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Pluggers, 10/7/06

“Hi Cousin Mabel! How are things in California? What? 4:30 in the morning? No, I think you’re wrong, my watch says 7:30. ‘Time zone’? Oh, I forget that you crazy Californians always have to do things differently! Ha ha! Yeah, I know we go through this every time I call, but I just don’t understand why you silly liberals don’t get on real American time.”

Seriously, though, I can derive no other message from this strip other than “Pluggers will call you at a totally inappropriate time just to save a few cents a minute on long distance,” or, to put it more succinctly, “Pluggers are assholes.” I note that contributor Lauren Williams is herself an inhabitant of Santa Barbara, California, which is one of the lower plugger-density cities in America, so I have to assume that she’s not admiring the plugger’s thrifty ways but rather attempting to publicly humiliate her plugger relatives who call her in the dead of night. Sorry, Lauren, but you should know by now that pluggers don’t feel any shame.

Judge Parker, 10/7/06

Yeah, Raju’s going to have a pretty awesome time at that party, all right.

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Apartment 3-G, 10/3/06

Wow, for a strip that had to tiptoe its way around what was blatantly supposed to be an extramarital fling a few months ago, Apartment 3-G sure seems to have enthusiastically transformed itself into a Viagra commercial today. I like the way Margo and the Professor are all smiles throughout the exchange, to show that Margo’s impotence cracks are all in good fun. Gina, meanwhile, looks suddenly concerned in panel two, as if she hadn’t considered this possible downside to her old-man-snagging ways.

Beetle Bailey, 10/3/06

Ha, ha, it’s funny because General Halftrack and Beetle are both cowards! But is it also a cutting commentary on the array of active and retired generals who have questioned Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s leadership in the Iraq war? Who says it can’t be both! Well, I do, because this is Beetle Bailey, so it’s really only the first thing. Except for the “funny” part.

Fox Trot, 10/3/06

The interlinked man-woman symbol pendant is a nice touch, and the “beetle music” line is groanworthy, but neither should distract from the fact that Jason is using his iguana as a prop to hit on his mom. Ick. And ick.

Mark Trail, 10/3/06

OK, arrow-ass-bear-whose-arrow-seems-to-have-mysteriously-disappeared-but-we-know-it’s-still-you-probably, you need to remember that you are a vicious, 1,000-pound beast, with flesh-tearing fangs and razor-sharp claws. The fact that you allowed this pasty, defenseless, hairless ape to bop you on the snout with a tree limb — as if you were a dog to be chastised with a rolled-up newspaper! — and ran away, leaving all of the human’s internal organs safely inside his body, brings shame to all wild bears everywhere. You’re not expected to try to understand the hostility towards you, just react to it with savage carnage.

Judge Parker, 10/3/06

GAYEST. JUDGE PARKER. EVER.

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So much to cover from this weekend’s developments!

In Mary Worth, Ian demonstrated that the hot air that keeps his chest puffed up is of a sufficient pressure to withstand Toby’s feeble pounding.

In Gil Thorp, somebody admired somebody else’s shapely buttocks.

Rex Morgan, M.D., proved that even sinister poverty-stricken skanks recognize high-quality salami when they see it.

In Mark Trail, we learn that Mark’s wildlife-identification skills may not have been all that he made them out to be.

And in Apartment 3-G, we discover that Margo first reaction to the disappearance of one of her roommates is “more food for me”…

…and that, against all odds, the Professor is getting more action than anyone else in this strip.

But still, I think the most important events this weekend happened in Judge Parker.

Judge Parker, 9/29-10/1/06

So we all knew that Reggie Black’s “family values”-based campaign against the mysteriously single, suspiciously well-groomed, and blatantly porn-star-named Randy Parker would be hilarious. What we didn’t know was that it would be a full-on frontal attack on heterosexuality itself. After all, the strip seems to be saying, any woman you marry will just turn into a tubby, emotionally abusive drunken lout who, if not for the 80s-vintage glasses and earrings, resembles nobody so much as Brent Raptor’s mom. And if that’s where the straight lifestyle leads, gentlemen, wouldn’t we all be better off in the company of men?

Judge Parker, 10/2/06

On Monday, meanwhile, the strip posits a related thesis: that heterosexuals should not be allowed to perform makeovers.