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Momma, 5/7/10

I keep trying to fit this strip into a shape that isn’t horrible, but this is all that I can come up with:

• After running out of socks, Francis also ran out of toilet paper.
• Francis uses socks as toilet paper.
• Francis is going to masturbate in Thomas’s bathroom, using one of Thomas’s socks to clean up with.

Oh God, oh God, I need to stop there unless I…

• Francis has already masturbated into Thomas’s laundry hamper, and now needs to use the bathroom, for unrelated reasons.

ARGH ARGH ARGH MUST MOVE ON

Crankshaft, 5/7/10

Crankshaft is of course a terrible, hateful character, but I do sort of respect his refusal to cower in the face of the obvious cruelty and misanthropy of his creator. Crankshaft’s friend there is glum and resigned in the face of the specter of death; Crankshaft sneeringly demands to know the day and time of destruction, so that he may laugh at it all the more. Until then, he will live every day as if it were his last, making everyone around him as miserable as possible.

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Judge Parker, 3/20/10

“You should get a reward for this!” exclaims Judge Randy, waving a wad of cash left by some plaintiff’s attorney. “I mean, everybody gets rewards . . . like, for everything, all the time — don’t they? I sure do! Rewards are cool! You like my new watch? It was a reward! April, too — very rewarding! Hey, walk to my car with me . . . I bet there’s a twenty in it for ya!”

Between Friends, 3/20/10

Better health begins with “Shut the hell up!” Take that first step today!

Apartment 3-G, 3/20/10

“Why am I going home to an empty apartment? Lu Ann is there!”

Momma, 3/20/10

Sonja’s husband died of natural causes, yet no one will believe it wasn’t suicide.

Blondie, 3/20/10

It was wild, wasn’t it? But it’s spring now — enjoy!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Herb and Jamaal, 3/11/10

Ha ha, this is without out a doubt the greatest Herb and Jamaal ever. Rev. Croom just wants to have a little lunch in peace — but no, this little creep, the one who only shows up at church at Christmas and Easter, and whose mother-in-law he wishes would only show up at Christmas and Easter, has to badger him about eternity and crap. Fine, there’s nobody else here, there’s plausible deniability. “Sorry, kid, you’re going to be tortured in Hell for all eternity with the other damned souls,” he says, just stone-cold sucking his tea through a straw. “Now are you going to bring me my lunch or what?”

Mark Trail, 3/11/10

If I didn’t already know that this Mark Trail storyline was essentially a repeat of one that ran thirty years ago, I’d say that we’re witnessing a quantum leap forward in Trailian storytelling. As a rule, the narrative is relentlessly linear, and thus I assumed that yesterday’s shameless flirting was going to lead inexorably to some major plot point. Instead, it may have just been a bit of throwaway color meant to provide Mark with a key piece of information. Mark, meanwhile, seems to have made the monumental discovery that not every firing of a neuron in side his hair-helmeted skull needs to result in the immediate verbalization of the resulting idea: note in panel two that he’s actually managed to muster a genuine thought balloon. This first feeble specimen only encapsulates the vague notion of questioning, but with effort Mark may discover that it’s possible to think whole words or even sentences without saying them aloud.

Momma, 3/11/10

I find the scenario depicted here rather puzzling. It’s not because Momma’s being hit on by some gnomish bow-tied individual — there’s a lid for every pot, as my father once said to me, though in this case it appears to be a gold-digging lid; rather, I just have no clear idea of where exactly the action is supposed to be taking place. What setting might include a Momma-sized easy chair and a potted plant, but also be open to the public so that strangers might wander in and harass her? Is he cruising for babes down at the senior center?

Family Circus, 3/11/10

Little known fact: Grandma appears in the strip only occasionally because she spends most of her time — and most of her grandchildren’s’ inheritance — following ’80s glam-rock band Cinderella around the country. When Cinderella isn’t touring, she keeps busy jamming with her Cinderella tribute band, Glass Slipper.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/11/10

They’re still cousins, though, so this may make Thanksgiving dinner awkward.