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Pluggers, 2/25/12

When I was in college I had a big thing for a Catholic girl and one week I went to church with her (ROMANTIC PRO TIP: This very rarely works) and it was a typically crunchy collegiate parish and at one point the bearded priest busted out an acoustic guitar and we got a folk-rock version the Lord’s Prayer and all I could think was “Oh my God, Mel Gibson was right.” Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I feel you, my cranky plugger friend! And I’m not ashamed to say it!

Mary Worth, 2/25/12

More proof that Nola is being unfairly depicted as the villain in this story! Obviously in whatever badly decorated office this is the well-known rules of engagement are that one sleeps one’s way to the top. It’s probably right there in the HR manual! Our catty duo knows that they’d do the same if only they were endowed with the sexy gams and malleable face of their rival.

Crankshaft, 2/25/12

So Crankshaft was inducted into the local sports hall of fame to his great delight, but for some reason this week the plot took a turn and was suddenly about how this one-armed reporter we’d never seen before accidentally wrote and published an obituary for this other guy we’ve never seen before, which, weird and not-funny as it is, is surely better than seeing Crankshaft enjoy anything.

Marmaduke, 2/25/12

Don’t be ungrateful! It’s polite of Marmaduke to shake your hand before he brutally dismembers you, just as it’s polite of him to have dug graves for your various body parts rather than just leaving them strewn about the yard.

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Apartment 3-G, 2/23/12

Since Nina has agreed to be her husband’s smoke-filled incubator and nothing more, he’s left with the responsibilities of tricking out the future kid’s nursery, and as someone with external genitalia is obviously totally unfit for the task. Look at the little lost lamb, wandering around Manhattan with a giant stuffed bear, mewling for help! If you didn’t know anything about these characters, you might imagine that this is the start of some sort of sexy sex affair between Scott and Margo, but since this is Margo we’re talking about she’ll probably just end up berating him again like she did in 2006:

Haha, how much do I love that panel? A lot, is how much!

Archie, 2/23/12

Ha ha, yes, it’s funny that hockey goalies wear masks that make it difficult to tell who they are, despite the existence of other cues such as height and build, but I think we’re all missing the important point here, which is that Coach Kleats thinks that saying “Now I really want you to block that goal” imparts useful information about goaltending. I mean, I know what with the budget cuts he’s got a lot on his plate, but sure he could do a little online research and come up with some slightly higher-level jargon?

Mary Worth, 2/23/12

Oh, man, can we count all the amazing things in today’s Mary Worth? Let’s start with the classic word-sequences-that-would-never-be-uttered-by-humans “middle-management sales” and “I still can’t believe the events that led to Nola’s promotion!” Then there’s our male gossip’s hilariously exaggerated gestures and facial expressions; he appears to be auditioning for a nonexistent vaudeville revival circuit, in his mind. And of course there’s also his female counterpart’s bright blue hair, framing her sad, worn-down face. Probably she dyed her hair blue six years ago when she got this corporate job, as a last act of defiance to reaffirm her identity as someone vaguely cool; and yet here she is, having kept that color more out of habit than anything else, carping pettily about the new vice president of sales, without a hint of irony. These people deserve Nola, is what I’m saying.

Spider-Man, 2/23/12

Man, I wish I could get people to start referring to my naps as “the fabled Josh-sleep.” None would dare wake me then!

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Jumble, 2/22/12

Oh, look, beloved Jumble artist Jumble Jeff appears to have put me in prison, again! Fun fact about me: one of my few recurring nightmares is that I’m about to be sent away to prison for some indeterminate crime, and I’m full of dread and terror about it. That’s probably why I developed my jailhouse strategy of becoming a prison librarian, which was dashed a few years ago when I learned that prison librarians are actually employees of the local library system and not prisoners themselves. This cartoon simultaneously raises another possible strategy — becoming a member of a prison drama club — and dashes it, as “creative differences” clearly would lead to a shiv to the gut in short order.

Rex Morgan, 2/22/12

Leave it to Rex Morgan, M.D., to somehow bring organ sales into the plotline in the most simultaneously gross and boring way! Yesterday we learned that Mabel offered part of her liver to her ex-(husband? lover? still haven’t figured this out) if he would move back in with her and stop drinking. I think Rex has this dynamic 100% wrong! She’s not selling her liver-chunk, she’s bribing someone with it! Is it a crime to bribe someone with a chunk of your liver? Is this all our Congress has to do with its time, making it illegal for us to literally slice apart our internal organs and offer them to old drunks in exchange for love and cohabitation and sobriety? I guess democracy really has failed, by God.

Mary Worth, 2/22/12

There’s nothing I like better after a big promotion than putting my hands behind my head, leaning back, thinking evil thoughts, and then somehow rearranging my facial features so I look like a completely different person! (Ha ha, just kidding, I’ve never gotten a “big promotion” in my life.) How do you think Nola “earned” that office, hmm? Was it a sex thing? A cruelty thing? A cruel sex thing? I’m betting on cruel sex thing, myself.

Beetle Bailey, 2/22/12

Believe it or not, this Beetle Bailey strip actually works on a number of levels! If you want to get to its intended destination — ha ha, General Halftrack is extremely old — you could laugh along with Miss Buxley’s evocation of an archaic form of rifle that she implies the General once fired in combat, or you could just notice that he appears to have dozed off in his office chair in the middle of the workday.