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Gil Thorp, 11/6/09

Yes, it’s “that time” over in prison, that time for something that we can’t really see that well because the ring of prisoners, eager for some kind of diversion from their banal minimum-security lives, is blocking our view. Is it a good old-fashioned prison fight with improvised weapons, or good old-fashioned situational homosexuality? Either way, Gil seems to have found out about it in mid-practice, somehow. “Say, Duncan, do you know there’s this awesome Web site that’s just all streaming video footage from prisons, all the time? And that the school’s Wi-Fi network reaches all the way out here to the practice fields? Anyway, long story short, your brother got stabbed to death with a fork.”

Luann, 11/6/09

“You know what, TJ? I’m 23 years old, I’m a firefighter, I saved Toni’s life by letting her fall on me. If I want to stand outside the bathroom door and masturbate while she poops, I’m allowed to! Whose parents own this house, anyway?”

TJ seems to have been recruited by Brad’s parents to prevent illicit Brad-Toni coupling, and he’ll need all of his abstinence-promotion skills to complete that mission.

Shoe, 11/6/09

“OK, Skyler, it’s about time we had a little talk. You’re getting older now, and you should know … that … you’re a bird. As am I. We’re all birds. I know we wear clothes and have jobs and go to school, so you probably thought that we’re people, but, no: birds. Are there bees out there that are similarly anthropomorphized? Seems unlikely to me, but in a world of freaky suit-wearing coffee-drinking bird-people, anything’s possible, right? Anyway, you might want to keep a lookout for bee-people. I was going to text this to you, but then I remembered that I don’t really have hands, so that would be difficult.”

Zits, 11/6/09

The weird naked degenitaled characters in Love Is: creepy.

Jeremy and Sara’s heads superimposed on said weird naked degenitaled bodies: creepier.

Jeremy grinning widely has he holds his camera just inches from Love Is-ified Sara’s naked upraised ass: That, my friends, is unspeakable perversion Friday.

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Luann, 11/2/09

Have you guys heard about the new Lars van Trier movie, Antichrist? In the opening sequence, a couple known only as “He” and “She” (played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) get it on in sexy black-and-white slo-mo, and while they are so distracted, their little son climbs out the window and falls to his death. They are tortured by this, psychologically, and later literally! According to rumors on the Internets (and stop reading if you’re some kind of Lars van Trier aficionado or something), there is extensive genital mutilation along the way to the horrifying ending.

Anyway, nothing I’ve heard about this movie has caused me to change my opinion that Lars van Trier is a loathsome sadist, but upon reading this strip I can begin to see the appeal of such a plot line. If you’ll allow me to project: Brad and Toni engage in intimate congress on the couch the moment TJ leaves on his onion run; against all of our expectations about Brad, it lasts longer than seven minutes; TJ’s risotto (his “baby”) is burned (“killed”); TJ returns and crushes Brad’s testicles with a block of wood. This will all be part of a long-range and ultimately successful strategy to make TJ the strip’s most sympathetic character.

Spider-Man, 11/2/09

And speaking of characters for whom we should or should not harbor sympathy, have we mentioned lately that Spider-Man is an self-centered douchebag? Here is his latest scheme: he wants to convince Sandman, whom he defeated in super-combat some time ago and who has since gone straight, to engage in simulated combat in New York, so he can photograph it and sell said photographs to the Daily Bugle. Never mind the damage this will do to Sandman’s already dodgy reputation; our theoretical protagonist isn’t even bothering to pay the poor guy for his trouble! We are left to wonder who’s the worst offender: Spider-Man, for demanding that Sandman go along with his journalistic hoax, or Bigshot, for kidnapping Sandman’s daughter and threatening to harm her unless Sandman robs a bank. OK, sure, promising harm to little girls is pretty bad, but consider the fact that Bigshot is a comically preening villain named “Bigshot,” who is almost certainly constitutionally incapable of better, whereas Spider-Man is, ostensibly, a hero. Or at least he was until this week! Maybe this is the Spider-Man newspaper strip’s attempt to wade into Alan Moore-style moral ambiguity, which ought to be extremely hilarious.

Gil Thorp, 11/2/09

“I’m 5-5, Valerie. I’m easy to miss! Especially because you’re, what, seven feet tall? Eight? Is volleyball even challenging to you? Argh, no, don’t step on me!”

Mary Worth, 11/2/09

Meanwhile, in one of those “Gift of the Magi”-type things, Adrian has decided that, to live in solidarity with her comatose beloved who will never be able to perceive this beautiful world again, she will be disabling all of her senses as well. Scott is opening his eyes just as Adrian is in the process of ripping out hers.

Pluggers, 11/2/09

Thank goodness, the plugopalypse has been averted! Unfortunately the use of the elitist neologism “snail mail” will only cause further problems for our overburdened postal system, as the official Pluggers P.O. box becomes encrusted with slime from all the actual snails mailed in by confused pluggers everywhere.

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Luann, 10/27/09

I spent more time than I’d care to admit trying, really trying, to make sense of the final panel in this strip in terms of fiber’s well-known effects on the human digestive system. Do the bran muffins separate people because said people need to scurry away from each other to take a dump? Or is there farting involved, which also can reduce people’s tolerance for proximity? Or … but then I realized that I was expending valuable brain energy on figuring out a damn Luann joke that wasn’t ultimately going to be very rewarding, and dwelling on tasteless ass jokes to boot, so I stopped.

I blame Marvin for the poop joke fixation.

Anyway, I’d like to point out that anybody who actually implements Papa DeGroot’s community-building idea will find his house pelted with eggs, toilet paper, and puzzle pieces in short order.

Herb and Jamaal, 10/27/09

Fortunately, today’s Herb and Jamaal has required no such overthinking process. Ha ha, Herb’s mother-in-law has dumped an entire pot of scalding chili on his genitals! Oh, how it must burn! Ha ha! Note that, thanks to Herb’s total commitment to awkwardly setting up lame jokes over multiple panels, he’s heroically cagey enough to leave the payoff for the end, even as his flesh sizzles.

Crankshaft, 10/27/09

The worst thing … wait, no, that’s not something I think that can really be quantified. Let me start again: One of the terrible things about living with Crankshaft is his unapologetic racism. Pam can’t have any of her friends of Celtic extraction over to visit, because she knows her father will lurk about, muttering audibly about “filthy potato-eaters.”