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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.

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Remember, people: If you get an infantile urge to giggle every time you hear the phrase “Work them like a claw … and call me Randy,” then you should buy either the men’s or women’s working-it-like-a-claw-themed shirt over at the Comics Curmudgeon store. Then you should take a picture of yourself wearing it and send it to me, like faithful reader Bigfoot did:

I think Randy and April were eating Chinese food, not sushi, but you have to admire her dedication to verisimilitude.

(If you don’t have a clue as to what the hell this is about, click here and scroll down.)