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Apartment 3-G, 11/8/06

Panel two of today’s Apartment 3-G is a thrill for Margo lovers everywhere (which, I think it goes without saying, is ALL OF YOU, if you know what’s good for you). She’s moving in for the kill, and looks like she’s either going to ravage Eric Mills’ hapless assistant with red-hot Margo-style smooches or bite off her face. The girl’s facial expression, which is one of terror mingled with excitement, matches this dramatic ambiguity.

Margo’s near-victim bears a striking resemblance to Alan’s barely legal paramour from that infamous party. Did anyone leave that event not tangled up in this boring blue-suited billionaire’s life one way or another?

Margo’s lonely “Oh.” in panel three demonstrates a great use of word balloon punctuation and white space.

For Better Or For Worse, 11/8/06

I imagine a crisis meeting over at Foob Central: “Dammit, people, we’re getting murdered by Funky Winkerbean in the depressing realism department! We need to bring out the big guns!” How else to explain this harrowing plot twist, in which Grandpa Jim’s fully functioning mind is trapped in a shattered shell of a body, unable to communicate and prevent his unbearable and continuous humiliation? I’m going to imagine him remembering the morse code he learned in his days in the Royal Canadian Air Force, desperately tapping out “KILL ME” on his portable tray with a spoon, hoping that Iris will stop smothering him emotionally and start smothering him with a pillow, while Metallica’s “One” blares on the soundtrack.

FW is really going to have to raise its game here. Wally’s gonna have to accidentally blow up a busload of Iraqi orphans and puppies, then shoot himself, if they want to keep up.

Curtis, 11/8/06

I’d like to ignore the usual tomfoolery with Derrick and “Onion” (something that’s all too easy to do) and focus on Curtis’ alarming laughing fit in panel three. I wonder if the word balloon had been predrawn to accommodate some much longer bit of exposition, and the iterative, punctuationless laughter was stuck in there in a fit of horror vacui, or if we are really meant to understand that Curtis mechanically repeated the word “Ha” 25 times.

In a move that further undermines this pair’s fearsome reputation, “Onion” (or maybe it’s Derrick, I don’t know) appears to be taking fashion tips from Dennis the Menace’s Joey.

Mark Trail, 11/8/06

By having Ranger Rick utter the phrase “hold up,” Mark Trail has now successfully deployed more street lingo than Curtis has in its entire run. No, really, take a look at the Curtis strip above. The part where Curtis says, “Oh, I’ll be!”

Spider-Man, 11/8/06

“Or didja ever see Hitler having dinner with a Romulan?” Jesus, this strip is weird.

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Faithful reader Angela Petteys, along with Richard Jones and Brian Parker, whose status as faithful readers I am unclear on, have produced this … this … well, all I’m going to say is that it’s a preview for The Lockhorns: The Movie and it’s hilarious.

This was the product of some sort of student TV show up at Ferris State, where they all go to school. All I can say is that when I went to college, there was a lot more studying and partying and a lot less making fun of the Lockhorns. It’s a brave new world out there, kids.

Also, this is funny in a sort of navel-gazing way. Faithful reader yellojkt, commenting on this Mark Trail, speculated that Rick and Kelly were setting up the camera for pics to be posted on NaughtyNatureLovers.com, then expressed hope that said URL didn’t actually post to a real site … and then, well, then faithful reader Chaz Larson did this. Hope your servers can handle the load, Chaz! UPDATE AS OF JUNE 4, 2010: An archive-diving reader has just alerted me that this link now points to … an actual porn site. It was inevitable! BE WARNED BEFORE YOU CLICK.

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Heart of the City and Get Fuzzy, 11/6/06

There’s been a bit of back-and-forth in the comments today about the latest Mallard Fillmore, and exactly who and who not is being urged not to vote by America’s favorite only talking Republican journalist duck. While things have remained civil enough to avoid banishment to the Cockpit (and let’s keep it that way, shall we?), I’m surprised nobody mentioned these two strips, in which children and animals are urged to vote. I think that Satchel might be Canadian, even. The fact that he’s a Green supporter should probably come as surprise to no-one.

Beetle Bailey, 11/6/06

Meanwhile, Beetle Bailey is just totally insane and such. I’m going back and forth on whether this is a genuine hallucinogenic product of a deranged mind or an attempt at forced whimsy that has resulted from all the elevated prose extolling Duck Amuck. On the one hand, the little cutsie waterfowl outfits (look, a little girl! a cowboy! a millionaire!) are a bit too precious and calculated; but the phrase “invaded my dream” creeps me out, and the weird circle-with-a-line beaks of the father/son ducks in panel one and richie rich duck in panel two are just not right at all, and are in themselves fertile nightmare fuel.

Slylock Fox, 11/6/06

Also today, the little Goat kids (see what I just did there?) are being made accustomed to the nightmarish police state that awaits them as adults. “Say, someone ate the cookies? Let’s call in CSI: Genus Vulpes and subject you three to a full-on interrogation until someone confesses!”

At least Slylock uses the power of deductive reasoning to determine the culprits, rather than just going at them with a rubber hose right off the bat. I love the look on the face of bowler-wearing-sidekick-mouse-whose-name-I-forget. He has no real crime-fighting abilities or interest; he’s just happy to be there, drinking coffee out of a mug the size of his head.

Mark Trail, 11/6/06

I’m beginning to think that Molly, the pet bear, isn’t particularly bright.

Hey, everybody! Kelly Welly and Ranger Rick have suddenly re-entered this story after — what is it, three months now? What do you suppose they’ve been up to? Never mind, I think we all know what they’ve been doing.

Mary Worth, 11/6/06

Look at the way Mary grits her teeth in that last panel. I have a feeling that Ella’s casserole is going to be made up mostly of broken glass, fiberglass insulation, and bleach.