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Mark Trail, 3/19/12

RUN! IT’S NOT THE COPS!

Mary Worth, 3/19/12

On Santa Royale’s exclusive Strada Fellini, Nola chats with an imaginary friend on her invisible phone as her bag levitates nearby. A mannequin beckons.

Suddenly, disgraced executive Dan Smithers emerges from his spin on the world’s fastest downward spiral. Disheveled hair? Check! Patchy stubble? Belligerent scowl? Clenched fist? Check, check, and check!

But Dan hasn’t let himself go completely — look at that impeccably custom-tailored down-and-out suit he ordered a few weeks back:

“Ats-a too far back for a pocket, signore Smithers!”
“It’s for a hip flask, Tony — gotta be on my hip, or what’s the point?”
“OK, but the pocket she’s-a too short! All the booze she’s-a gonna fall out!”
“People expect to see the booze, Tony — this is Mary Worth!”
“OK, but all this work its-a gonna cost you!”
“That’s all right — I stole enough to cover it.”

Marvin, 3/19/12

Decisions, decisions — grunt out a labored comparison between peer and peristaltic pressure, or plop down the wry observation that Marvin’s beloved toy is a dump truck? Oops, I’ve disgusted myself. Crap!

You know, if Marvin’s retrograde toilet habits really bother his parents so much, they could just stop feeding him. No one would complain. They’ve brought this on themselves.

Hmpf. I wonder if there’s anything interesting going on in Marmaduke?

Marmaduke, 3/19/12

Nope.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Apartment 3-G, 3/12/12

“Come on in, Scott! I was just fixing supper. Care to join me?”

“Thanks, Margo. That looks great! I am of course talking about that ill-defined piece of brown vertical furniture behind you. I can’t see any food from where I’m standing.”

“Don’t worry, Scott, I’ll just wave my hand and the table with all the food on it will magically appear behind us! Obviously transporting matter across space like this has some dimension-warping properties, so you may feel some slight discomfort as our heads and limbs change size relative to the rest of our bodies. Don’t worry, the effect is purely temporary. Anyway, supper is just some pasta, spices, and veggies with a fresh loaf of artisanal bread! Even though I was planning on eating alone, I’ve spread all the dishes out across this enormous table because it makes me feel more dominant. Also, I’ll just be eating the pasta out of the pot so I don’t have to wash another dish.”

“I confess, I never pictured you cooking! Usually in my masturbatory fantasies you’re giving me specific orders on how to best service you sexually or just lounging around the house naked. I also confess that I never pictured you with a freaky, elongated neck, but that’s sort of turning me on.”

Pluggers, 3/12/12

It is of course not a surprise that every surface in a plugger’s house is covered with the various pills and salves that they need to live, but I’m a little surprised to see the strip name-check a particular pharmacy chain. Frankly, pluggers always struck me as too canny and cheap to have much brand loyalty. Do you suppose CVS paid for this product placement? If so, I dearly hope that whoever signed off on that decision was fired post-haste for extreme incompetence.

Mary Worth, 3/12/12

Is it possible that poor simple Toby is actually ahead of Mary here? That she knows that Nola is irredeemable, and now is only good for gossip? “Enough of your tiresome bourgeois morality, Mary, what did she divulge? Don’t spare a single juicy detail!”

Beetle Bailey, 3/12/12

Yawn, another Beetle Bailey about how Sarge likes to eat a lot and OH GOD OH GOD HIS MOUTH OH GOD HE IS COMING

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Family Circus, 3/11/12

The Keane Kids’ responsibility-dodging spirits vie with the Billy’s dotted-line trails for the title of the Family Circus’s most iconic gag. Still, while Ida Know and Not Me are fairly well known, I don’t think Nobody shows up so often, which may explain why I was so surprised and horrified by his creepy mustache. I mean, the mustache and the hat already combine to make him look like your slightly skeevy uncle, if your slightly skeevy uncle were three feet tall and a ghost; but, since he has no visible nose or mouth, the mustache is just a stripe of hair across a mostly featureless face, which is completely terrifying to me.

On the other hand, I approve of the way that the children and their daemons have been lined up against the wall, since it appears that Mommy has finally had enough and is just going to have them executed by firing squad for their dish-breaking crimes.

Crankshaft, 3/11/12

Longtime readers of the Funkyverse strips know that one of that fictional universe’s most prominent characteristics is the relentless and omnipresent punning. Today, however, we see that this behavior may in fact have an evolutionary advantage. The first three panels of the strip feature Jeff getting increasingly angry at yet another instance of injustice, looking like he’s about to strangle someone or at least suffer a major coronary event. But in the final panel, Pam’s terrible bit of wordplay seems to have flummoxed him, knocking him out of his rage-cycle and leaving him in a state of slant-mouthed confusion. How many lives were saved by her quick, corny thinking?

Dennis the Menace, 3/11/12

We spend a lot of time worrying about whether Dennis has lost his menacing vibe, but what of Mr. Wilson? One might worry that the lack of a worthy antagonist has caused the old man to lose his edge. But fear not, as today he manages to implant in Dennis that special shiver of existential terror we all get when we first realize that we, too, will grow old and die. I dearly hope that the otherwise unexplained photo of Dennis in the opening throwaway panel represents a Portrait of Dorian Grey-style magical object, which will wither and age while Dennis stays young, until it comes time for the Devil to reap his soul; that would be menacing indeed.

Panel from Mary Worth, 3/11/12

Well, Nola, if you won’t listen to good advice from John Lennon, maybe Jesus will talk some sense into you, hmm? If nothing else, the relative efficacy of these two quotes may resolve some longstanding debates.