creepy. As. Hell. My guess: it’s a prison tattoo of the name of her girlfriend, who’s still on the “inside.” Watch out, Ted: she’s spoken for!

Judge Parker, 8/27/06

I don’t mean to harsh on the aesthetic endeavors of a pair of overpampered teenage girls, but I find Raju’s haircut, while an improvement over his old greaseball look, to be insufficiently hilarious. Clearly, we need to turn to a professional to get him Queer Eyed. Say, does Randy Parker have some spare time? I hear he’s not the marrying kind. If you know what I mean. And I think you do. No, not going to get married any time soon. No, sir.

Judge Parker seems to be jealous of Apartment 3-G’s newfound ability to keep several plot balls in the air at once, as it’s introducing yet another story thread: the case of the missing horse feed! I’m sure it will be riveting.

Mary Worth, 8/27/06

“Actually, it may be more than a plan, it may be a harebrained scheme!” If Toby’s plan involves Mary’s feminine wiles, a woodchipper, and a gross of industrial-strength Hefty bags, I for one will be a happy guy. Just don’t look directly at her shirt, or you’ll get seasick.

Marvin, 8/27/06

Aaaaand here come the Chinese child labor jokes.

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Mary Worth, 8/20/06

When am I going to stop putting up Mary Worth every day, you might ask? Oh, right about the time it stops being so incredibly awesome. We’ve seen Mary P.O.’d before, but I think this is probably the first Mary Worth in the strip’s 70-year run that just features of panel after panel of entirely justified invective. Just seeing Mary say “capisce” would have been enough to allow me to die a happy man, but that’s just the beginning! AND STILL HE DOESN’T GET IT! I’m really looking forward to whatever it is Aldo has to show Mary that will assuage her fears. For Mary’s sake, I hope it’s not a scrapbook full of pictures of her with all the eyes carefully cut out. Or his genitals. HAND JIVING WON’T SAVE YOU, MARY WORTH.

This may be as good a time as any to note that Aldo appears to have a MySpace account. (WARNING: Loud, craptastic music plays when you open this page.)

Judge Parker, 8/20/06

Perhaps almost as awesome is the prospect Randy’s run for judge being derailed by a slanderous, homophobic whispering campaign. Will Randy call April out of CIA training and have her “work it like a claw” live on TV, proving his heterosexuality and thus his fitness for the bench? God, I love politics.

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Wow! I go away for a few days to spend a little quality time with my mom and now I’ve sat down to do some bloggy stuff and found that you guys have made … some comments. A lot of comments. An extra large number of very funny comments.

I bow down to your comics obsessiveness. I was going to skip over the days I flaked out on, but now I see that you all deserve better than that. Thus, today I offer you quick takes on the weekend’s strips just past.

Judge Parker, 8/11/06

As has been widely noted, the new Judge Parker artist, after a very strong start, seemed to suddenly come to the totally understandable conclusion of “Holy crap, this is Judge Parker, why the hell am I putting any work into it?”, and the quality of the lettering and, to a lesser extent, art suddenly declined. It’s still an improvement over the previous artist, who made everyone look vaguely like one another and not-so-vaguely like monkeys. He also deserves kudos for making Horace look at least quasi-human. For your reference, here’s old-artist Horace:

Yeesh.

By the way, if the phrase “more than just a business relationship” doesn’t make your gaydar ping just a little, then you and I have very different agendas in reading Judge Parker, my friend. It adds a particularly twisted twist to Horace’s desperate attempt to get randy young Randy married off to somebody — anybody — before enduring the public scrutiny of an election.

Mark Trail, 8/11/06

Like any true Mark Trail aficionado, I find this strip totally unrealistic. Everyone knows that Kelly Welly wouldn’t beat around the bush, but would just say “bear penis.”

For Better Or For Worse, 8/12/06

You know, I think this strip is really sweet. I mean, in this go-go, youth-focused world, it’s nice to see a depiction of the sort of gentle, loving, but still very deep intimacy that builds up over the decades of an essentially decent marri… oh, who am I kidding. PLEASE GOD DON’T MAKE ME THINK ABOUT ELLIE AND JOHN DOING IT NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Gil Thorp, 8/12/06

You know, for a strip as manic as Gil Thorp, the wordless final panel here is almost shocking. It really brings home the sad and quiet desperation behind a character who’s usually full of bluster. It almost makes you feel sorr… oh, who am I kidding. WEEP, MOON, WEEP! YOU’RE SCREWED! SOON YOU’LL BE IN THE POORHOUSE! MOO HA HA HA HA HA!

Apartment 3-G, 8/14/06

You know what’s important to creating a storyline about underlying sexual tension? Having it involve at least one character who we might believe to have some sort of inner sexual persona. I’m not sure how either of these sad sacks would react to some sort of potential romantic relationship, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be sexy. Tommie’s look of panic and confusion in the final panel seems about right.