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Mary Worth, 5/7/14

Ten years ago (ten years ago!), Mary unleashed a magnificent act of passive aggression on poor Iris; after smelling Tommy’s weed-smoke drifting through the air vents, she dropped by to say hi to Irish and mention “whatever Tommy was smoking” all snide-like. Now, a decade later, she’s prepared to get semi-confrontational right to Tommy’s face! I’m not sure what I like better, her casual reference to “your history” or the idea that an ex-con will somehow magically have an easier time finding a job if only he reframes the process in his mind as some kind of redemption narrative.

Heathcliff, 5/7/14

So, I guess Heathcliff must occasionally seek legitimacy from the electorate to continue his reign as untouchable god-king? I’m assuming that this is just a Stalinist sham election with only a single name on the ballot: the campaign poster doesn’t even try to convey even the vaguest of political philosophies to entice the voter, but merely promotes a vision of Heathcliff as omnipresent and inevitable, which is of course its own sort of ideological stance.

Hi and Lois, 5/7/14

I’m not exactly sure why Hi and Lois decided to go with a featureless, inky black floor for their kitchen rather than a more traditional tile or linoleum pattern, but if they thought it wouldn’t show dirt or stains as vividly, they were clearly very much mistaken.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 5/7/14

Grimm is panhandling for money to see what appears to be a porno version of Spider-Man.

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Mary Worth, 5/1/14

“But … but, Wilbur … I’m not sure I’m comfortable taking on a ex-con drug addict with no restaurant experience!”

“Look, Jerry, maybe we never spoke about it aloud, but you and I both know that the ‘Best Eats’ column in the Santa Royale Courier-Intelligencer is prime real estate — prime real estate — and that there’s an admission fee to get in, one that you would have to pay eventually. Do we understand each other? Now, you pick up that phone and tell your accountant that you’ve found a better man for the job. Or your sommelier. Either one, it doesn’t matter to me, but it has to happen by the end of the day. Got it?”

Rex Morgan, M.D. 5/1/14

Anyway, long story short, this is how Sarah ended up in a specially constructed all-plastic prison cell guarded by a platoon of soldiers who don’t speak English.

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Family Circus, 4/30/14

We’ve seen the Keane kids watching anachronistic non-flat-screens before, as is to be expected in a strip that, like many legacies, is usually constructed from a comprehensive library of decades-old clip art. Today’s installment is interestingly post-modern, though, in that the very outdatedness of the art is transformed into a self-referential joke by the rewritten caption. What do you suppose the original joke here was? “Look at all those books grandma has! Is she a Communist?”

Funky Winkerbean, 4/30/14

Well, that didn’t take long at all! John Darling’s last words weren’t a defiant announcement of his devotion to his secret lover at all, but rather a weirdly phrased declaration of love for his daughter. Turns out he was secretly a good guy, to one (and only one) person, namely his infant child. I guess that solves the mystery that was bothering Jess, somehow! The rest of us can just be relieved for her sake that her father didn’t live long enough to inevitably use her beloved nickname in a cruel and degrading fashion (“Hey, whatever happened to my unrealistically proportioned little Barbie doll? Better lay off the deserts, sweetie!”).

Mary Worth, 4/30/14

Ooh, look at Wilbur, acting like a big shot, showing off his connections to Santa Royale’s rich and powerful! Meanwhile, in panel two, Jerry is practically going cross-eyed just imagining all the sandwich revenue Wilbur has generated for him over the years. What a wonderful, mutually beneficial relationship this has been!

Marvin, 4/30/14

Marvin thinks his friend’s house smells “strange” because the air isn’t thick with the stench of his own putrefying feces. That’s the entire joke of this comic strip, which is published in newspapers across the country!