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Apartment 3-G, 12/4/09

As Bobbie’s finger tapped his hollow metal chest with an echoing “thump,” Alec realized that she was right. What was the point of doing this the fancy way? He was just a simple robot, built by Bobbie to hunt down and destroy her cheating husband. No more play-acting at free will; it was time to get down to business.

Family Circus, 12/4/09

There’s something incredibly repulsive to me about how vigorously Jeffy is wiping the slobber off of his face with his unitard-clad forearm. Each and every one of those adults is covered with a thick, viscous layer of Jeffy drool.

Hagar the Horrible, 12/4/09

Yes, Helga, but most people aren’t sad and desperate alcoholics!

Mark Trail, 12/4/09

Normally I do not root for the terrible death of adorable puppies, but Sassy’s continued moronic behavior is making me rethink that policy. Maybe it’s time to let natural selection take its course, you know? On the other hand, if Sassy manages to also take out the malformed Rusty-thing along with her, she will paradoxically become a true hero-dog, unworthy of death.

Marmaduke, 12/4/09

And by “odd-looking toupee” we mean “still-bleeding scalp,” obviously! Actually it’s kind of amazing how that interpretation doesn’t require a change to anybody’s facial expression or body language in this panel.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/3/09

It has long been my contention that Parson Tuttle is a fraud, using his position as Hootin’ Holler’s lone clergyman to bilk his gullible parishioners out of their meager savings. Today it has become clear that he never even bothered acquiring the rudiments of a theological education before launching into this long-term grift. He’s desperately trying to come up with some vaguely Biblical-sounding thing about niceness that might get these ladies to make peace with each other, and all he can pull out of his fancy hat is the Good Samaritan; but even the semi-literate locals know that this parable is really about expanding the notion of “neighbor” to encompass mercy and virtue, not just geography or ethnic and religious loyalty, and has little to do with stopping people who actually live next door to each other from feuding. Still, they might yet get some spiritual edification out of it; after all, the parable does involve a man beaten by bandits and left for dead at the side of the road, which I imagine happens in Hootin’ Holler with depressing regularity.

Crankshaft, 12/3/09

I have to admit that I kind of enjoy the often nonsensical “Crankshaft-speaks-to-the-garden-club” episodes of Crankshaft, mostly because there’s so much disconnect between the various components. The ostensible point of the strip is to provide a humorous counterpoint between the ’Shaft’s educational agenda and his wacky and relentless malapropisms; but funnier still is the comical juxtaposition of both with his look of unbridled disgust and contempt and his audience’s terrified cowering. Pretty much the only way to parse any of this is to imagine Crankshaft as an aged absolute dictator, still wearing his proletarian uniform to show his revolutionary bona fides despite years in power, launching into hour four of a rambling, nonsensical harangue that his audience cannot escape or ignore for fear of execution.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/3/09

Ha ha, whoops! I think we’re about to find out that Funky recently decided in a “cost-saving move” not to renew his restaurateur’s license. Westview’s last economically viable private business will be shut down, throwing its already struggling employees out of work just in time for the holidays. Merry Funkmas, everybody!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/3/09

I’d argue that the blame for this whole escapade really ought to be placed not so much on Henry the non compos mentis golf pro but on the neglectful management of the nursing home that allowed the two oldsters to escape. I’d also point out that it’s incredibly common for people with Alzheimer’s to form romantic attachments to each other in care facilities, and that it probably brings a certain amount of joy to their lives. But whatever, Tim! I’m sure your mother will be much happier locked up in your basement! I do hope you and Becka can stay friends, if by “friends” we mean “she will come by a couple times a month free of charge to make sure your mother isn’t dying.”

Mary Worth, 12/3/09

People, people, people, this strip, in which Wilbur confesses (while moodily chewing on an orange celery stick) that his daughter helped him set up a Facebook page, has been live on the Chron Web site for more than 10 hours, and yet nobody has set up an actual Wilbur Weston Facebook page yet. Shame on all of you! Whoever does this first, and makes sure that his six combover hairs are visible in each and every one of his profile pictures, will be a true Internet hero.

UPDATE: Wlibur profile is up! Go to it!

Marmaduke, 12/3/09

It’s a good thing that former president Bill Clinton has his wife’s salary as Secretary of State and the money he makes from his speaking engagements to fall back on, because I don’t think his bosses at the dealership will be pleased that he let a demon-dog with unnaturally powerful neck muscles destroy the roof of one of the cars he was trying to sell.

Mark Trail, 12/3/09

OH OH OH! Please, please, please let Sassy get eaten by a squid!

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Mary Worth, 11/30/09

At last, the long, dragged-out saga of Adrian and Scott and Adrian’s Hesitation To Love and Scott’s Many Bullet Wounds is over. (And how did you do in faithful reader 8th Man Fan’s pool? See the results online here, or download them in an OpenOffice or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet!) As is the style of this feature, the details of the new story will emerge at a Charterstone Pool Party, and I’m very excited to see that said new story will involve Mary’s long-neglected neighbor Wilbur Weston, who, for an extra added bonus, has just had his heart ripped from his sweaty, hairy chest (metaphorically), as his girlfriend has skipped town without him. I’m guessing that Mary is oh-no-ing not because Wilbur is sad (as Wilbur’s sadness is hilarious), but rather because, as Charterstone’s resident manager, she was supposed to make sure that Iris hadn’t trashed her apartment before leaving in the dead of night, as one might be prone to do after God knows how many months in a relationship with Wilbur Weston.

Anyhoo, today’s strip is quite satisfying not just because it presages Wilbur’s long-term humiliation, but because it features Ian Cameron in his most outrageous pool party outfit yet. He pays a lot in condo fees and works hard reading years-old lecture notes on Robert Burns to bored undergraduates, damn it, and he deserves to unwind a little, and if that means matching up a Hawaiian shirt, electric blue cargo shorts, white socks, and (invisible, but a pretty safe bet) Birkenstocks, then so be it. Toby has put on her most bland off-pink shirt-dress to make sure that nothing outshines her husband’s aggressive sartorial choices.

Wizard of Id, 11/30/09

Speaking of hirsute humanoids, today’s Wizard of Id contains what I’m pretty sure is another instance of a legacy strip forgetting its own gimmick. Perpetual prisoner Spook, I have always assumed, is portrayed as hairy because he’s been in a dank jail cell, forgotten by the outside world, for decades, and has never been allowed any kind of razor or scissors to cut his hair or otherwise groom himself because he might use them to commit suicide and end his torment. This strip, however, seems to imply that he’s not just someone with long, matted hair, but is rather a member of a particularly hairy hominid species; perhaps his detention is not a result of some long-ago act defined as a crime by Id’s repressive regime, but was dictated by racial purity laws that keep his kind out of the public’s sight. It may be that he is in fact the last of his race, which makes his request for the depiction of a comely she-Spook all the more poignant.

Mark Trail, 11/30/09

Oh, and speaking of soap strips changing storylines, usually in the transition between Mark Trail plots, Mark briefly revisits Lost Forest and spends a few days avoiding his wife’s marital advances before going out on another moronic assignment. Therefore, I’m assuming that what Rusty is warning Mark to LOOK OUT for in eight-gazillion point font is Cherry lying in wait on the side of the road in her attempt to sex-ambush him. On the other hand, they are near the ocean, so it’s possible that their car is coming under attack from a flock of vicious flying squid.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/30/09

Oh look, Peter the Sex Chameleon has made an appearance! He’s normally blond when interacting with his similarly fair wife, but can darken up when necessary to woo a raven-haired beauty. And now that he has encountered a rival for his wife’s affection, his hair has turned red, for anger! Tim’s going to need those throttling-and-punching skills soon enough.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/30/09

Funky is leading Les down into the basement so that he can feed him into the meat grinder and serve him as pepperoni on Montoni’s awful pizzas. Thus Funky Winkerbean’s feel-good holiday storyline begins!