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Blondie, 3/1/13

I’m not exactly sure what inside economic information would prompt you to abruptly sell your house. Maybe another housing bubble is going to burst and the neighbors realize they need to get whatever equity they can out of their home now? Maybe total economic and societal collapse is just around the corner and the neighbors know that the suburbs will become violent kill zones as desperate ad hoc gangs forage for food and fuel, so they’re retreating to their heavily fortified countryside bunker? But honestly, if I found out my new neighbors were leaving the neighborhood after six months, I’m not sure that “secret information about the economy” would be really high on my list of suspected reasons why. Hey, Dagwood, have you ever considered that maybe they’re trying to get away from you? That they just can’t handle the omnipresent stench of pastrami and laziness that oozes out of your house and permeates the whole subdivision?

Mary Worth, 3/1/13

An older woman arrives at a young man’s apartment, bearing an enormous bowl of soup. She is resplendent in a purple blazer; he’s in a tatty green robe, unshaven, disheveled, and ill with fever and a phlegmy cough. “Would you like to come in?” he asks. “I’d like that,” she says aloud, and then thinks “Maybe I could help you with more than your cold.” There really is pornography for just about every sexual taste you can imagine.

Luann, 3/1/13

Good news, everybody! We know that Luann isn’t doing anything online that’s “scary” and that should make her parents “concerned”. We know this because Tiffany needled her at school all week about Luann “flirting” with Quill on Skype (HOW DARE TEENAGERS FLIRT WITH EACH OTHER WHAT WHORES) and Luann got really upset about it, which is a sign that she isn’t doing any nasty soul-besmirching flirting, I guess? Anyway, all’s well that ends well, now that Luann is back home opening up to her parents about her emotional life! The whole thing makes her dad want to drown himself.

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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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Mary Worth, 2/24/13, 4/26/12 (panels)

WORST. BALLOON RALLY. EVER.

Spider-Man, 2/24/13

So for two weeks the World’s Slowest Missile has been homing in on Daredevil, only it’s suddenly on a timer? Since it hasn’t come close to hitting its target in all that time, why does Kingpin expect a better result in “Seven seconds — Six –“? I guess the idea is something like, “And then Spidey sees Daredevil, and there’s like a missile, and Kingpin, with a secret lair and, and mumble mumble EXCITING DANGER!!!” Even Narration Box seems confused: “Countdown to Zero!“? Uh, as opposed to what, exactly, N.B.?

Funky Winkerbean, 2/24/13

Do you “have what it takes to be a band director”? Let’s see: Multi-volume-autobiography-writing narcissism? Check! Indifference to the health and self-esteem of your students? Check! Melodramatic, fatuous, incoherent advice? Check! You’re good to go, chippie: see you at next year’s Ohio State Music Educators Association Convention!

Any idea what that last speech-balloon might’ve said before it was tortured to bloody gibbering death? Maybe something like “But if you do, fail from courage, not cowardice”? I mean before the rewrite demons showed up.

Dick Tracy, 2/24/13

You gotta love how Dick Tracy carefully exonerates the locomotive crew from any responsibility for this accident. After all, Sweatbox was driving at dangerously high speed onto an icy overpass. And it was black ice — slipperiest and stealthiest of all the ices! And he was probably dead from that encounter with the steering wheel even before the train hit him, right? Sure, they were accelerating into bad weather to make up time, but the crew even sounded the horn as if to say, “Keep that lovely old Benz off our tracks, wouldya — we’re speedin’ here!”

Do you think the Railroad Police will mount a full and fair investigation — or have they all been corrupted by that sweet “Tracy’s Hall of Fame” gig?

That’s it for me — Josh will be back with Comments of the Week soon (remember, patience is a virtue!), and regular posts starting Monday. Thanks for a fun week!

— Uncle Lumpy