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Apartment 3-G, 7/5/10

Oh, God, Tommie’s humiliation is going to be even more delicious than I might have hoped. “Tommie, get out here! What are you wearing, a sweatsuit? You’re letting down everyone, with your ugly clothes! God, you make me want to puke. Let’s turn the house lights up, so you can see everyone’s disgusted faces!”

Mary Worth, 7/5/10

Dear Mary Worth Creative Team: I know you submit your strips weeks in advance and all, but I can’t help but feel a bit miffed that you’ve followed up my “Jenna and Mike are on drugs” funny with a strip in which our lovers are talking in oddly lucid and detached terms about their weird, altered emotional state and the “strange buzzing” they’re experiencing, all while rubbing up against each other. Has Mary so lost faith in her meddling skills that she’s resorted to spiking her victims’ meals with Ecstasy?

Mark Trail, 7/5/10

Since the main point of this storyline is to return Sassy home so that Rusty can make another horrifically overwrought facial expression, I fail to see the point to any of this sordid unlicensed animal shelter drama; people are just competing for the Sassy reward money, as is natural and healthy in a capitalist society. “Yes, Mr. Trail, your little dog is here somewhere… wait, where is he?” “Why, is this the dog you’re looking for, sir?” “Why, yes it is, mysterious mustachio’d man! Here is your reward!” “But … but … that man stole the dog from me!” “Whatever, lady, I stopped caring about this the moment the wayward puppy was returned to me. By the way, does the zoning board know you keep all these animals here?”

Dennis the Menace, 7/5/10

Mrs. Wilson has paid Dennis and Joey to induce the heart attack that will finally free her.

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Funky Winkerbean, 6/30/10

So I’ve been getting lots of emails that boil down to “OMG WHY AREN’T YOU TALKING ABOUT FUNKY WINKERBEAN???” Well, because the strip is still methodically setting up whatever narratively interesting and sure-to-be-depressing plot will follow from Funky’s near-death (or possibly actual death) experience, in ways that don’t really lend themselves to humorous commentary. But, for those who simply must hear my take, it appears that we’re either going to get a glimpse of a world in which Funky never existed (i.e., It’s A Funkerful Life) or some kind of time travel plot (in either the Funky Sue Got Married or Funk To The Future variants). I promise to come back to this the next time the strip is interesting, which may be tomorrow, or never.

Meanwhile, to punish you for your pushiness, I will show you a Mark Trail villain talking dirty.

Panel from Mark Trail, 6/30/10

I hope you’ve learned your lesson!

Marmaduke, 6/30/10

This is very thoughtful of the vet tech! It would be quite harrowing for anyone else with an appointment today to bring their pets in to the vet, only to stumble on to the scene of unspeakable carnage that Marmaduke will inevitably leave in his wake.

Gasoline Alley, 6/30/10

I’m not sure what’s sadder: that Gasoline Alley is including as a plot point an ipecac-induced-vomiting trap; that the syndicate editor decided that a footnote was necessary, because nobody under the age of 50 knows what ipecac is; or that the syndicate editor believes that people under the age of 50 read Gasoline Alley.

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Your COTW momentarily, but first: a merch pic! I know I’ve neglected my store of late, but that doesn’t meant that faithful readers have neglected to take the fine products for sale therein on worldwide tours! For instance, here you can see faithful reader LouieLouie wearing her Molly the Bear shirt in Hong Kong. Perhaps the Buddha can help Molly understand that the hostility of others arises from their attachment to worldly things, which gives rise to suffering.

And now, without further ado, your comment of the week!

“I am really thrown by the implications of Dr. Mike’s ‘It’s great to connect after speaking on the phone.’ Are we to understand from this that at some point Mike and Jenna had a telephone conversation and they didn’t show it to us? Where’s the fire, there, Sparky? So far in 2010 there’s been at least a solid four and a half months of watching people read e-mail, or think about e-mail they’ve recently read.” –Violet

And the runners up! Very funny!

“So what would be the purpose of that Billy the Bookworm outfit, anyway? To make sure kids never want to read a book, ever?” –TinLizzie

“I’d rather just wear wet clothes than whatever that is Gunther has on. Wet clothes will dry, but once you wear a prosthetic penis-suit, you can never un-wear it.” –Darkefang

“If tomorrow is terrified swerving and Friday is the actual impact, Funky Winkerbean is going to die on my 40th birthday. It’s like God just glanced over at me and we locked gazes for a brief moment.” –killercoconut

“It’s called a spider-sense, MJ. Peter doesn’t have a ‘commotion-sense.’ Does this seat recline? Ahh, yes. It does.” –John Snyder

“Today’s Luann is … no, just can’t do it. Every time I try to concentrate on today’s strip enough to snark on it, my nose starts to bleed and I smell burning toast.” –Ed Dravecky

“Peter looks suspiciously blissed out for someone who’s squeezed into economy class and just learned that his wife wants to fuck Iron Man. I’d like to know what drugs he’s on.” –Poteet

“Tom Batiuk has confused Chekhov’s Gun with Orwell’s Boot Stamping on a Human Face — Forever.” –Spunde

“Don’t you pity Margo: her glass is half-empty ’cause she’s drinking from it, candy-ass!” –Uncle Lumpy

“‘Hey mom! I kind of wish I felt more romantic about Gunther.’ (ONE DAY PASSES) ‘Hey mom! I just got to see Gunther naked, and I can’t stop thinking about it.'” –Andy L

“It seems Funky has an iPhone 4! I wonder if he knows he could fix the signal attenuation problem by holding it a little differently — which would set up the next ultra-gloomy plot twist perfectly, as he attempts to pass the time waiting for a rescue by hopping online and staring into Rusty’s terrible, soulless eyes.” –GJ

“Given Dr. Mike’s orange blazer (Go Vols!), Jenna’s smudge-dress (Up yours, Big Dry-cleaning!), and their stilted, inane conversation, it’s impressive that the maitre d’ can maintain his professional, placid expression. But look closely at the firm set of his mouth in the second panel. He’s trying to keep from weeping.” –Walker of Dog

“I really can’t wait until they do the talking heads interviews of Tommie’s friends, and Margo and Lu Ann still are able to make Tommy’s wardrobe nightmares all about them. Lu Ann: ‘I think Tommy needs to start dressing hotter — not like a frigid bitch I know whose name rhymes with cargo.’ Margo: ‘I think Tommy would be better off if she’d steal some of my turtlenecks — like Lu Ann steals boyfriends.'” –LogopolisMike

“The Shoe afterlife is KFC.” –Mac

“I am also disturbed by the message from the Beyond: ‘Bring shorts.’ Not only is his late wife telling him that she is in Heck, she’s telling her husband that he is already damned, too. Sorry, Shoe cartoonist, but in the comics John Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is funny only when linked to Thomas Hobbes’s doctrine of the social contract.” –seismic-2

“I think it’s a Mary Worth rule that the ponytail must be in view at all times, probably as a gender marker so we don’t think that Dr. Orangecrush has a date with Drew Corey in drag.” –bourbon babe, unbuckled

Big thanks to everyone who put cash in my tip jar! And we must of course give thanks to our advertisers:

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