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Heathcliff, 2/28/13

Well, isn’t this a surreal delight! I have no idea what exactly is happening here, if any “thing” can truly be said to be “happening” in such a nonlinear dreamscape. “Hold it right there, Professor,” the strangely well dressed pet store clerk bellows, as a flock of oddly identical birds arises in precise formation from Heathcliff’s pipe. Why attempt to impose some kind of dull linear “meaning” on this episode at all? Why not just enjoy it in all its trippy nonsense?

Gasoline Alley, 2/28/13

Meanwhile, in Gasoline Alley, beloved rustic Rufus is still planning on marrying a donkey, for money. They’re … they’re really doing this, huh? I would have though they’d have stopped doing this by now.

Marvin, 2/28/13

You know, before today I would’ve said that Marvin had pretty thoroughly explored the dramatic and comedic possibilities of feces, but I hadn’t even dreamed of the concept of revenge-shitting.

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Mary Worth, 2/26/13

Welp, now that Mary’s not-so-secret-admirer/cake decorating partner has been dispatched off to the outer darkness New York City, we’re ready for a new adventure! And it involves … Mary forcing a neighbor to open up and be friends with everyone against his will, when he’s sick and too weak to resist her? Sounds about right. Anyway, I’m mostly mesmerized by the soup Mary is pouring endlessly from a tiny pan into a tiny bowl. It’s flowing at waterfall strength for at least the time it takes her to say two sentences. I imagine it moves in slow motion, like the blood pouring from the elevator in The Shining. Is this magic soup? Will it magically make Tom Harpman acceptably neighborly, or maybe kill him so that someone more fun can move into 3B?

Funky Winkerbean, 2/26/13

Oh, man, the stroke larfs are continuing over at Funky Winkerbean! Now that Ann has to give up the job that gave her such joy to care for her broken shell of a husband, the gang discusses who will be the next to suffer. Hey, Linda, usually when people are making “jokes” about their husbands being so excitable that they’ll inevitably stroke out, they at least pretend to smile.

Apartment 3-G, 2/26/13

I don’t know why it makes me so sad that I’m better at keeping track of Ruby’s hair color than the people who are literally paid by the owners of Apartment 3-G’s intellectual property rights to keep track of Ruby’s hair color, but it does genuinely make me sad! So, here it is: Ruby is a redhead! You can tell because her name is Ruby, which is a red gemstone. I’m willing to accept Manic Panic and even black with Manic Panic highlights, but not just straight-up goth-style inky blackness.

Herb and Jamaal, 2/26/13

Ha ha, yes, Herb still is animalistically gobbling down his food in a socially problematic manner! Jamaal, on the other hand, is standing silently and watching his friend eat from the next room, which is totally normal behavior.

Marvin, 2/26/13

Huh, it seems that Marvin is capable of recognizing that other people feel shame when they poop in their pants. He just can’t feel it himself. Marvin never feels shame about anything. But especially not about pooping in his pants.

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Hey, gang, remember Margo’s vaguely ethnic comical-but-lovable fortune-tellin’ birth mother Gabriella? “Vaya, el espiritu malo!” Gabriella? “Gracias, Santa Maria!” Gabriella? I mean this Gabriella:

Well if you do, I’ve got sad news:

Apartment 3-G, 2/20/13

Yes, the passage of time and renewed romantic attentions of Martin Magee have bleached, rectified, and WASPicated our favorite Roma/Filipina/Chicana firecracker, to the point where things like “Bless you, Mr. Cooper” actually come out of her mouth.

Now I understand that as we approach the End Times, there needs to be a certain amount of convergence among God’s creatures in preparation for our ultimate unification with the One. Heck, the guys in Apartment 3-G have been interchangeable for years! So it’s not that I’m against the End of the World as a concept, or even as a near-term possibility. I’m just not ready for the Omega Point to look quite so much like Mary Worth.

Phantom, 2/20/13

In the fifth month of the daily Phantom game Who’s Got the Lioness?, Evil Miner Logician rudely dismisses his colleague’s naïve “argument from absence of evidence” without considering alternatives:

1. Surely 500 years of the “Man-Who-Cannot-Die” legend provides some evidence of absence, no?
2. Alternative hypothesis: the Phantom may be a vampire or zombie, and therefore dead already. Vampires and zombies are very popular right now — he should at least consider it!
3. All right, a single null result is inconclusive. So why not add more trials and widen the scope a bit: try hanging, burning, shooting, drowning, poisoning, or simply boring him to death. God knows it’s working on us.

Marvin, 2/20/13

For the past several days Marvin’s been having a late-night chat with “his worst nightmare” on the right here. Today we learn that “Marvin nightmare” = “Marvin bowel movement”, i.e., the visitor is in fact Marvin’s own poo come to terrifying life. This being Marvin, such a development was of course inevitable. But we should still be grateful that Disney’s ironclad trademark control over the name “Poo” keeps the newcomer from having his own spinoff strip.

And speaking of poo:

Mary Worth, 2/20/13

John Dill has finally digested his prizewinning cake.

— Uncle Lumpy